Complete guide to wiring a boat electrical system from scratch. Starting from the 12V boat battery, we look at configuring a complete electrical system including master isolation switch, main switch panel with fuses, bus-bar (electrical distribution bar) and various boat electrical components such as bilge pumps and navigation lights.

To jump straight into the video guide, click on the image below:

This guide starts from scratch, and over a series of video guides we build a complete boat electrical system, starting with the battery terminals. In Part 1 we build a 'buck' representing parts of the boat such as the engine room, bilges, cabin space, cockpit and we begin to install the component parts of the boat electrical system in really easy steps, explaining the method and reasoning along the way. This how-to guide for boat electrics is based on the kind of electrical system you would find or need in a small to medium sized boat. We hope this guide will be useful for installing an electrical system from scratch, and also for adding to an existing electrical system.

In this guide we look at the importance of having a master electrical isolation switch in your boat, and talk about positioning of the master switch. We also explain the reason for having a busbar for making the wiring of the 12V negative side of the circuit easy and organised.  Some of the components seen here can be found in our shop category by clicking on the image below:

Also in Part 1 we look at some different types of switch panel, with different styles of fuse holders, different levels of water-proofing, and the importance of choosing a good location for the switch panel. The positioning of the switch panel is a balance between have a location which is shielded from rain and sea spray, but easy to get to.

At the end of this first part, we have installed the main battery mast switch, the busbar and the switch panel, which is used to control the electrics to most of the individual electrical devices in the boat.

In Part 2 we will build out the wiring from here, connecting the main feeds to the switch panel, and beginning to install some of the individual electrical components in our boat 'mock-up' buck. Some of the electrical items seen in this video can be found in the link below:

https://www.boatfittings.co.uk/collections/electrical

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