Electronics Update

The worst is over! I have lovely, brand new marine grade 14 gauge wire strung throughout the cabin, one to supply the cabin lights and one to supply the running lights. I left the various mast wires alone, with the exception of the ground. There it was, sticking out of the mast, labelled by me, with the end waving in the air like it just didn’t care. I have no memory of removing the rest of it, but must have since it had my label on it. So, I restrung that one from the mast back to the ground. I went crazy with the Cooper-stencil (aka, a Brother label maker) and labeled every wire at each end and in the middle plus anywhere else I thought might be confusing.
I still need to tidy up and secure the wires, so currently, the main cabin is a bit of a mess.
Once all, the wiring was in place, I turned my attention to the electrical panels. I had hoped to keep the original, highly corroded, but did I mention original, Coronado switch panel. I took it out and brought it in to the boat store, where a salesman helpfully gave me armfulls of replacement parts, then said, “you know, these are about $17 each, but you could replace the whole panel for $49.” I thought about it, I really did, but at heart I am cheap, so I bought a brand new panel. Plus a new bus bar. Actually, 2 bus bars, but then I looked at the back of the package and it said it was designed to be used with both positive and negative (separate sides). The saleswoman was superhelpful – when she found out I was doing the work myself, she gave me lots of pointers and basically wouldn’t let me out of the store till I’d bought a crimper. She was totally right on that.
I’ll return one of the buses, unless I find out that you can’t piggyback negative connections onto them. Anyone know?

New bus - see how I have multiple ground wires to a single connections. Is that okay?

I got all that done, put the brandy new electrical panel in after a long phone call to my dad wherein he told me the panel was wrong, it couldn’t be made the way it was, I needed to take it back. After about 1/2 an hour of this, I guess I said the right thing, because he said, “oh, well in that case, yeah, it will work.”
My boat is definitely bringing my family together.
With fear and trepidation, I reattached the battery and ….

Let there be light!

Voila!
Success! The radio worked, the lights worked. I may go back and do some changes, but I’m no longer scared of the electrical system now that I understand it better.

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