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Observation training


banaari

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Found this photo I took a couple of months ago, the very first time I took the front panel of the switchboard. See how many different transgressions you can spot...

354699000.967865.jpg

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11. Are we counting repeats of the same, or just a count of how many different things wrong? I also bet there's more at least 3 more in the immediate vicinity, unseen.

 

Perhaps better to ask what was done right.

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Well, the lighting could have been better, a better angle would have shown more of the layout and a smaller aperture would have enabled more of the overall photo to be in focus. :lol:

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Looks like most wiring/switch panel installations I have seen. Nothing out of the ordinary :wink:

But from what I can see, and without doubling anything, I have counted 11.

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Well, the lighting could have been better, a better angle would have shown more of the layout and a smaller aperture would have enabled more of the overall photo to be in focus. :lol:

 

:clap:

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Would folks care to enumerate what they've spotted?

 

Best of the lot for me was the white wire "connected" to the 3rd switch from the right. Strip the insulation, bend into an "L", hook it through the hole in the lug and away you go...

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Standard Kiwi boat wiring. You can always tell when you see TPS (House wiring) used. Haven't seen a well wired Kiwi boat yet... And I looked at a few before finding the Marshall... :thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown:

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Does it work? Does the smoke escape? No?? Good to go!! :D

 

As a chief engineer taught me - electricity is smoke compressed into wires -

 

f*&^ with it and the smoke escapes

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There are a few good'ens around smithy. But yeah, lots of "shockers" too.

Would folks care to enumerate what they've spotted?

1: Well as already just stated, the type of wiring is wrong. It needs to be tinned multi stranded wire.

2:No identification

3:No dressed wiring

4:Busbar and terminations are corroded/rusted

5:Spade connectors. You have to have captive connections, ie screw connection with eye terminal

6:None of the terminals have heatshrink protected the wire/terminal connection

7:Some wires have the insulation broken/cut

8:Lose uninsolated connections/wires just dangling about in the back

9:No main supply wire terminated to the Buss Bar via it's termination point.

10:main supply wire to row of fuses is much smaller than what would be expected as a possible load.

11:one terminal has a white wire just pushed through and bent over as a termination

12:some wires have been soldered

13:hard to tell, but one orange wire looks to be twisted around as a connection

What have I missed

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What have I missed

I think that would be about it :)

The only saving grace is that the original power source for the whole mess was a microscopic gel cell. What might have happened with an 85Ah battery discharging through a short, scares me.

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14). What about a simpler standard colouring of wires :?:

 

Red = OK Positive . . . generally

Orange = Faded red ?? inside a closed sun UV protected box ??

Black = Negative

Red/Black stripe = mainly negative but often knot

White = ?? Possibly USA positives (from pumps?? etc)

White/ Black = ?? possibly USA negatives

Bare wires between fuses? (assumed bottom row but top in picture)

 

Yet to fit the Blue, Brown, Yellow, Black/Green stripe, Red/White stripe, Purple, Gray etc wires :?: :roll:

 

15). No Strain Relief on wires comming into box.

 

16). No cable ties supporting / organising wires.

 

17). No laminated wiring diagram

 

18). Switches not labelled on inside of box lid for easy reference.

 

 

Re your 6). Non Insulated Spade Receptacle = should be the ones with Insulation pre fitted or better still, insulation covers (or heat shrink) fitted over ring terminals, but then again the wrong switches have been used. They are a very common type of switch with spade terminals that were the latest and greatest many years ago, rather than the more expensive switches with screw terminals for ring connectors.

 

Then again, where can one get panel mounted fuse holders with screw terminals :?: So the weakest link is still the push-on spade receptacle.

 

The only fuse holders that I can get always seem to be with spade terminals, so one might as well get the cheaper switches with the same spade type teminals.

 

Anyway one can never find those small S/S screws in electrical shops and they are just too hard to find when dropped, are they knot :?:

 

"It's only for a boat after all" is one attitude that does knot recognise that the salesman's life is knot at risk here, unlike yours.

 

It works OK in the salesman's home :thumbup: :wave:

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As an old Radio engineer said to me once, "you need to think like the wire". He's probably been around transmitters too loing me thinks, but he does have a thought worth thinking about.

So why insulate terminals??? Well if something comes loose, you don't want it coming into contact with anything else. Why dress wires? (which is what Paul called cable ties etc)because you don't want a wire falling down through other wires and shorting. Why identify?? Well you need to know what you are looking at and for when it all goes pair shapped, which happens when it's all gone to custard.

This pic is a result of a major failure that caused the main feed cable that had 1800CCA on it, melt and fall down through other wires resulting in shorting and cutting them all and on down through plumbing and eventually came to rest on Ally Fuel tanks which were isolated from Earth, apart from one electrical path to the Earthed engine which just happened to be a steel braided Fuel line, which super heated up and was melting and blowing Diesel fuel in a smoky fume out into the engine room.

My Photos 053.jpg

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