nav light wiring

[Dave.S]

Hi Justin

A number of questions come to mind

1 - Do you have a cuddy mounted on the boat?
2 - If not where were you looking to mount the lights, if on the sides of the gunnels I doubt if they would ever be seen.
3 - A power driven vessel less than 7 metres in length and with a maximum speed of 7 knots may exhibit only an all round white light.

You could use a small mast with tri-colour light at the top.

If you have somewhere to mount lights you can get a small switch/fuse panel.

I assume your outboard does not have charging facilities so you will only need a gel type battery of about 12amp capacity.

If you don't feel up to installing this I would suggest to speak to a marine electrician.

Sorry to sound a bit of a downer but you need to have reliable lights if you intend to go out after dark.

Dave

[Sunny]

Assuming you already have a battery on the boat and are charinging it from your marine engine ?

If not and your are proposing to just take a car battery on the baot for lights each trip ?

All chandlers sell switch panels with built-in fuses. Fitting is a doddle... the switch will come with instructions on which terminsal are which; and as there are only two then it is fairly simple.

Power (red) to the switch (from the battery + terminal) and then red cable (out) from your switch to the light(s). The black cable (negative) returns to the battery (-) terminal.
You could get fancy and have a central terminal block for the return feeds and that connects to the baterry (-) terminal... but that isn't necessary unless you have lots of electronics on your boat.

There are lots of on-line sites with diagrams...suggest a Google 12v marine elctronics search; here's a few

www.andrews.com/kysc/bt/12volt.htm

www.islandnet.com/robb/marine.html

[skillpot]

im in the same boat excuse the pun. i want to wire up side lights and anchor light and run a chartplotter, fish finder and vhf radio. i have a cabin but electrics is not my strong point by any means

im having 2 seperate batteries, 1 for the electric start outboard and the other for lights, ff etc.

went to marine super store and they knew less than me. i bought a 3 way switch panel, some wire, connectors to the battery terminals but i dont know where to start.

[justin]

yeah ive got a small cuddy on the front. ive put a small 7amp battery to run my fishfinder which i installed with no problems. i was looking to put nav lights on the sides of the cuddy with a folding mast to put a white all round light on. i want to use the folding mast with led lights so i can put the mast down and fit the boat into my garage. ive noted the lights draw hardly any current so the 12amp sounds perfect. to answer the other questions i dont have a battery charged from the engine so would be looking to take a seperate battery. thanks for all the help so far

[justin]

ive got no problems running the wires installing the lights etc. the bit im struggling with is connecting the 3 return wires for the three seperate lights back to the battery. how do i connect 3 wires to one small spade type terminal.

[justin]

thinking im getting it now. one wire from the battery to the swith panel. then from there onto the nav lights and back to the swith panel. im thinking of nav lights onto one switch then anchor light onto another. any ideas what size wire to use? is 14awg ok? also what size fuse. i noticed the nav lights i was thinking of buying were only 1.7 watts

[Dave.S]

Look here on how to wire up switch panel.
www.worldseafishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282245

Good pictures.

For cable size go here www.fishing-boats.info/Electrics.htm

Hope it helps

Dave

[justin]

thanks Dave thats great. i also bought the book 12v afloat which is very good