Two in one?

[sonny.barile]

I have a 5 switch board on my boat. Its the circuit breaker type (no fuses). 4 are used for the boats lights, fish Finder, pump, and livewell. I would like to add a USB port but I also want a horn. Can I run both items back to the the one circuit switch?

I would be feeding two wires back to one for the positive and neg....

I think the small under dash horns are about 3amps draw and the USB depending on the phone brand would be 0.5 to 1 amp draw. Neither would see a whole lot of use.......

 

[DaleH]

Sure! What I do is determine which of all those accessories are UNLIKELY to be turned on all at the same time, then wire it to that circuit.

Worst case, keep your lights, fish finder & bilge pump integral, (i.e., all safety items) so as to avoid any power loss, and maybe put the horn on the livewell circuit. Horn use, as is, is momentary.

 

[sonny.barile]

Thank you Dale.

As far as a horn......I have a 16 ft. Utility type aluminum with a side console. Are the small electric horns loud enough to be mounted under the console? It seems counter intuitive to me but I do see plenty of folks have them there.


This is the horn I was thinking about. It’s available at my local WM.

https://www.westmarine.com/buy/marinco--stainless-steel-compact-electric-single-horn--378895?recordNum=12

 

[DaleH]

Not sure of your setup, but I'd mount it on a vertical bulkhead at the top of your console. Usually they have a plastic screen that bolts/rivets to the panel, with the horn from behind or such.

TIP - Try to mount the electric horn part tipped down in front, if you can, to help it drain if water gets ingested ...

 

[InSaneFisherMan]

Make sure all your wiring (+ & -), switches, and breaker are correct for the circuit.

If each switch has an independent circuit breaker, I would recommend using wire that exceeds the rating of the circuit breaker that is used.

 

[sonny.barile]

Picked up a Marinco Miniblast horn and a button yesterday from West Marine. I found a place on a flat bracket under my console to mount it where it won’t get wet. Two #10 pan heads, flat washers, and locking nuts. The horn came with lead wires already attached. The switch had screw terminals. The available circuit also had a good run of wire already there. I had bought a few feet of wire just in case but ended up not needing it. After placing the horn I went in the garage to fetch a 5/8” drill and I can’t remember what I did with it. Back in the car to Home Depot for a 5/8 bit. I get home, drilled the hole and installed the button. I made my connections and decided that I didn’t want to put heat shrink over the crimps and went with electrical tape over the connections for ease of future replacements.

Now keep in mind that no where in the above paragraph did I mention testing this.......Due to my “honey do” list I got a late start and was racing sun down.

I flicked on the circuit and nothing. Which part is faulty? Horn, button switch, or circuit breaker? I hit the circuit reset and still nothing. I uninstalled everything so I could bring the horn over to my 12 v trolling motor receptacle and touched both wires to it and I got a honk. I put the horn directly to the circuit wires and nothing. I pulled out the circuit panel and one of the terminals was unplugged. Doh!!!

I reinstalled everything and now have a very loud honker......I couldn’t find a simple single socket USB. They had some dual USB sockets but they are multi voltage with a bunch of wires.........I will stick with my pocket sized battery back-up. It’s not worth the headache......

Moral of the story......don’t be like me. Test everything before you install.....and again before you seal up the connections.