AC wiring

SolentPhill

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My boat is Canadian made for the European Market and yesterday I changed over one of the plug sockets from the 2 pin European with an adapter in to a 3 pin uk socket.

When I took the wires out they were black, White,green, using an electrical screwdriver I found the live is white, so that was the way I wired it up. During a conversation with someone at Marina who asked what job I was doing he said black was live. Today I took one of those plugs with 3 lights to see if it was wired the right way, I found it was, but the last socket i changed was wrong, so i chased the wires from that one and found these wires had a brown so i had obviously wired the brown as live not the white. After a swap round i had 3 lights so that is also wired correctly.

But being ac does it matter? And if anyone else is doing electrical work a £2 screwdriver and a £5 plug in tester from camping shop were invaluable
 

John100156

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It can matter with some pieces of equipment, it can also affect the paths when faults occur on a system and the discrimination. Often this is not correct, so instead of a first breaker blowing as it should the one backing it up does.

Remember the UK phase conductor colours were Red, Yellow and Blue for phase conductors and black for neutral. Then flexible cables to equipment were brown for phase and blue for neutral. The new uk wiring cable colours are brown, black and grey for phase and blue for neutral.

But with boats take nothing for granted, make sure all sockets are properly earthed and sockets are properly tested with your plug top tester. If in any doubt whatsoever call in a qualified sparks, better to be safe than sorry!
 

SolentPhill

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Thanks for the reply, one of the sockets in galley is not earthed should it be, should I run an earth to it. Being in the galley it's a fan heater and kettle that use it.
 

Elessar

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Thanks for the reply, one of the sockets in galley is not earthed should it be, should I run an earth to it. Being in the galley it's a fan heater and kettle that use it.

Yes. It's unlikely to matter, but you're unlikely to use your liferaft, and you still buy one.

The earth is the oldest protection type. If a fault somehow makes the outer case of an earthed device live, which is obviously potentially lethal, the earth connection will take current to earth, and blow the supply fuse making the item safe.

We now have RCDs as protection too, which measure any leak to earth (which might be via you) and rapidly cut the supply.

About 65v is enough potential to produce enough current to kill you if conditions are right. It's nice to have all the protection you can get.
 
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