Re: wire gauge
You can never know the answer to that question until you know two things. First you need to know what the draw is of each item to be powered. Second; you need to know how far it is from the power source to the termination point. Once you have those two pieces of information you can simply go to the charts and look up what wire size you will need. When you find the charts you will find them in two sets usually. One chart will show wire size with a 10% voltage drop and the other one will show wire size with a 3% voltage drop. Always use the 3% drop chart.<br /><br />You can find the chart in the electrical section of the West Marine catalog, the Boat US catalog, and on line at the Anchor Marine site. On the amperage draw the first place I go look is in the West Marine catalog. They list it for most electrical devices. If I can't find it there I go to the manufacturer's site and look at the specs. Actually sometimes you can simply look at the power draw for similar items, this is one place where close will work just fine. <br /><br />Keep this in mind when you decide on the wire size. First you need two wires and it is their combined length that you'll be using in the charts. Second, its really best to run a heavy line up to a second fuse block inside the electronics box and then branch out from there. For the negative side you simply use a small buss bar up in the electronics box. Try to do as much of your interface wireing inside the box too so as to avoid having to pull any more wires than absolutly necessary through the tubes.<br /><br />Thom
