How to connect AC wire in the engine compartment

tobnpr said:
Actually, it looks like your charger IS ignition protected
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wingless said:
Within the ignition-protected charger there is a terminal strip where the wiring connects.
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Yes, we agree.


Four Suns said:
The way Sea Ray puts AC junction boxes in the bilge is to crimp the two wires together and have strain relief/cord pull connections where the cable exits/enters the junction box. If the junction box is below a certain level in the bilge, it is supposed to be water tight but I don't recall that level off the top of my head. You probably already have an AC junction box in your bilge for your Air Conditioner system so look at that as a guide.
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fc3 said:
The 330DA has a junction box on the bulkhead in the engine room near the air conditioning system's raw water pump. Follow the raw water pump's wire back from the pump and you'll find the box. Pop the cover and do what Sea Ray did. A perfect example.
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wingless said:
The sand-colored box in the lower right corner is a factory-installed AC junction box.

OilChangeFuelCutoffFireExtinguisher.jpg
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There it is, again...
 
Wingless, just curious why you 'water mark' all your pictures with your screen name?

Doug
 
Dear Ms Robinson. Hopefully a little common sence with help in this situation. Bilges can have deadly fumes. If not you are ok, if so...CA-BOOM. Be sure the heater is safe with a "no ignition" rating and second the connect should be outside the engine compartment or any compartment that is NOT connected with the fuel tank area. Just a blue box with wire connects is not a UL approved connect nor for Marine Electrical connects. Do what you can to have the heater plug outside the compartment or connected in a compartment not associated with the fuel area. SAFETY FIRST. There are marine type plugs and boxes but they are sealed systems (example is the air conditoning condensoer cooling water pump) you would not be able to modify a typical heater plug as such. I believe wingless has it RIGHT.
 
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I replaced my Air Condx raw water pump two years ago and in order to do so, I had to pop open that rust-colored box. It's made of a bakelite (sp?) type material and mine was siliconed shut. Inside there was a terminal bus bar and each wire from the pump had a loop terminal connector crimped on the end. The wires went directly to the old pump and the new wires on the new pump were long enough to be hard wired back into the same terminal. I wired the new pump exactly as the old one was wired and siliconed everything back up the way it was. I couldn't say if I was the first one to delve into that box but the pump I replaced was original.
 
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wingless said:
Which ones?

No problemo, I'll just change this to conform, if required. Easy enough to change the power cord and the receptacle to marine AC wiring and a sealed lid.
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I don't think putting a receptacle in the engine area of a gas boat to any marine/electrical standard is a good idea. If you ever unplugged an inductive load in operation (good example a vac motor) you have the seen the arc, sufficient to ignite vapors. Even though the receptacle may be sealed, the electrical socket contacts are not!! Pulling the plug on a shop vac or fan while running (either on purpose or accidental) could ignite the vapors.
 
mawyatt said:
I don't think putting a receptacle in the engine area of a gas boat to any marine/electrical standard is a good idea. If you ever unplugged an inductive load in operation (good example a vac motor) you have the seen the arc, sufficient to ignite vapors. Even though the receptacle may be sealed, the electrical socket contacts are not!! Pulling the plug on a shop vac or fan while running (either on purpose or accidental) could ignite the vapors.
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wingless said:
There is no spark at the receptacle, within the receptacle box or at the charger terminal strip unless the connection is made or broken while power is applied.
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Thanks, I know.
 
THEBILLCOLLECTOR said:
I have been wanting to install an A.C. outlet in my engine room for my work light, etc....
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It doesn't look like I'm the only one who wants / wanted a handy way to have a utility receptacle in the engine room.

Am I the only one who makes sparks in the engine room on a gas boat? No, not from this AC receptacle, but from using power tools. For example, the brushes on my power drill make visible sparks during operation. I've used that all over the engine room lots and lots.

Is my boat the only one w/o gas fumes that must first be purged w/ the exhaust blowers? I've never had a gas fume issue. If a problem occurred then when examining the engine room prior to operation would reveal the issue. That has always been standard practice for me on every boat.

Again, while this probably doesn’t conform, this doesn’t look like a source of problems in my application.

To me, this would be easy enough to convert to a proper ABYC sealed AC junction when required to satisfy a pre-sale survey. I'd use a box w/ threaded fittings and gland-type compression connectors to seal the cables into the box.

Don’t do this to your boat.
 
mawyatt said:
I don't think putting a receptacle in the engine area of a gas boat to any marine/electrical standard is a good idea. If you ever unplugged an inductive load in operation (good example a vac motor) you have the seen the arc, sufficient to ignite vapors. Even though the receptacle may be sealed, the electrical socket contacts are not!! Pulling the plug on a shop vac or fan while running (either on purpose or accidental) could ignite the vapors.
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Running a shop vac could ignite a gasoline / air mixture within the flammability ratio range.
 
I've run a shop vac to evacuate about 3 gallons of dumped antifreeze from below the engine. The sprark issue was a concern so I left the vac up on deck and used the long extension hose to reach down into the bilge.

When I was a kid and my father had his old gas boats (a 1959 Luhrs and a 1967 Owens), before you started the engine (singular in both), you lifted a hatch, stuck your head way down and sniffed - I don't even think those boats had blowers but maybe I just don't remember. Bottom line is "the nose knows." Use your olfactory senses, exercise extreme caution, run blowers, open all hatches and enclosures and do what you feel safe doing. In my 40+years of boating, I've NEVER heard of a boat exploding from a power tool.
 
Well, 4000 posts later, I'll say I don't want to be the ABYC police. You are right in that I've never heard of power tools blowing up a boat. Do what you think is safe... common sense rules.

I will say that I have more "bad luck" than most people do. Mother nature seems to enjoy disassembling my boat when I go out.
 
Absolutely.

The fan blades in a power tool are emulsion-coated to purge flammable vapors from the air, but vacuum fan blades don't have that coating.
 
I would think at least one logical reason that power tools, shop vacs included, haven't caused any known explosions, is because of the first rule that Ron stated above...'the nose knows'. The human in the bilge with the power tool would/should know better than to use the tool if gas fumes are present.

It's when you have something unattended in the Bilge with 'no nose sniffing' going on.

For example, and Wingless this isn't meant to pick on you, but let's say every gas boat had its battery charger plugged into a bilge receptacle....every one of them. Now, EVERY gas boat goes out for the day and bounces around, some bounce severely. Now, the chances that at least one of those plugs coming somewhat lose and making a not so secure intermittent connection exists. Then, when the skipper docks the boat, plugs in to shore power and then turns on the breaker for the battery charger.....the potential for bad things is present.

Who here ,100% of the time, opens their hatch and sniffs before they connect to shore power and turn on their systems breakers?

That said, a convenience plug in the ER is...well....convenient. And, IMHO, is NOT intended for 24/7 unsupervised use. You just need to be a little extra carefull when using it you so chose.
 
When I had a gas boat, I installed a sniffer in the engine room. Prior to that I sniffed the engine room with my nose before firing up. However, a gas leak underway caused by vibration or more likely heavy weather would go undetected, despite the religious sniffing before leaving the dock. The sniffer I installed fixed all that. It was turned on from the time I entered the boat until we were about to leave the dock after returning from a cruise. It would also warn me of a blown exhaust hose, because it went off with CO2.

I would not own a gas boat without a first class sniffer installed.
 
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