what's that burning smell?

Switches all mounted neatly in the new panel

(pic to follow in a bit)

Then I repositioned the batteries and sorted the cabling to them out... its all now very neat and tidy, and a significant amount of unnecessary cable removed, so that should help with voltage drops. Its all also neatly clipped up and routed carefully, so looks a lot tidier. It also shows that I can get 4 batteries in of the size i've got, so I reckon that there is space for up to 440Ah in the future.

Along the way, I very nearly had a bit of a disaster..... I fitted the domestic batteries in the right location and proceeded to reattach the power leads.... and on attaching the negative, there was a funny sparking noise and a burning smell.... eek.... I'd fitted the leads the wrong way round.... and the alternator cable was smoking!!!!!!

I removed them a LOT quicker than i'd fitted them, and redid them the right way round.... phew!

I couldn't get the engine to start afterwards, but don't think its related, as the starter span OK, and the engine turned over... its a diesel, so doesn't have any electrical circuit to worry about.... as to whether the alternator and alternator controller have survived, i'll only find out when I can get the engine started.

These tasks took me all day, until time to leave, so nowhere near as much done as i'd hoped, but still good progress.