A
Anonymous
Guest
Doing a complete new 12V and 120V electrical system on my wife's West Wight Potter 19 sailboat. I planned on using 16ga. as the minimum size primary wire from the 12V circuit breaker panel to loads in keeping with ABYC's recommendation. None of the loads, including ganged lighting, exceed 1A. The leads, however, from all the low amperage LED lights, fans, etc., are all 22ga. None of these 22ga. leads are over 4" and will likely be trimmed even shorter. Still, at 3A max. current rating for 22ga. wire it appears that I need to fuse each run from the circuit breakers and switches. I had thought that the 15A breakers in the load center would protect the system since I am using 16ga. wire throughout the boat for distribution. Since these circuits now include 22ga. wire at the loads, should the circuits be fused for something like 2A to protect the 3A-rated leads from the loads?