While I wait for the spacers for the charge controller and switch box to be varnished, I can work on the front panel of the switch box.
With the walls of the box now much thinner, the existing front panel is too small to fit the new hole. The obvious answer to this is to make an auxiliary front panel to fit the gap. Armed with the box, switch panel, calibers and a CAD program I designed said front panel that I initially cut out of 3mm plywood on the laser cutter.
This is the result. It took four tries to get it exactly correct but that is what prototyping is for.
The new panel will be bolted to the switch panel and screwed to the box. Once I was certain the dimensions were correct I cut the final version from 3mm acrylic sheet.
This came out well and looks very professional. The advantage of having the right tools for the job.
The result is pretty good looking, the black bolts merge into the black of the switch panel and the acrylic allows the wood to show through. The drawback is that you have to remember that the bronze screws are the ones to undo when opening the panel, not the black ones.
Not that the black ones will unscrew since they are bolts with self-locking nuts on the inside. Any attempt to open the panel using those will just result in the bolt endlessly turning.
One of the things I will do before fitting the switch box to the upstand is to cover the exposed connections with heat-shrink sleeving so that none of the connections may be accidentally connected to another wire, such as dropping a screw in the box, although I hope that I’d remember to disconnect the battery before doing anything like that, but I could see a reason to do this if I were using a multimeter to check the voltages on the wires.
The heat shrink sleeving could be considered to be excessive, but I just do not like seeing all those exposed connections. A job for tomorrow, I think.
The bus bars arrived late afternoon yesterday and to my dismay, they are not the correct size. I bought this pair of bars to fit inside the in the switch box.
These are the dimensions and you can clearly see that the overall width of the bars is 105mm.
Now the width of the space in the box is 110mm so the bar should fit, but as you can see, it does not. Each bus bar is, in fact, over 140mm long. Looking at the catalogue again I found that the 105mm is the length of one of the smaller bus bars and the given drawing is incorrect.
However, if I remove the metal bus bar from the plastic housing, it is now small enough to fit.
The bolts on the bars extend about 5mm below the bar itself and if I were to mount this inside the box as it is, then there would be a significant problem.
Some of the wiring on the front panel extends into the box quite a distance and even with the connections bend over as much as I can make them without breaking them, they would touch the bus bar and that would cause a short. Not a good idea.
So I spend last night designing and part of this morning making a back plate for the box. It is 15mm thick and has recessed holes for the bolt protrusions. This will mean that the bus bars will be unable to touch any of the current wiring. I may even have space to put in a cover for each bar to prevent anything untoward happening.
The drawback is that the switch box is now 15mm taller than it was before and will be another 3mm taller still once the front plate is made. More on that later. Still, I feel that this is a small price to pay for having proper, protected electrical connections.
Each bus bar can hold 12 connections and so far I have the following for the negative lead:
Port nav light
Starboard nav light
Stern light
Compass light
Cabin lights
USB charging hubs
And these for the positive lead:
Compass light
Fuse bank
Cabin lights
USB charging hubs
I don’t plan to have any other connections, but having a few spare is always a good idea. I may want to run a power lead for a radio, for example.
The back plate has been stained with two coats of a dark stain, like the charge connector back plate, and one coat of varnish has been applied. Both the back plates are made from Baltic Birch plywood which is a high quality plywood, but not intended for exterior use without treatment as the glue holding the veneers together is not waterproof.
The stain is to darken the very light colour of the wood and the varnish is to protect the wood from any damp. I expect to apply around four coats to all the surfaces, then lightly sand the visible edges and give them another two coats. After that, they may be fitted into the cabin, although not the final fitting, and the wiring adjusted to fit the new arrangement.
It is, however, November (already) and staining and varnishing in the workshop is a long process due to the extended drying time. So, I’ve been staining in the workshop and bringing the pieces into the kitchen where they are placed on the Rayburn to dry. Once the staining was completed, both pieces were taken into the workroom where the varnishing is done. Here the procedure is to apply a coat of varnish all round, using screws as standoffs and once the varnish has cured a little, the work pieces are returned to the Rayburn to complete the curing. Even so, it is a laborious process especially since the next part, adjusting the wiring, cannot be carried out without the controller and switch box mounted.
Oh well. That’s boat building for you.
Once the wiring from the controller to the switch box, the other wiring and the battery cable to the controller are done, I’ll mount the new solar panel and route the wiring to the controller. Again, this will not be the final fitting as there is still a bit of work to be done filling holes and repainting to done to the cabin top, but that will be enough to verify that the new wiring layout works.
I elected to make a start on the rewiring of Shoal Waters since I will be needing a light in the cabin in the evenings and that seemed to be a good enough reason to start on the electrics. Now I have to say that I had wondered about the comments that the surveyor made about the electrics, and I quote:
The wiring loom is untidy, poorly routed and loosely cable-tied.
I couldn’t see what he meant by this. The cables in the cabin were neatly run and held in place by cable clips even where the cables ran under the bridge deck and not in view.
Then I looked in the battery compartment and then it became clear. I forgot to take a photo of this, so I’ll try to describe it. Originally, a single cable ran from the battery to the switch box
You can see the switch box in this photo just above the radiant heater. Now, the battery cable was attached to the battery with large crocodile clips. All the services ran from the switch box. The cables to the nav lights, including the stern light, and the original cabin light you can see above the switch box. The switch for this light is mounted to the underside of the cabin roof just forward of the hatch making it easy to turn on when opening the hatch in the dark or when sitting in the cockpit. No fiddling around trying to work out which switch was the correct one on the switch box.
Some time later, Charles added a small 5W solar panel to keep the battery charged and the cables for this were neatly run with cable clips into the battery box. This cable also ended with large crocodile clips and these were clipped to the first set of clips on the battery.
Later still, a three-port 12v lighter socket bank was added and this had large crocodile clips that were then clipped to the ones for the solar panel. The excess cable was wound around one of the other cables to keep it out of the way.
So, the battery locker had three sets of large crocodile clips stacked one on top of the other and the cables fixed together with cable ties to prevent them from getting tangled up and pulling the clips loose.
It was a mess. Known in the trade as rat’s or bird’s nest wiring.
Now, the life of a solar panel is around 10-15 years for one like this and that’s for a modern one. Some of the very latest ones may last 25-30 years but this panel is not that good and is already around 20 years old. The surface is yellowed and starting to crack and it looks like there has been some water ingress through the bolt and screw holes holding it to the cabin top. So it will be replaced.
Now this is where it gets a little tricky. A 5W panel may have been sufficient when first installed before the days of electronic navigation aids, mobile phones, drones, video camera and so on, but these days it’s just not going to be enough if you spend a few days aboard.
A quick electronics lesson. You phone is constantly sending out a signal effectively saying ‘This is me.’ to the nearest cell tower which picks up this signal and relays that back to the service centre so that when a call is made to your phone, the service knows where the phone is and can send the call to the correct cell tower. So, even when you are not using it, the phone is transmitting and using battery power. If there is a good signal to the tower, then the phone only uses a small amount of power, but if the signal is poor, only one bar for example, then the phone transmits at a higher power to reach the tower. This is why your phone seems to run out of battery power much more quickly when the reception is poor.
The reception in the Blackwater River is poor just able everywhere and so a phone, when aboard, needs recharging more often than when ashore.
Anyway, I decided on a 50W flexible solar panel since I can get one with that power rating that will fit onto the cabin top.
It looks quite large in the photo, but it will easily fit onto the cabin top where the old one was, just extending a lot further forward.
Here’s the old panel removed and you can see the yellowing of the panel which reduces its efficiency greatly. Also note the crocodile clips.
The paint unde the panel is old and cracked and I’ll have to check the state of the plywood of the cabin top. There might be some rot or water damage there.
This is the 12V lighter extension cable complete with crocodile clips.
Finally the battery leads again with crocodile clips !! These one will remain, the rest will be ditched.
Now, it is inadvisable to attach a 50W solar panel directly to a battery as you run the risk of overcharging the battery and damaging it over time. Instead you should use a charge controller.
Like this. Not only does this monitor the battery state but prevents the solar panel from overcharging the battery. It also has two USB A sockets for charging devices.
The aft cabin upstand is too thin to screw onto directly, so I’ve made a mounting block. This will be screwed to the inside of the cabin upstand from the outside and allow the charge controller to be screwed to the block on the inside without the points of the screws protruding out anywhere. This is made from Baltic Birch and since it is normally a very light colour I’m staining it before applying varnish to make it fit in with the rest of the cabin.
Currently, the lighting in Shoal Waters is very limited.
This is it. Powered by three AAA batteries it is the lighting for the entire interior of the boat. If you want any more than this, you need to use a torch. You press the clear plastic lens in to turn it on and again to turn it off. I don’t like this, at least not for the main lighting, it’s too limited and you have to keep at least three spare AAA batteries to make sure you don’t run out of power. I may well keep it as a backup, but I’ll have to try it out in the dark first to see how well it lights up the cabin.
Instead I shall install these. One amidships in line with the galley so that whatever is cooking is illuminated and the other forward of the mast so that you can get to it when in bed. You rotate the plastic lens clockwise to turn the light on and back again for off.
This is the original light switch. I don’t know if it still works, but if it does, I may well use to do turn a red light on and off for night sailing. To be decided. I don’t have a red light but I do have all the parts to make one.
The next thing to look at is the switch box.
Looks quite nice, doesn’t it?
Until you open it up. then, there is a problem. Well, two. Firstly the inner recess is far too small and secondly, it’s a bit of a rat’s nest in there.
So, I took it out of the boat…
..disassembled it and cut the side walls down so that they are about half the thickness that they were. Now, why did I do that? Firstly, with more space inside it will be easier to add or change the wiring. Secondly, I want to put in a busbar for the negative from the battery.
Like this. If I can fit both in I will but the main thing is to get the black one in. That will tidy up the wiring considerably.
So, there’s a lot to be getting on with. I’ve made a good start.
One of the reasons for working on the nav lights these last few days was to answer two questions.
Firstly, If a reflector was fitted inside the nav light would that affect the light cone emitted from the light and if so, by how much?
Secondly, how much brighter would a reflector make?
There was an additional question of whether the LED replacement bulbs affected the cone of light emitted as compared to the original incandescent bulb. This one was largely academic since I’m certainly going to use LED bulbs, but it will be interesting to see if there is a difference.
I asked on the Dinghy Cruising Association website for possible ways to add a reflector to an antique nav light and the two best options seemed to be scrunched up aluminium foil and an acrylic based mirror cut to shape.
Once darkness had fallen I went back out to Shoal Waters armed with a torch, a piece of scrunched up foil, a carefully cut mirror and a light meter.
I then spend half an hour or so taking a series of measurements of the light output of the starboard nav light. Firstly without any reflector, then the foil and finally the mirror. I placed a wooden block on the side deck and used that to ensure that the position of the light meter was the same for each measurement.
Not surprisingly, the readings for the light without the reflector was the lowest, as I expected, but the question was which of the reflectors was better. The foil didn’t reflect as much light as the mirror, but because of the scrunched up nature, the foil spread the reflections around a lot more than the mirror. Also, not surprisingly, the mirror reflected the most light but this was not as widely spread as the foil.
The foil was 8% brighter on average whilst the mirror was 25% brighter on average than the light without any reflector.
So which is better? It depends. The foil is 8% brighter across a broader spread but the mirror reflects a lot more light.
As any maker will tell you, we spend more time making jigs than making projects, or so it seems at times. Take the new brass thumb screws I bought for the navigation lights. There were two small problems with them. The first is that they are brass. Nothing I can do about that as those are the only ones that fit. The second issue is that they are flat on the head, no slot for a screwdriver. Now that is something I can do something about.
The first, and most obvious answer, is to cut a slot with a hacksaw, but if you’ve ever tried doing this you will know that the result is usually less than optimal.
Enter a jig.
I cut a 5.5mm holes through a piece of scrap plywood and then a 12mm hole halfway through centred on the smaller hole. I marked a centreline and use the bandsaw to cut a slot in the wood through the centre of the larger hole. The thumbscrew was put into the jig and fixed in place with a nut on the bottom.
Like this.
I then used the bandsaw again to cut a small slot in the thumb screw, just to get the slot started and to stop the hacksaw blade from wandering.
Over to the bench vice next and with the jig clamped in place, I used the jigsaw to carefully cut the slot to the required depth using the cut in the plywood as a guide.
The result is a nearly perfect slot in the top of the thumbscrews. Marvellous.
The newly slotted thumb screw in place. Apart from the obvious newness of the brass, it looks pretty good. I’d say that was a good use of my lunch break.
Having had another cup of tea and a sit down, I decided that since the screws had arrived I would continue the work on the nav lights.
The new brass thumb screws are metric, M5 to be exact, whereas the older ones, probably over 50 years old, are imperial. No idea what they are but they are smaller than M5 and the new thumb screws are too large to fit in the original holes. This means that I need to tap the existing holes to take an M5 thread. I gathered the parts together and set to.
The imperial hole was wide enough to use the M5 tap directly and did not need to be drilled out. The new thread didn’t take long to make, the initial thread or two always being the hardest to get right.
The new thumb screw was inserted to make sure that it fit, and, as you can see, it did.
Next the new countersunk machine screws were used to attach the base plate back to the cabin side. I used normal nuts to do this as the work is not completed as yet. I’ll need to take the plate off and on again a few times before the final fitting and at that time I shall use self-locking nuts. Still, for now, this is looking good.
Finally, the outer housing was screwed in place. Looks pretty good. With this successfully completed I carried out the same process on the other side.
The brass thumb screws will need to have a slot made in the head to allow it to be tightened with a screwdriver as the head is a very tight fit into the recess in the housing, but this was expected. I’ll use two of the spares to make the slots, either using the CNC router or a hacksaw.
All in all, a very productive day and although the tasks I have done today are quite small ones, I feel as though I am making progress.
Having had a cup of tea and a sit down, I decided to tackle the locker hinges and the old gas bottle box.
As it turned out, three of the six screws to be removed came out easily, the screws being in quite good condition despite being brass. The other three, those on the aft-most hinge, snapped as they were unscrewed, but the locker lid came off easily even so.
Emboldened by that success I turned my attention to the six screws holding the box to the side panel.
These came out fairly easily but only after being persuaded. In this case that meant putting a screwdriver into the slot and then hitting the end of the screwdriver with a hammer. Not too hard, but hard enough to break any seal between the screw itself and the wood. That’s the theory, at least. In this case it worked.
After the box was removed, you can see that the white paint on the hull was done after the box had been installed. It was fairly clean in the lockers, which was nice to see.
The box itself was taken into the workshop with the intent of reusing the wood, but all the brass screws have distigrated so I’ll have to put some thought into getting those out without damaging the wood too much.
The stove in Shoal Waters was, for many years, a single burner screwed into a Camping Gaz cylinder. The burner could be replaced by a radiant heater to heat the cabin when cold.
The stove can be seen in the above photo, the cylinder housed in a well between two lockers on the port side of the cabin as is traditional.
To use the radiant heater the stove part was unscrewed, the cylinder moved to sit on the cabin floor between the lockers and the centreboard case and held in place with a bungee. The heater was then screwed onto the cylinder.
Now, none of these parts were on Shoal Waters when purchased and I’m not going to replace the stove with an exact replacement. Instead I’m going to use a burner that takes the modern 200g canisters since this will allow me to store the spares outside of the cabin. However, the space available for such a burner is quite small and the size I use for camping is too large.
Not to worry, a quick internet search found a much smaller unit.
The difference between this and the larger, more common variant, is that there is no lever mechanism to pull the canister into place. Instead it is held in place by a magnet.
Now, my intention is to make a box to hold the stove that is just a little bit deeper than the stove plus canister, so that the canister cannot move away from the magnet which might happen in a bumpy sea.
The stove is also a bit wider that the space that held the old gas cylinder and that will mean rearranging the lockers slightly.
The stove plus canister is also a bit deeper that the locker, as you can see here.
However, the gas cylinder locker is a simple box screwed to the side wall, so making it wider and deeper will not be too much of a chore. The hardest part will be removing the lid of the locker forward of the burner to cut a section off to make space for the wider burner box.
I started looking at the navigation lights as I need something small to be getting on with since I have hurt my right foot. When I get tired I make mistakes and last week the mistake involved the foot and a solid metal support meeting at a high enough relative velocity to break open the wound remaining from the surgery a few months ago. So, no kneeling down on the inside of the boat trying to work on the centreboard case. I’ll have to wait until I can comfortably flex the foot before continuing with that.
One of the things I’ve done as part of the refurbishment is to buy LED replacement bulbs for the lights to cut down on battery drain.
This is the original bulb, fairly standard.
And this is the new LED bulb. It occured to me that the back of the light, as you can clearly see from the photo, is not at all reflective and thus the nav lights will be dimmer than they could be. I asked on the Dinghy Cruising Club Forum, of which I am a member, for suggestions and these boiled down to two main options. Crumpled aluminium foil and a plastic mirror cut to shape, both of which are possibilities for the tools I have.
However, before I test out these options, I really need to do something about the fixings. The two bolts holding the base plate to the cabin side need to be removed. One is brass, well it was and is now copper, and the other is stainless. This is the same on both sides. Not sure why but they need to be taken out. The ex-brass one to be replaced and the stainless one removed to allow the base plate to be countersunk such that the head of the machine screw does not protrude.
The head of the brass bolt was drilled with a shallow hole and then countersunk as can be seen here. A small diameter drill bit was used to drill a hole right along the length of the bolt and then opened up using successively larger diameter bits until the entire bolt was removed.
In this photo you can see that the lower, stainless steel bolt has been removed and the upper brass bolt remains.
It didn’t take long to remove the upper bolt, just a steady hand to prevent the drill bits from breaking.
Here is the remains of the bolt, the nut and washer.
The nav light on the opposite side was done in the same fashion except on this side, the lower bolt was the brass one and the upper one stainless steel.
I used vice-grips on the inside to hold the nut whilst I unscrewed the bolt from outside for the stainless bolt, but the other one had to be knocked out. I did this on the first side as well but forgot to take photos.
The brass bolt and nut had degraded into copper and at some time in the past it has been knocked off, as can be seen in the photo, just leaving a short length of the bolt in the wood of the cabin side.
I used a bolt as a drift and gently hammered out the remaining bolt from the inside. The vice-grips are to stop me from hitting my hand which probably would have happened if I had held the bolt and tried to hit it.
In the end, the bolt stayed in the base plate which itself came loose from the cabin side. Still, the copper bolt was easily remove with a gentle tap on the reverse with the hammer.
The two holes were then countersunk as you can see. I gently drilled the countersink, taking off a little at a time and offering up a machine screw of the correct size each time to check that I didn’t remove too much of the base plate. The other side was similarly countersunk, but you don’t need to see a photo of that as it’s more or less the same as this one.
So far, so good. I only had one machine screw of the correct size so the next thing to do was to order more. With that done I turned my attention to the outer casing fixings.
From the photo above you can see that one of the fixings is a knurled bolt, presumably original, whilst the other is a stainless steel wood screw that goes through both holes in the light and into the side of the cabin and this is the case for both nav lights. I presume that the lights had two of the knurled bolts each and that over time two had been lost and were replaced with the screws.
Time to fix that.
These are the fixings. The screw will be replaced but I could only find brass knurled bolts that will fit.
The problem is the recesses in the casing. The heads of the knurled bolts measures 11.2mm in diameter and although I can find stainless steel knurled bolts, only the brass ones have a head that will fit into the recess. Even then it might be tight as those have a head diameter of 12mm, so it’s going to be close. Also, I think that the nav lights are bronze, not brass and I’d really like to have bronze replacements. However, those would have to be custom made and that would be exceedingly expensive. This is also why I was looking at stainless ones.
Never mind, brass ones are on order and I’ll liberally coat them with some thing when I reassemble the lights to slow down the leaching of the zinc from the brass over time. The pack also contains 5 bolts so I’ll have replacements until I can find bronze or stainless replacements.
