Electronics Revisited

I have thrown around electrical terms in the past, amps for instance, like I know what I’m talking about. I don’t. I thought I was quite clever with my whole look at the needle on the ammeter and that’s how much electricity is flowing through the system strategy. Turns out I need a much better strategy and it involves maths.

For Peter’s birthday last year he received a little book called Ugly’s Electrical References from Mr. and Mrs. Coastie Guy (along with How Boat Things Work and a giant book on types of corrosion, which have all come in handy).

Mr. Coastie Guy is our go-to boat dude. He was the one we conscripted into service during our ill-fated attempt to bring the boat from North Carolina. He is the one we call when something on Devilfish doesn’t make sense or doesn’t look right or is melting for no apparent reason. He is someone who I would give the title of Boat Expert having been immersed in the Coast Guard for nearly thirty years. If he says this is the book to have then we won’t argue.

Peter has been doing basic electrical things this past year, like replacing fuses that were smoking, cutting back electrical wires that were corroded, changing suspect-looking outlets for CGFIs, etc. The extent of my electrical work has been to unplug a broken stereo. 

Now we are looking at adding another battery or two to our battery bank which, as it turns out, is not such a Basic Electrical Thing.

I won’t pretend to go into all the stuff that needs to be considered when adding a battery to an existing bank/wiring/electrical panel/whizgummythingy because I haven’t attempted to understand it. I did, however, pull out Ugly’s and open it to the most likely sections.

Yeah. Electricity is complicated. I think I’ll just delude myself with the ammeter needle thing and leave the math formulas to the professionals.