New Sailaway

[Roughchippy]

I am in the process of buying a sailaway to fit out myself has anyone had and dealings with loom- tech for their 12 v wiring? Also trying to find some info regarding best way of lining out new shell ?

 

[Alan de Enfield]

12 minutes ago, Roughchippy said:

anyone had and dealings with loom- tech for their 12 v wiring

 

This'll be interesting,

Popcorn  anyone ?

[system 4-50]

49 minutes ago, Roughchippy said:

I am in the process of buying a sailaway to fit out myself has anyone had and dealings with loom- tech for their 12 v wiring? Also trying to find some info regarding best way of lining out new shell ?

 

Can you put up pictures of the inside of the shell?

[Roughchippy]

Sorry sailaway!

[celiaken]

Happy customers here....

[Bee]

I expect you will get a lot of responses. I was thinking of using Loomtech but I found it practically impossible to know what I was going to fit, where it was going to go, how to route it etc. and what sort of wattage or ampage it was going to use.  In the end I did it myself. Unless you really have things planned to an extraordinary degree I'm not sure how you can pre plan the wiring. As far as lining out goes first decide on your insulation. A vote here for sprayfoam.

[mrsmelly]

I bought several reels of heavier than I would need cable from local leccy supplier and ran several lengths of varied colours full length of cabin in 3 locations and then had loads of choices when I finaly decided where to put what and had plenty left over for any future wiring needs without need to move lining. Not the very cheapest way of wiring out a shell but in the scheme of things not major money and worked a treat.

[ditchcrawler]

Are you planning on having a 12 volt fridge?

 

[Roughchippy]

Yes I think so 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Roughchippy said:

Yes I think so 

So - will you need wiring for it, or not, what model will it be, where is it going to be installed ?

You MUST decide as the harness is being made - no changes allowed.

No deciding to have a macerator toilet when the harness was designed for a 'dump-thru'

 

etc etc etc.

[Murflynn]

it would be a jolly good idea if someone could design all the electrical details for a boat in a 3D programme, and from it produce a readymade wiring loom that can be just fixed into the boat.

no chance of any misunderstandings, anything going wrong or not fitting properly. ....  and of course totally flexible when minor changes are found to be necessary as the fitting out progresses.

................. NOT!!

 

 

personally I found the design and fitting of the wiring into a sailaway shell to be one of the more relaxing and satisfying parts of the fitting out process after butchering the insulation foam and measuring, marking and cutting huge sheets of plywood in a restricted space.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Roughchippy said:

Yes I think so 

From what I have heard the cable size used may not be the same as recommended by the fridge manufacturer

 

[OldGoat]

I designed my boat with ducting into the build. Easier to add cabling when your need change - and they do.

Sometimes a challenge to run additional cabling, but I've not ben stumped yet!

[peterboat]

5 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

I designed my boat with ducting into the build. Easier to add cabling when your need change - and they do.

Sometimes a challenge to run additional cabling, but I've not ben stumped yet!

I agree Anthony M did a partial refit on my widebeam he at the gunwales makes a wooden trunking that looked smart and was easy to access. Its a far better job than little brown mouse made, also the side panels are easy to remove if disaster strikes a couple of hidden screws and its off

[OldGoat]

20 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I agree Anthony M did a partial refit on my widebeam he at the gunwales makes a wooden trunking that looked smart and was easy to access. Its a far better job than little brown mouse made, also the side panels are easy to remove if disaster strikes a couple of hidden screws and its off

FWIW I have 240v mains with loads of double switch sockets and 12/24v DC S/sockets running under the gunnel on the starboard side. General specific feeds for lighting, 4 satellite feeds plus one terrestrial feed running in the ceiling with covers as a decorative feature. It's easy if you plan the spaces ahead and decide later what you're going to put in them!

[Roughchippy]

Is it a good idea to run a service duct under the floor? I plan to have a full height cupboard within the kitchen to house inverter and 240 fuse board and calorifer running ducting back to this point.

[OldGoat]

12 minutes ago, Roughchippy said:

Is it a good idea to run a service duct under the floor? I plan to have a full height cupboard within the kitchen to house inverter and 240 fuse board and calorifer running ducting back to this point.

It seemed 'wrong' to me as sometimes the bilge can be wet, anyway I needed somewhere to run the water services (feeds from water tank, to bathroom and radiators). I also wanted reasonable headroom, so kept the floor as low as reasonable. I've seen 'professionals' running pipes along the sides and cutting holes through the steel 'knees' as well as covering the whole lot in sprayfoam - which I don't think is a good idea. Fine until there's a leak...   

[BargeeSpud]

Off Topic & apologies.

Does anyone reading this have the ability to contact Julian (Loddon) at Bourne End Moorings? The levels are about 2' down, his boat is well aground, leaning & his ropes are very tight. Unfortunately, I don't have any contact number for him or anyone else at his mooring & he appears to be offline. I've PM'ed him any way.

Stating the obvious, but if you do, please contact him to let him know &, of course, don't put any numbers on here, you can PM me with it if you like.

Thanks.

Edited October 1, 2017 by BargeeSpud

[BargeeSpud]

Seems I can't edit on the mobile platform of the site, but never mind, I have managed to contact Julian since I posted.

Apologies once again for going off topic.

[Tony Brooks]

18 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

From what I have heard the cable size used may not be the same as recommended by the fridge manufacturer

 

I can confirm that in at least one case. If you insist on using a loom making company then ensure the fridge wiring is as per the manufacturers/Danfoss spec. Not what the company thinks will do.

I would never use a loom, too many experiences of trying to rectify later problems. Take not of how others have done the job.

[Murflynn]

looms are for mass production, not for bespoke products.

[ditchcrawler]

8 hours ago, Roughchippy said:

Is it a good idea to run a service duct under the floor? I plan to have a full height cupboard within the kitchen to house inverter and 240 fuse board and calorifer running ducting back to this point.

How far will the cupboard be from your batteries if you plan to have the inverter in there, also how warm will it get if the calorifier ia also there?

[reg]

On 30/09/2017 at 19:05, Bee said:

I expect you will get a lot of responses. I was thinking of using Loomtech but I found it practically impossible to know what I was going to fit, where it was going to go, how to route it etc. and what sort of wattage or ampage it was going to use.  In the end I did it myself. Unless you really have things planned to an extraordinary degree I'm not sure how you can pre plan the wiring. As far as lining out goes first decide on your insulation. A vote here for sprayfoam.

That to me i s the perfect answer, basically don't do it. Unless you know every piece of electrical equipment you are going to install and their specifications in advance and exactly where they are going to be fitted. If you do know that then I applaud you for being an exceptional human being

The basics of 12v wiring aren't that difficult as I was told when I started fitting out  for 90% of it its basically Red wire out Black wire returns, the  other 10% you can get from books or from this forum.

I went for these

https://www.bluesea.com/products/category/25/22/DC_Panels/WeatherDeck

Used 2 of them on a reverse layout fit out 

6 position just inside rear door (8 would of been better for expansion) for the Lounge and Kitchen and centre roof lights-(For full length of boat), horn, front spotlight, navigation

Also used a separate 3 position bilge switch

and the ran a thick cable half way up the boat

6 position half way up the boat to connect up Cooker ignition, Shower Pump, Water pump, bedroom side lights, bathroom side lights, alde thermostat and pump and an Led light string.

Relatively easy then to do the bulk of the wiring to(black wire) and from(Red wire) the panels. No need for a loom and allows maximum flexibilty in positioning of items.

What I did get wrong was no allowing enough trunking for expansion. Doing it again I would;

a Have trunking, approx 3 " wide, along both sides of the boat roof with wood cover that was easy to remove and replace.

I also ran the 240v under the gunnel, because that is one thing that once done tends to be fixed for good, easy enough to fit the 240v wiring during the fit out but a pain to get at once done.

That's a broad outline that should cover the bulk of the work.

Technical details on wire sizing, Bus bars, connection to batteries, where you should not run the 12v wires i.e some regulations I believe on closeness to gas pipes and restrictions on running near insulation etc can all be answered on here by better qualified people than me.

One thing I did do right, in my opinion, was to buy my cabling in spools,bulk buy good quality spade crimps and buy  good quality crimping tools, you will be doing a lot of crimping.

Note on 240v I believe that all 240v cables have to be crimped, this requires special crimps and a special crimp tool. Happy to stand corrected on whether this is a requirement but I was advised to do it and am pleased that I did.

Hope this helps you to get started, honestly it isn't that difficult and has the advantages of flexibility during fit out, a full understanding of how you boat is wired, a reserve of wire and crimps for later use and the some quality tools if(should say when, based on my experience) when you need to add circuits at a later date all these advantages for probably less than the price of a loom and the adjustments you would need to make to it.

 

OH and anuver fing

Recommend all internal lights are LED

Don't recommend LED for front Tunnel light, halogen far better and engine is running when your going through a tunnel so no drain on battery however does require a geet big cable, but that's another thread that has already be done and im sure will be done again.

Now ask about toilets

Edited October 1, 2017 by reg
Correct one of my many errors

[Murflynn]

err   ..............................    wot abart toilets?   

 

 

 

 

 

.....................  coat 

[LadyG]

composting/cassette/incendary/pumpout/other