STOP Making This Common Marine Electrical Wiring Mistake!
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What's the right order in doing a connection on a bus bar or a circuit breaker? Check out this video to find out more. We have a big announcement. You can now become a YouTube member. You can join as a YouTube member right now here on screen for custom loyalty badges and emojis. >> [music] >> Or if you are looking for exclusive early access to our videos, live Q&As, and more direct support on your project, [music] we also launched our brand new Patreon page linked in the description below. Thank you so much for watching [music] and being part of the Pacific Yacht Systems community. Now, let's get back to the video. Hey everyone, Jeff Cote here with Pacific Yacht Systems in another installment of Tech Talk. We've got Mike who's got a Formula here in British Columbia and Mike asked a very important question that all of us should care about. It might be tedious, but it sure makes a difference. And Mike's wondering, what is the right order of stacking or connecting terminals, washers, and lock washers on a breaker? And this applies not only a breaker, it applies to potentially even fuse holders or anything else. So, the right order, and this is very important because stainless steel is practically non-conductive, is you want to have whatever connection is on the bus bar on the breaker, and you want to have your ring terminal connected right to it. Okay? This is because your ring terminal needs to have the best connection to make a circuit so you connect it right to the terminal or the terminal block or the circuit breaker, whatever it is. On top of that, then you would have a stainless steel washer, and then on top of that you might have some sort of lock washer, and then after that you're going to have the fastener that is going to compress all of that. I've seen it where people have stainless washers installed at literally the bus bar or the breaker. And so, the what you have is the ring connector or the fork connector is installed in between the lock washer and the washer itself. And in those situations, especially when you're looking for their high current uh loads, you're effectively putting a resistor in line. Now, you might be able to measure voltage at the end and see the right voltage, but under load, you're going to see a way higher voltage drop than you would want to see. So, having the right order when doing a connection, and this applies to batteries, right? Cuz batteries are going to have sometimes lock washers and washers, you want to have the terminal be connected directly to whatever you're connecting to, and then on top of the terminal, you're going to have the the washer, the lock washer, and then either a nut or a bolt or whatever it is that is compressing all of those items together. So, great question. It's something that all of us should care about when we're doing connections on our boat. And as you're looking throughout your boat and you're wondering like, is it done right? And every time you open a area of your boat and check and make sure that you've got that right order done so that you're not losing voltage because you've effectively put a resistor in line on that circuit. Great question. I've got videos about this, and this is a common problem. I see it all the time when we do electrical audits on boats. Capture that all the time when we generally see that on fuse blocks and batteries and it just gets missed. People don't really understand the purpose, and so it's a common error that happens, and it's something that all of us need to check out on our boats. Thanks all for you for [music] watching, and be safe on the water. Hey, fellow boaters. We're going to be doing a lot more Tech Talk videos. [music] If you've got any suggestions for future videos, leave them in the comments below. Once again, thank you for watching.







