I’ve long been meaning to give a hearty shout out to a slightly odd site called Compass Marine. What’s odd is that the author — RC Collins, an ABYC certified marine electrical technician and sailor — is using an online database designed for photographers to create excellent how-to articles on subjects like Installing a Battery Monitor. But once you get used to the captioned illustration format, I think you’ll be amazed. As suggested in the screen shot above, RC built a demo 12v power system so he could photo illustrate the Victron BMV-602S installation to near perfection, and he even annotates some of his photos to further make his points. This amount of work is not trivial. Collins could use a copy editor (me too!), but he really knows his stuff and he goes to extraordinary lengths to explain what he knows…

I’ve got shore power running to Gizmo right now, as I’m trying to get the batteries in tip top shape for the frigid months to come, and I feel a lot better about that situation because I recently installed the SmartPlug system above. Maybe I’m paranoid but I’ve heard of so many boat fires which started at the shore power inlet that I’m always reluctant to leave one active when I’m not around. But that 30 amp SmartPlug inlet is carefully designed to avoid heat-inducing resistance and it also contains a trip thermostat which cuts power at 200º F (just before wire insulation begins to soften). Plus the inlet is very easy to install, and when you first use the orange plug itself, you too will likely wonder why we’ve been messing with twist locks all these years. With its obvious orientation and lock levers, a glance at its straight blades is not necessary. The blue “I’ve got power” LED is a useful touch too. But can SmartPlug change the traditional hardware world of shore power?…