advice needed with 12v light and electrics

[voicey]

Hello everyone

I am new to this forum and to boating.
I have recently purchased a mariners mate yacht / cabin boat and have a Yamaha 8hp outboard fitted. The boat is bare and has no lights or electrics. Was wondering if anyone can advise on best ( cheapest ) way to go about installing lights and power.

Cheers.

 

[Alpha22]

Does the outboard produce any electricity at 12 volts DC?

If not, you just need a battery and some lights... when the battery is flat, you need some way of recharging it..... take it home? Solar?? Wind???

 

[pmagowan]

Welcome. Best and cheapest rarely go together. You need to decide what electrics you need, lights, phone chargers, instruments etc. Then you need the appropriate sized wiring to the places these things will be. You run this back to a switch panel which can have fuses or circuit breakers. From here you have heavier cable (to cope with everything being on together) to your battery. You may also want a battery isolation switch so that you can completely disconnect the battery. It is useful to have a battery monitor although you can just get a cheap volt meter. To charge the battery you need to think about shore power, solar, wind, generator or if your OB has some capability in this area.

P.S. when I rewired I used special marine cable which is tinned to avoid corrosion. It is also covered with a plastic that does not ignite if overheated and is resistant to all the things it could be exposed to on a boat. I used proper marine crimp terminals with glue and with glued heatshrink to protect from moisture. I used LED's everywhere to avoid battery drain. It cost a lot more than getting ordinary B&Q wire and cheap fittings but it has not gone wrong yet.

 

[voicey]

Very true regarding best and cheapest, and yes the outboard does have a cigarette lighter socket, if this makes sense. Although fuse boards and switch gear is probably the better and safest option, is is only my first boat and was fairly cheap. So didn't want to go too mad, if you know what I mean.

 

[pmagowan]

Very true regarding best and cheapest, and yes the outboard does have a cigarette lighter socket, if this makes sense. Although fuse boards and switch gear is probably the better and safest option, is is only my first boat and was fairly cheap. So didn't want to go too mad, if you know what I mean.

What do you want to run? If you only need a few lights you can get a pack of stick-on LED lights powered by AA batteries which do the job well for a season. If you have a single socket from the OB then you can use that for anything else when under way. If you go down the route of an actual battery bank such as a lead acid 'car' battery then you really should look at doing it properly, even for a limited installation. A small boat burns just as effectively as a big one.