Bye Bye Marigolds

For those of you not from England, you may not know but marigolds is the generic, name for dishwashing latex gloves, hideous things, they start off protecting your hands, but in my case usually fill up with chemicals which pickle your fingers all the time you’re cleaning. Anyway, I finished the quarter berth today, which is the last major deep cleaning job. It’s also looking smart.
I cleaned under the berth as well, the bilge area comes up lovely and white with a little scrubbing, and it also makes tracing the wiring easier, for it is in this area that the batteries and lots of heavy electrical kit resides.

outback
The big black thing is an Outback 2kw sinewave converter/charger

I was able to work out the mains supply issues that had been worrying me. The transformer is a straightforward 240 to 110V step down transformer.

transformer
step down transformer

The way it is wired, without any isolation means it is always in circuit, which is slightly hazardous, and also not the best configuration. I’m just working out the best way to change this scheme. 80% of the world (according to wiki) is on 220V, but America, Canada, Mexico, Central America and a lot of the Caribbean is 110V as is Japan, so I don’t want to be burning any bridges, especially as I have a plan to end up in Seattle to sell the boat at some point in the future.

Anyway, from now on the challenges are either intellectual, or for my wallet, as I get the systems working and kit her out for offshore sailing.