Basic Electrical for a Boat?

[JeanF73]

My 2c.
Just forget about electrical cooking

[TCM1968]

This is what your looking for.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...api_tkin_p1_i0

[Ike]

To understand what everyone above is talking about you need to have a basic understanding of electricity. Ohms law is part of that but you need to start with the very basic elements of electricity and electrical systems. The books suggested are good, I have all of them. But I took basic electrical when I went to Gun Fire Control School many years ago and the just expanded on that over the years. Having been an engineer for the Coast Guards program for boat manufacturers, I was the go to guy for electrical systems, and was on the ABYC Electrical systems committee for many years.

The point, I developed a web site explaining regulations and standards for boat builders (and owners) A huge part of that is basic electrical systems. Take a look here
https://newboatbuilders.com/pages/electricity1.html. That's page one of basic electricity. It's about 16 pages but you can ignore the pages after 13 unless you want to continue. But the basics are covered between pages 1 to 13. 13 is how to wire your boat. A very simplified explanation. This is free, no ads, no info collection

[CyKlop]

[QUOTE=sailingchiro;3391617]Volts X Amps = watts

I explained this to my wife this way. A 1800 watt hair dryer at 120 volts is 15 amps.

Therefore, for simplistic sakes. If house bank is 12 volts with inverter, it would require 150 amps at 12 volts to power her hair dryer at 120 volts.
/QUOTE]

So to give that a little more relevance, take a battery that is a 110 Amp Hour battery (fairly common size). That battery would be completely exhausted in less than 45 minutes of running the hair dryer (150 amps for an hour is 150 amp-hours, the battery is only 110 amp hours).

If you then have a solar panel that delivers 120 watts at 12 volts, it will take it a bit over 10 hours (at full charging - no solar cell gets 10 hours per day of full power) to replenish that battery.

[tony.keel]

Originally Posted by Randy Bogardus

Another point on learning electrical systems....I drew an “as built” electrical plan for my boats electrical system that really helped me understand my boat. It also helped when I had questions to ask.

That is a very good idea. It tests to see if you know what you are looking at. I had a friend in the Canadian navy, and they used to have the crew follow piping systems and map them out so they would become familiar with the systems. I heard that our submarine broke down, and that was the end of our navy