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Old 03-07-2017, 03:44 AM   #18
sdowney717
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City: Seaford Va on Poquoson River, VA
Vessel Name: Old Glory
Vessel Model: 1970 Egg Harbor 37 extended salon model
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 2,264
Another issue if you raise DC volts so you can use smaller gauge wires is the DC switches.
As AC power goes through zero as it cycles up and down, when opening or closing a switch, the resultant arcs get quenched. But DC being on all the time, the arcs with higher DC voltages will destroy the switches.
Car makers years ago were looking at using 48 volt DC systems for efficiency reasons, but the switches were breaking down, so we can be glad they gave up this idea.

And another thing, 12vdc being low voltage system, does not need special human protection circuit breakers etc.
They have a cutoff point as higher DC volts would need to meet greater circuit protection requirements. At some level is no longer a low voltage system.

Imagine requiring DC based ELCI or GFCI or AFCI protection.
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