btechvft70 said:
I just purchased a cabelas 4 way rocker switch panel it says that there is 2 5 amp breakers and 2 10 amp breakers do I need to wire my bilge live well and nav lights with inline fuses also or do the breakers take care of that that.
Also they are 2 way switches is it possible to wire the bow and stern lights on the same switch?
One more ? i also purchased a live well timer would it be correct to send power from the live well switch over to the timer or wire them on separate switches.
3 questions with a multitude of answers.
First thing you need to answer, what is the recommended fuse for your pumps, nav lights, and other items your protecting? To figure amps add up the watts on that circuit and divide by 12 (for one battery). Pumps should be on thier own circuit, nav lights on thier own circuit, rest of the stuff doesn't matter. I suspect the pumps are 3 amps each and the nav lights is 2 amps provided this is a small boat. Once you know the amps your drawing you can size the wire (factory in distance), and breaker/fuse.
As for using fuses with the breakers, not a problem, although not needed, unless you are hooking up a 3 amp pump to a 5 amp breaker. If you leave the pumps hooked up to a 5 amp breaker and they stop turning while on, they will over heat and start on fire. If you had them hooked up to the correct amp fuse/breaker the breaker/fuse would trip before the pump catches on fire. Light circuits aren't as critical, in that you can have a 1 amp draw and use a 10 amp breaker/fuse provided the wire is rated to handle more than 10 amps. You want the failure on a light circuit to be the breaker/fuse not the wire.
2 way switch, as in on/off?
generally you want the all around light on its own switch and the bow light on its own switch. When under way both lights need to be on, when anchored the all around light needs to be on and the bow light should be turned off. You could achieve the proper switching with one switch, however it would need to be a 3 position switch, off/bow light on/both on. With a 2 position switch you have off and on. Please define what they mean by 2 way? Generally 2 way means off/on and I wouldn't use that for both lights for the reasons I gave above.
Consider the liverwell one circuit, and the components in that circuit are the switch (which sends power to the timer), the timer, the pump, the wire, and the fuse/breaker protecting all of it. Some timers come with thier own switch and have several settings. Off/constant on/ timmer mode. You can put a switch between the fuse and timer if you would like, realize it turns off all power to the timer, which means the timer will never come on no matter what position the timer switch is set on. Like the breaker with a fuse in the circuit, generally not needed, but can be done.
