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Stupid Electrical Mistakes

CaddmannQ

.50 BMG
I discovered that I had made a serious mistake on the electric boat, and while it never actually came back to haunt me, it could have been a very unhappy day on the water because of my stupidity.

And this is not a matter of ignorance, because I knew about this problem and have experienced it before.

This is the matter where I did things in a rush so that I could get out on the water. This is one of the last things that I did and I wasn’t thinking real clearly based on the evidence.

To explain the situation it’s very simple: I placed a non-conductor in my electrical connection. I put a bolt through a board and put a flat washer on it and two battery cables and a nut and tightened it down. This works fine as long as the wood never ever compresses and allows your connection to become slightly loose.

But of course wood on a boat swells and shrinks with time. After four years, this was enough to cause the connection to become slightly loose. You could tell how hot it got because there was char on the board.

Anyhow, it was a simple enough fix to re-order the connections so that there Was nothing but metal between the two nuts.

So why am I kicking myself in the ass so hard about this? Because I have owned three General Motors cars where the ground connection from the heater blower was a rivet from the brush wire to the steel case. In each case, a fiber insulator (which is the base of the brush holder assembly) was placed between the steel motor housing and the brass ring terminal. A rivet holds it all together, for a while.


After about 60,000 miles (more or less depending on how rough the roads are where you live) the fiber insulator will compress and degrade and your ground connection will come slightly loose. Now that damn piece of fiber has absolutely no reason to be in the connection, except it was convenient at the manufacturing and assembly. It is a total design error.

One day your blower motor is OK, and the next day it is growling because of low voltage. You’ll hit a bump and then it will work fine again and you’ll think what the heck? Eventually it will burn the motor up or it will just quit from lack of electricity.

Anyhow I have seen this happen on my Cadillac, my Bel Air, and a Silverado as well. I do not know what other vehicles & devices this mistake could affect, but it’s something to keep an eye on if you work on such things.
 
I discovered that I had made a serious mistake on the electric boat, and while it never actually came back to haunt me, it could have been a very unhappy day on the water because of my stupidity.

And this is not a matter of ignorance, because I knew about this problem and have experienced it before.

This is the matter where I did things in a rush so that I could get out on the water. This is one of the last things that I did and I wasn’t thinking real clearly based on the evidence.

To explain the situation it’s very simple: I placed a non-conductor in my electrical connection. I put a bolt through a board and put a flat washer on it and two battery cables and a nut and tightened it down. This works fine as long as the wood never ever compresses and allows your connection to become slightly loose.

But of course wood on a boat swells and shrinks with time. After four years, this was enough to cause the connection to become slightly loose. You could tell how hot it got because there was char on the board.

Anyhow, it was a simple enough fix to re-order the connections so that there Was nothing but metal between the two nuts.

So why am I kicking myself in the ass so hard about this? Because I have owned three General Motors cars where the ground connection from the heater blower was a rivet from the brush wire to the steel case. In each case, a fiber insulator (which is the base of the brush holder assembly) was placed between the steel motor housing and the brass ring terminal. A rivet holds it all together, for a while.


After about 60,000 miles (more or less depending on how rough the roads are where you live) the fiber insulator will compress and degrade and your ground connection will come slightly loose. Now that damn piece of fiber has absolutely no reason to be in the connection, except it was convenient at the manufacturing and assembly. It is a total design error.

One day your blower motor is OK, and the next day it is growling because of low voltage. You’ll hit a bump and then it will work fine again and you’ll think what the heck? Eventually it will burn the motor up or it will just quit from lack of electricity.

Anyhow I have seen this happen on my Cadillac, my Bel Air, and a Silverado as well. I do not know what other vehicles & devices this mistake could affect, but it’s something to keep an eye on if you work on such things.

Say that again please. This time a little slower.
 
Sounds like you need a bushing to hold it all solid or just a second nut/washer to hold it all tight.
 
Do like me and just run an orange extension cord from the battery to the trolling motor. Don't even need fuses if you do it right.

Yeah, that was sarcasm. But I did use an extension cord for my tilt/trim motor from the front seat for if I'm trolling and need to raise the motor up in shallow water.

And I did fuse it.
 
Well I didn’t like my wiring job, so I went back into the control box and did the whole thing again.

There were three bits of wire and a terminal in there that were totally unnecessary, and had been added as I added components to the panel. Anyhow those are gone, and I cleaned up the rest of the wiring.

I also reinforced the rear seat structure, which also supports my control panel and fishfinder.

Now I am working on a tray for my fishing clutter. I have been using the plastic lid from a plastic bin, and it is a horrible ugly green color and just disgusting. I’m trying to build something in real wood and poly propylene plastic. It’s not some artistic mission, that’s just what I have to work with today.

Finally, I slipped while driving a screw and stuck a screwdriver bit into my left index finger with an electric drill motor. I’m not going to post a gory picture of the bloody finger but just to complain that once again no good deed goes unpunished.

Even when we have to punish ourselves.
 
Finally, I slipped while driving a screw and stuck a screwdriver bit into my left index finger with an electric drill motor. I’m not going to post a gory picture of the bloody finger but just to complain that once again no good deed goes unpunished.

Even when we have to punish ourselves.

Oh mannnnn....I know all to well how that feels. I lost count of how many times I did that....
 
Good evening Mossberg Owners.

I spent most of today working on my boat, getting it ready to go fishing tomorrow.

I renamed the boat officially, today; meaning that I scraped off the old name, and I painted the new name on the transom.

Back when the boat was running 24 volt motors I had named it the X-24v, but now that it has been upgraded to 36 volts, I have christened it X-36v.

I didn’t smash a bottle of champagne on it but there was a shot of Jack Daniels in the shed. LOL

Boats usually have either women’s names or these romantic names like Sunchaser or Sea Eagle or Tide Raven… I don’t know...WTH…. I decided it was better off to have a clinical name, so I didn’t have to explain it to anyone.

Anyhow the boat is all buttoned up & the batteries are on the chargers. I’m gonna take Judy fishing tomorrow morning just as early as she can get her butt into the truck.
 
Well the X-36v ran flawlessly yesterday. In fact, having improved my connections & wedging the motor angle a bit, it ran faster than before.

BE2460B2-7557-437C-ABEC-554FE6862641.jpeg
 
Good morning. Cloudy again and 50 degrees. More rain today, perhaps a quarter of an inch. We might get to 60 later if we are lucky.

You all have a great day.
 
Good evening Mossberg Owners.

I spent most of today working on my boat, getting it ready to go fishing tomorrow.

I renamed the boat officially, today; meaning that I scraped off the old name, and I painted the new name on the transom.

Back when the boat was running 24 volt motors I had named it the X-24v, but now that it has been upgraded to 36 volts, I have christened it X-36v.

I didn’t smash a bottle of champagne on it but there was a shot of Jack Daniels in the shed. LOL

Boats usually have either women’s names or these romantic names like Sunchaser or Sea Eagle or Tide Raven… I don’t know...WTH…. I decided it was better off to have a clinical name, so I didn’t have to explain it to anyone.

Anyhow the boat is all buttoned up & the batteries are on the chargers. I’m gonna take Judy fishing tomorrow morning just as early as she can get her butt into the truck.
I’ve never had a boat big enough for a name, but I’ve always been partial to “Sea-word”and lately, “ it will keel”.. lol.
 
By the way, I took the boat out again Monday and we picked up three nice fish.

The boat ran great but unfortunately I noticed a hot connection on the fuse panel, and my main switches were getting hot as well. I think I’m going to get rid of the main switches and the fuse and just put in a big circuit breaker.

It only needs to handle what you can put through a 10 gauge wire but try to find a switch that good.

I’m gonna have to order out.
 
The couple boats I’ve had were only 8 and 12’ long, so never named them. I always used biggish circuit breakers for main power cutoff in car stereo installs. My local discount car audio place usually had a decent selection, but that was a while ago..487C0005-5D0A-4EE7-85D4-EAB2BA569DBA.jpeg
 
This is the old fuse panel after I removed the fuse holders and wires and dug it out of the fuse box, & it’s pretty scarred up now.
image.jpg
But you can see the char marks where the wood got hot. It charred at the main fuse & at the ground connection.
 
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