Marine Electronics Forum - Install Bluesea Panel
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kevcros
05-20-2005, 09:12 AM
I just purchased a used 18' Lund aluminum and I am outfitting with a GPS, fishfinder and a spare bilge. The existing breaker panel is full and I want to add another Bluesea (three switch) panel to a separate battery. 1st- Do i need to worry about corrosion (oxidization) when installing the electronics and 2nd where do I run the ground ? Anyone with experience installing these ?
I've put a few of them in. You do have to be concerned about corrosion of the back is exposed to a moist area. Otherwise I've not bothered with any sort of spray coating. I also avoid using the ground buss bar that is in the back of the panel. Buss bars are so inexpensive that I perfer to just buy one of them and mount it some distance away from the panel. I prefer that to having negative and positive wires in any sort of close proximity to one another. As far as where to to for your negative side, head straight to the battery for this one. Make sure you use a cable of suitable size to carry all the load for the entire boat, except for engine starting of course. As a general rule I don't use anything smaller than #10 with #6 being more common.
Thom