Electric Hazard

[dottieshusband]

I'm the 3rd owner of this boat. The PO was an older gentleman in FLL, and had a "Captain" who I assume did work on this boat. I never met him, but I know his name and will not mention it here. I'm replacing the old rope lights with COB LED lighting. Just thought I'd show the quality of that guys work. I mean really, it's not much more trouble or cost to do a decent job.

 

[Jammin']

I'm sorry I'm not alone in experiencing all the ways in which just a little bit of care would have made such a difference. I'm glad you caught it before it caught you.

 

[Pascal]

The electric tape near the plug is a red flag but I have to say I ve seen many of these older rope light burn up inside like that. Sometimes because they were bunched up too tight but sometimes just on straight sections.

 

[dottieshusband]

I might be late to the party. I've been using these waterproof, center solder Ticonn connectors with a mini butane heat gun. These things are great!

 

[Boatsb]

Solder is not ABYC or CG approved. It must have a crimp. Solder makes wires brittle too. It's not acceptable alone and will not meet spec.

 

[dottieshusband]

Upper valance track/heat sink for the COB LED track installed. The COB lights are not the smd5050 traditional lights. You can't see the individual LED's, they are much brighter per meter, and need no diffuser. What will they think of next!

 

[JuiceClark]

That's what nearly every LED light looked like on my boat - because they were 12v and cooking on 32v. The 8 I replaced in the ER were so hot the housing would burn your finger.

Between all the poorly spliced wires, use of house wire, hot 110v wires poorly capped and other fire hazards..... my ol' girl is lucky to have made it into caring hands. There was a 220v hot wire from the watermaker just sitting loose by the a/c in the ER. The a/c guy had a fit!

 

[Pascal]

To be fair this is no worst than some the early factory wiring. When I rewired my 53 I found splices inside the walls and ceilings using just electrical tape. Considering the location i know it was original. Worst... the port and starboard shore power lines where spliced together with a piece of split copper pipe. And plenty of tape. One side wires ran straight to the panel and in the gen room Hatteras remove a couple of inches of insulation, and crimped the other side feed with the piece of split copper pipe

But that was the 70s and it worked for 48 years!

 

[Captain Ralph]

I opened a panel in our Bertram's aft saloon after our purchase a couple of years. Reached in and settled my hand down.
Got zapped as soon as some weight went on my hand.
UN-terminated 115Vac line had been sitting there since factory.
F M

Fred Flintstone may have put some of our stuff together. Luck and spit has kept it under control.

 

[rwaldrop13]

Had similar issues with the LED "petal" lights in the overhead fixtures PO installed from V-berth all the way aft to master. I had one pop explosively, and my son grabbed it with a silicon oven mitt. I pulled all of them and replaced with the original style halogen bulbs. Issue is that PO fell for Amazon, where these LED flat lights were listed as 12/24/32volt replacements for the halogen bulbs the fixtures originally came with. While he did a quality job when he installed rope LED's he did not show the same care when he looked for bulb replacements/upgrades. There is a 70' Marlowe here in our marina that had the same LED bulb replacements - one of them exploded and it just happened to be while one of the marina staff was checking the boat and was able to prevent a fire. Here is what the offending LED lights look like - Be aware, they're not really rated for 24 or 32 volt but sellers on Amazon swear they are.

 

[Pascal]

I ve used a lot of these on a 24 volt system qnd usually they work. Not on 32 though. I did have one batch that was mis labeled and really 12v only. They just burned out internallly. No damage.

 

[racclarkson@gmail.com]

I have a GFI outlet in the cockpit that needed moving. When I couldn’t kill the juice with any breaker, I found it wired directly to the buss. Guess whoever did it figured the GFI receptacle was breaker enough.

 

[BOATER BOB]

Lots and lots of factory boats wired with house wire and home breakers out there with no problems all around the world!

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Lots and lots of factory boats wired with house wire and home breakers out there with no problems all around the world!

No problem at all

 

[Captain Ralph]

No problem at all

I see no problem. Just a fine reduction in FRP.