Cabin 12v Wiring Complete

Jan and her apprentice (me!) finished the 12v wiring in the cabin.  There is some remaining wiring to be done in the bow (horn, headlight, etc) and we haven’t touched the engine compartment.

The Empirbus system reduces the lengths of the cables and the only real difficulty we experienced was securing the cables to the ceiling.  I tried using small cardboard squares stapled to the timber battens as cable supports.  However this wasn’t successful.  In the end we opted for masking tape and; where necessary; stapled the tape to the spray foam or battens.  It’s not very secure but only has to hold the cables until the carpenters fit the ceiling next week.

The locations of the three Empirbus nodes are starting to accumulate a significant number of cables.

Cables for the midships node

The 5 metre HDMI cable ordered on Amazon two days ago arrived and is already installed.  You can see one end of it (red arrow) in the following photo.

The Network Media Tank (NMT) and satellite dome controller will be in the top portion of the display cabinet which is located on the centreline of the boat adjacent to the diesel stove.  The HDMI cable runs between the NMT and the main TV which is in a cabinet on the starboard side of the boat.  There is a flexible conduit duct between the display cabinet and the TV.  This will be used for the satellite dome feed to the TV.  I’m also waiting on some coaxial TV aerial cable.  The terrestrial antenna will be located at the front of the cabin.  There is a small TV in the main bedroom and the large TV in the saloon.  So the coaxial cable needs to run from the entry box in the cratch to the main TV cabinet where it will be connected to a 12v amplifier.  From there is goes to a three way splitter.  One feeds the small TV.  The second feeds the main TV and the third feeds the NMT which containers two TV tuners for recording live TV.  The idea is to have both terrestrial and satellite coverage.  There’s currently no available funds for a satellite dome; hence the conduit and drawer cable.

Today, Andy and I had a brief discussion about configuring the Empirbus system.  The system usb port will be located on the instrument and gauges panel.  Andy made the sensible suggestion that we keep a backup copy of the initial configuration file.  Then when I start playing with the configuration and totally muck-up the system I’ll be able to reinstall the initial configuration.  I’ve already decided the extractor fan in the bathroom will be configured to run for five minutes after the shower pump has been turned off.  There will also be a master switch beside the bed to shut down all non essential consumables.  That way we won’t have to go around the boat at night turning everything off (or forgetting to!)  The Hurricane central heater will be linked into the system.  If we are away from Waiouru we will be able to send her a text message to start the Hurricane and run for a pre-set time.  I can already see I’m going to have fun “playing” with the configuration!