J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment DC Electrical Panel Replacement

The new DC Electrical Panel was on my door step when I arrived home tonight. It looks very nice. There are no instructions in the box, so I'll create the documentation for the class to install.

The first thing I noticed was the current shunt had been wired on the panel and held in place with Ty-wraps on the harness. It was the intention that the shunt be mounted by the battery so that battery charge and discharge would be sensed.


In order to accommodate that, I removed the shunt by cutting the ty-wraps and disconnecting the terminals. The picture below shows the wiring side of the panel with the shunt removed and labels added on the edge of the circuit breakers.


Once the shunt was removed, I connected a power supply and tested the panel on the bench. The meter has a low voltage alarm that can be set. I set it at 11 volts and slowly lowered the voltage. The alarm sounded a few seconds after the voltage dropped below 11 volts. The delay is a good thing as the alarm won't sound spuriously due to quick voltage transients.


After bench testing the supply, I created labels on the back side of the panel to make wiring on the boat easier. This will also make troubleshooting easier in the future. Note the -12V and Ground bus bars.



I'll be working over the next couple weeks to clean up documentation so people have something to use as a reference for installation.