Electrical panel decision

[rescuesailor]

I spent last weekend sanding, sanding , and more sanding. In order to keep my spirits up I decided to work on my electrical panel installation. I beleive the proper place for it is going to be against the hull in the navigation table area. There is a lift up table top that is located approximately 5 inches from the ceiling on the hull. The ceiling is varnished. instead of attaching bus bars on this surface I thought I would build some back panels where I could run wires behind them, provide access holes to route wires,and genreally keep things clean and neat.

some thing like this

The problem I am having is clearance. The electrical panel I have requires 3" of space behind it in order to clear the DC shunt. By the time I use 1/2" ply for the back panels, add the clearance for the busbars and wire, things are getting close! I am thinking about staggering the back panels and than building out a cabinet in order to place radios and other accessories.

very tight quarters

mock up of cabinet

Any other ideas?

[rescuesailor]

Trying to figure out how to wire this panel shown above. There is a shunt on the back. it is prewired to both rows of breakers on one side. The other side had a piece of green wire going to it. Doesn't mean much considering the mess of wire that attached it to the boat. If my research is right the input from the batteries should go to the other side of the shunt? When I measure the ohm resistance across the shunt I get 750 on my meter. When I hook my battery to it nothing works. Can a shunt be blown? Do I have this wrong? I would like to find a wiring diagram for the Marinetics 660/5 panel. Anybody know anything about this issue?

[rescuesailor]

Unfortunately the company seems to be out of business. I found the same info as you but there is no one home. I have found some info on DC shunts, but I can not seem to get a handle on the exact electrical hookups. I have attached some pictures to see if anyone else has a simular panel. The first is a picture of the back.

This is the back showing all paosible connections

In this picture I placed a pencil to point out where the old wire was connected. It was green which is not what I would expect for a positive wire but nothing else in the old wiring made sense.

DC Shunt connection

When I hook up a 12volt power source to this point I get no power in the other side of the shunt. My electrical meter reads 231 when set up to read ohms. I am not much of an electrician so I do not know what the proper reading should be. Can these things go bad? Also I found this jumper on the main breaker for the AC system. My thought is it should be for the neutral and should not be attached to the hot side of the breakers. That way the neutral is protected and more importantly shut off in the case of reverse polarity. Any thoughts on this?

Jumper cable
jumper cable

Finally I have taken a picture of the mock up of the new electrical panel installation. Do you think this is enough clearance or should I increase it as much as possible?

[mitiempo]

As far as I can tell without being there the stud you are pointing to with the pencil should be the positive feed with the upper end of the shunt leading to the feed side of the breakers as it does now. Are you not getting any voltage through the shunt?

As far as the AC neutral jumper, where does it go to and from? The panel doesn't seem to have any provision for neutral at all, so the neutral should go from its part of the main breaker to a separate bus located behind the panel where all the load neutrals are also connected.

[mitiempo]

Trying to figure out how to wire this panel shown above. There is a shunt on the back. it is prewired to both rows of breakers on one side. The other side had a piece of green wire going to it. Doesn't mean much considering the mess of wire that attached it to the boat. If my research is right the input from the batteries should go to the other side of the shunt? When I measure the ohm resistance across the shunt I get 750 on my meter. When I hook my battery to it nothing works. Can a shunt be blown? Do I have this wrong? I would like to find a wiring diagram for the Marinetics 660/5 panel. Anybody know anything about this issue?

David

Exactly how are you "hooking your battery to it", wire by wire from the battery?

The green wire was most likely an AC ground wire originally.

Shunts are not unique to a manufacturer - the large lugs pass the current to the load and the small connections go to the meter.

[triton318]

Not sure why you need a hammer in the panel. If you take that out, you'll have more room!