Hard wiring

[Edwardo]

What type of cable or connections do I need to hard wire firstly a cd/radio and secondly a bilge pump. Do I need a special connect terminal at the battery?

Thanks for any answers

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[vyv_cox]

It's not good practice to take a variety of connections direct to the battery. Firstly you need to decide whether you want these devices to be permanently live. Many do, and I suppose if you are having an automatic bilge pump you must, but personally when I switch my batteries off I want them OFF.

Next, assuming they are to be permanently live, they must be fused. So I suggest you put an auxiliary fuse panel connected to the live side of your rotary switch and take these connections to it. So far as the cable is concerned it depends on the run length for the pump but probably not for the radio. There are tables that relate length of wire to current consumption, giving you the cross sectional area that avoids voltage drop. Someone will no doubt be able to point you to one.

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[dickh]

Also try and use Tinned Copper cable - it won't corrode and go black like copper cable in a salt laden atmosphere. Other than that, all as vyv-cox has said.

<hr width=100% size=1>dickh
I'd rather be sailing... /forums/images/icons/smile.gif