Wiring LIghts etc into my main (and only) battery...best practice?

[maillme]

Hi all,

I bought a very simple stern light for my small canal boat.

It has an 8k outboard and standard battery. I wired my stern light straight ot the battery. All seems to work fine.

I was considering buying some LED's for inside my boat (these ones: http://www.bootplus.nl/index.php?pa...category_id=86&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1)

I had a few questions:

1. Should I buy some sort of small switch panel, then wire this to the battery somehow?
2. How should I wire more than 1 LED together - say 5? E.g. I'm not going to connect all of these individually to the battery or a switch, but i'm not sure the piece of hardware I need to achieve this?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge in this area.

thanks for any help,
Neil

 

[kashurst]

yes - get a small switch panel with fuses for each switch just in case of a failure or short circuit to protect the boat. Probably a good idea to fit a battery isolator switch too if the boat doesn't have one so you can work on the electrics safely and easily
the leds just connect across 12V - there will be a positive and negative connection.