12v Outlet Circuit Breaker

[britinusa]

This weekend, the fuse on my West Marine Air pump for the dink had blown - not sure when.

Dug around my spares and did not have an 8amp fuse. Really needing to pump the dink, so I made a fuse from 3 strands of tinned copper wire. My thoughts were that they would melt before anything else overheated. Worked fine, I'll get a couple of new fuses this week.

But: That's when I realized that there is no circuit breaker for the 12v outlets! We have a total of 3 outlets - 2 at the nav station and 1 in the aft berth. Don't know if any of them are original.

My plan is to install a 10amp 12v circuit breaker in the electrical panel and wire all of the outlets to that CB. I'm also going to add 12v outlets/USB charging points in the V-Berth and by the cabin dinning table.

My Question: Did the boat originally have 12v outlets and did the boat originally have a Circuit breaker for those outlets?

Thanks.

Paul

[Stu Jackson]

My Question: Did the boat originally have 12v outlets and did the boat originally have a Circuit breaker for those outlets?

No.

[KWKloeber]

Paul

Can you verify the wire size? 
18 awg = 20a; 16 awg = 25a; 14 =

I like to run the largest breaker at the source and then step it down before the equipment (or fuse in the 12v plug.)

-kk

[britinusa]

I have a spare 15Amp in my supplies box.
The Air Pump has an 8amp fuse - So Max load of <8amps
Handheld GPS <2Amps
Samsung Phone <2Amps
Samsung Tablet <2Amps

If everything was plugged in at the same time, about <14Amps,

As mentioned in others posts, I have not found a single piece of Marine Wiring on the boat! So I'll be running all new cables for the 12v system.

I'm going to install the Circuit Breaker beneath the Battery Test Switch (see attached edited image of my panel)(When I can upload the file, the file size limitation appears to shrink each time I try it, now it has to be smaller than 200k 

Paul

[britinusa]

Here's my edited panel showing where I would put the 12v Outlets Breaker.
The pic looks awful, but that's due to the necessity to shrink it to below 200K - Sorry.

[KWKloeber]

Looks like a good spot Paul.  Running 10awg no matter what size breaker you install?

kk

[DaveBMusik]

My PO redid all the wiring and was kind enough to install a new panel!  If you have an unlimited bank account...

https://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm/product/1816_744/electrical-panel-masterbr-acdc-85-x-19.cfm

[britinusa]

My PO redid all the wiring and was kind enough to install a new panel!  If you have an unlimited bank account...

https://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm/product/1816_744/electrical-panel-masterbr-acdc-85-x-19.cfm

34 of those panels and I would have a new boat!