Archive for the ‘Battery Switch’ Category

Marine electrical questions?

June 28th, 2010 by Kevin Hannula

Marine Ac/Dc attempts to answer your questions about boat wiring and marine electrical techniques, concepts, and products. We get lots of mail from folks in mid-project or who are just curious about their boat’s electrical setup.

There are loads of post already on the site which we hope you will browse through. If you’re trying to track down info about a more specific category, please use the search box in the upper right of this page or check out the list of various subjects farther down on this page.

If you aren’t able to find the info that you need to complete your particular boat wiring project, please send us an email at boatwiring@gmail.com.

Thank you for visiting. We look forward to hearing from you and hope that you will be able to come back often.

Posted in Battery Charger, Battery Switch, Boat Wiring, Bow Thruster, Circuit Protection, Corrosion, Cruisers, Gauge Panels, Harnesses, Marine Electrical, Navigation Lights, Pontoons, Runabouts, Signaling Devices, Switch Panels, Testing, Trolling Motors, Uncategorized, VSR, Wipers | Comments Off

Glen-L Wiring

January 30th, 2012 by Marine Ac/Dc

Kevin,

I am building a 16′ wooden bass boat using the Glen-L design and it is about 80% complete. I am now getting ready to outfit the interior, build the helm, purchase my motor, etc.

I have visited your sister boat wiring site and it looks like just what I will need due to its simplified “plug and play ” approach. What I am looking for is advice on everything I will need to wire my boat using EzAcDc marine electrical.

My boat wiring needs include:

In summary, I need everything and look to your recommendation to help me get what I need to fully wire my boat from the boat wiring harness to fuses, circuit breakers, switches, etc.

Thank you.

Kelly

Hi Kelly,

Your boat sounds great! Thank you for your interest in the products at our sister site.

Here is the boat wiring that I would recommend.

  • Fully wired eight switch marine electrical panel. This comes with one panel mounted 12 volt receptacle and you will want to add a second remote outlet.
  • Boat wiring harness that quickly snaps together with the panel above.
  • Smart Battery Switch system for two batteries. This includes cables, ground bus, and you will want to add a couple of battery boxes.
  • Navigation lights are controlled by the nav/anc switch in your new switch panel. Wiring for split red and green lights and a single white stern light is included with the boat wiring harness. The site has a variety of Attwood LED navigation light kits that may suite your needs. All come with connectors so that they will snap right onto the new harness.
  • I would run 8 AWG tinned wire for your trolling motor.
  • Please send me the specs and length of total wire run for the power winch to determine the cable size requirements.
  • Currently we do not stock a trolling motor connection. My preference in the Marinco Connect Pro System.
  • You can use one of the switches on the new panel for the stereo. The new panel will even include a pre-printed “STEREO” switch cap. There is a ground, constant power (memory), and switched power coming off of the back of the switch for a stereo. We do not include speaker wire.
  • The boat wiring harness has two breakouts for courtesy lights. The switch panel kit also includes a “COURTESY LIGHTS” switch cap.
  • We do not have fish finders, but you can get power for your fish finder from one of the breakers on your new switch panel.
  • The switch panel comes pre-wired with a horn button and the boat harness includes wiring for a horn.
  • We also have boat horns that will attach easily onto the new harness.
  • We do not have gauges. Most of the gauge wiring will be included with your engine harness.
  • Our harness comes with one bilge pump and auto float switch connection. You can either run a second pump from one of the switch panel accessory wire breakouts or you can use the livewell pump breakout for a second pump.
  • No additional fuse panel is needed. The switches have circuit breakers mounted directly below them on the panel. The main harness battery connection has an in-line circuit breaker for harness protection.

Thank you again for your consideration. I hope this helps,

Kevin

Kevin,

My boat anchor winch is the Deck Mate 19 Small Boat Anchor Windlass from West Marine. The draw is 15 amps @ 12 volts and the winch includes a built in 15A circuit breaker. The length of wire from the helm to the power winch at the bow is roughly 9 feet. Please advise cable size requirement.

Thank you.

Kelly

Hi Kelly,

18′ run total @ 15 amps with 3% drop, I would run 10 AWG wire.

Kevin

Posted in Anchor Lights, Battery cables, Battery Switch, Bilge Pumps, Boat Batteries, Boat Wiring, Bow Light, Circuit Protection, Courtesy Lights, Engine Harness, Fuel Gauge, Gauge Panels, Harnesses, Harnesses-DC, Horn, LED Lights, Marine Electrical, Masthead Lights, Navigation Lights, Rope Lights, Smart Battery Switch, Switch Panels, Trolling Motors, VSR | Comments Off

Correct Cable

January 9th, 2012 by Marine Ac/Dc

Hi Kevin,

I’m redoing the boat wiring an my old 1978 Catalina 25 sailboat.

I need to know which gauge of marine electrical battery cable to use in connecting the batteries to the boat battery switches and the switches to the boat bus bars. The overall distance for the wire runs is no more than 48”.Boat Wiring Store offers a complete line of battery cables that are custom built for your boat wiring project

Thanks.

Brice

Hi Brice,

This will depend greatly on the loads.

If you have a simple DC system and no starting motors, then you could use 4 AWG battery cable. If you use these batteries to start an engine or you have a large DC load bank, I would go with at least 2 AWG battery cable.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Posted in Battery cables, Battery Switch, Boat Wiring, Marine Electrical | Comments Off

Columbia Rewire

December 5th, 2011 by Marine Ac/Dc

Hello Kevin,

I’ve recently became the owner of a Columbia 22 sailboat built in 1969. I’ve gutted the boat wiring from her and need to rewire.

I need bow port and starboard navigation lights and some minor interior lights she currently has a white masthead light at the cross tree and a transom light. Both of them seem to look fine however I would like to convert to LED for all the lighting.Attwood is the world's top supplier of navigation lights for boats

She also has in place a Guest battery switch

I’m considering buying everything that I need from your snap-together boat wiring site.  But, before I do, can you tell me everything that I will need?

I think I need to control three separate lighting systems

  1. The red and green bow lights
  2. Masthead and stern
  3. Interior lights
  4. Perhaps nav/GPS and cell phone charger?

Any help would be appreciated. Your snap together wiring system seems like a real timesaver, but I didn’t want to get the wrong parts.

Finally, do you also furnish instructions on how it all hooks up to everything including battery?

Thanks again

Peter

Hi Peter,

I would start with our smaller boat wiring harness. This will provide wiring for your red/green boat lights, your white, all-round light, and interior lights.

On your boat, I would combine this harness with our five switch marine electrical panel. This panel will provide switches for your nav/anc and stern lights along with your cockpit courtesy lights.

We have several navigation light kits that plug directly into our wiring harness. Simply choose the mounting configuration for your boat.

The installation is easy and instructions are provided.

I would keep the Guest battery switch in the system. The main power connection from your new boat wiring harness will connect to the battery switch to allow you to completely turn the power off when you leave your boat.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Posted in ABYC, Anchor Lights, Battery Switch, Boat Wiring, Bow Light, Circuit Protection, Courtesy Lights, Cruisers, Horn, Marine Electrical, Masthead Lights, Mood Lights, Navigation Lights, Sailboats | Comments Off

Plane Pain

September 13th, 2011 by Marine Ac/Dc

Hi Kevin,

I have a 1991 Sea Ray 220DA with a 2006 Mercruiser 5 litre mpi.

Last time we were out on a trip, we were on plane and everything was fine. All of the sudden, we lost all power and the boat shut down.

After messing with the boat battery cables, the engine compartment blower came on, so I thought maybe it was just a loose connection.

I start the boat and go to get on plane and lose everything again, no power what so ever. Again I went through the wiring from the batteries to the battery switch and back to the starter and all seemed to be in good condition with good connections. So, after a while of just sitting there the blower comes back on and everything is back to normal.

Again, I start the boat and put it in gear and again it dies and we have no power. As you can imagine this was a very frustrating trip, this continued to happen the whole weekend and I never figured out the problem.

The last time it happened after messing with everything under the engine hatch with no luck I moved to messing with the boat wiring under the dash near the ignition switch just by giggling the wires blindly then all of the sudden we had power. I should mention that before just losing everything all of my gauges would bounce down to nothing then back to normal real quick and at the same time the engine would die for that second then back then do it for good.

So, obviously there is something loose and when we hit a wave or too much vibration we would lose the connection. After the trip, back at my house, I took the dash panel off and looked at everything but cannot figure out what the problem is.

Any thoughts on what I should look for? I don’t know what would cause total loss of power.

Hope you can help.

Thanks,

Dewayne

Hi Dewayne,

My best guess would be to look at the main boat harness plug on the engine. It is a black, molded plug that is about 1 1/2″ in diameter. It usually on the stbd side of the engine.

When you unplug it, the two big terminal pins are the main positive and negative that feed power to you helm and gauges. Intermittent connection of this positive pin would cause these problems. Engine temperature and vibration would amplify it.

Kevin

Kevin,

Thank you for your quick response.

I just checked the plug and you were right! I turned the battery switch on and the bilge blower, when I moved that plug the power cut, moved it again power came back.

There was a hose clamp helping to hold it in, so I loosened the clamp and pulled the plug. The pins looked ok so I plugged it back in and tightened the clamp. Seems to be ok, but was able to cut power by giggling it hard.

Hope this fixes my problem.

Thank you I appreciate your help,

Dewayne

Posted in Battery cables, Battery Switch, Blower, Boat Batteries, Boat Wiring, Cruisers, Ground Issues, Marine Electrical, Marine Engines, Testing | Comments Off

Houseboat Grounding

May 31st, 2011 by Kevin Hannula

Kevin,

I have questions on grounding both the 12 volt and 120 volt marine electrical on a houseboat. I have read the old threads regarding this matter but I am still thoroughly confused. Sorry that my post is long, but I am trying to explain clearly but simply:Boat Wiring Store has marine electrical products for your boat wiring project

Here is my set up:

The boat is 1976, steel hull. It has a shore power connection but because I am on a permanent mooring I do not connect to marina’s shore power.

Here are the original marine electrical systems and the boat wiring:

  1. 12 volt starting battery. Hot goes to engine starter and Negative cable on this battery is also landed at the engine. In looking how the engine is mounted, I don’t think that the engine (outboard) is isolated from the steel hull / frame.
  2. 12 volt house power: hot and negative battery cables go to marine electrical bus bars for each. These bus bars (hot and negative) then go to my 12 volt distribution panel, and to my 12 volt stereo/amp system. This 12 volt house system is not grounded anywhere that I can see. Question: Should it be grounded?
  3. 120 volt AC shore power system: Plug connection goes to a distribution panel. Typical 3 wire set up: Hot (black), Neutral (white), ground (green). I have not looked to see if the ground or neutral buses in this distribution panel are grounded anywhere on the boat. I don’t think it is, but I need to look again. Question: Should this be grounded? Because I am on a mooring, not in a slip, I never connect to actual land based shore power. When I do use this connection it is via my own portable generator on the boat. Fire up the genset, run a 30A shore power cord from gen. to shore power plug.
  4. New installation: I have connected a small 700W inverter from my 12 volt system just to run a few items (tool chargers, 120 volt rope lights, etc). The inverter has 2- 120V receptacles, no hard wire 120V. In the past I have plugged in an extension cord from the inverter to my rope lights. But, now I want to connect my rope lights through a permanently wired receptacle. I connected a 3-prong utility type cord (male plug on one end and open wires on the other). Intent to be to run this cord into a J-box where I could then run in conduit and wire to a switched receptacle for the rope lights. Funny thing is that when I checked the power coming from the 120V cord I get the following readings:
    • hot – ground: 110V
    • neutral to ground: 95 – 105V

    5. Is this correct? Shouldn’t this be 0 volts?

Everything works fine, but is this set up correct?
My biggest questions are: How should 12V system be grounded, How should 120V shore power be grounded (even though it doesn’t go to land based source), and is inverter power with current going through neutral correct?

Thanks very much for any help or clarity you can provide.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Regarding each of your boat wiring questions:

  1. You are correct. The engine is not isolated.
  2. The negative from your house battery should be tied to negative on your starting battery.
  3. Your AC ground and DC ground need to be connected to give a low resistance path to ground in the event of a major fault.
  4. Should be 0 volts.  Neutral and ground should be tied together at the inverter.
  5. AC ground should be connected to DC ground.  You should have a voltage reading of 0 Volts between AC ground and AC neutral.

I hope that this is helpful.

Kevin

Posted in AC Wiring, Battery Charger, Battery Switch, Boat Batteries, Boat Wiring, Circuit Protection, Corrosion, Cruisers, Galvanic Corrosion, Generator, Ground Issues, Marine Electrical, Shore Power, Voltmeter | Comments Off

Twin Inboard Wiring

May 23rd, 2011 by Kevin Hannula

Hello Kevin,

I’m trying to figure out my boat wiring and whether it is how it really should be wired.

It’s a twin inboard engine boat with two starter batteries and a house bank. The system includes a generator and Magnum inverter/charger. There’s also a Magnum Smart Battery Combiner wired in, as well as VSR smart battery switches on both starter batteries.

It appears that the house batteries only supply the inverter – all the 12 volt house load is on the starter batteries.A smart battery switch system takes a lot of confusion out of your marine electrical setup

There are also 3 battery on/off switches. One for each starter battery. The other is inline with the generator but I’m not sure which battery – I’m still investigating.

Given these components, how would you recommend that I hook everything up?

Thanks for your help!

Sang

Hi Sang,

My recommendation would be to either connect the 12 volt house loads to the house battery bank or add a second bank for your house and keep the inverter separate. My preference is to always have fresh starting batteries (or at least one).

If you add a bank, you can simply add another VSR smart battery switch between the house and inverter bank to allow all batteries to be charged while your engines are running.

Happy boat wiring,

Kevin

Posted in Battery Charger, Battery Switch, Boat Batteries, Boat Wiring, Marine Electrical, Runabouts, VSR | Comments Off

Which Wire Where?

May 9th, 2011 by Kevin Hannula

Kevin,

I have a 2004 Trophy 2002 boat with dual batteries and a battery switch (off, 1, 2 both).Boat Wiring Store offers the internet's most complete line of battery cables.

I am confused with the boat wiring for the batteries.

  • The battery on the left facing the back of the boat has two wires. I assume red for positive and yellow is negative. I really can’t see where they are coming from.
  • The other battery  where the battery switch is located has a red wire coming from the battery switch which I assume is positive and a yellow coming from a grounding block (at least that what it looks like) which I assume is negative to the battery.

Then I have two more wires one black and one yellow. I assumed negative but not sure if I am correct and what they are for. Do you have any explanation if I connected these wires correctly or what those two extra wires are for?

Thanks,

Frank

Hi Frank,

Before making any assumptions on which wires connect to which posts on your battery, I strongly recommend tracing them to their origin.

In general, Red is battery positive and Black or Yellow is battery negative.

If you trace the red wires to a battery switch or distribution panel, you can assume these are the positive leads.

If you trace the yellow and black to a ground bus or engine negative terminal, you can assume these are the negative leads.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Posted in Battery Charger, Battery Switch, Boat Batteries, Boat Wiring, Circuit Protection, Galvanic Corrosion, Ground Issues, Marine Electrical, Pontoons, Runabouts, Testing, Voltmeter | Comments Off

Boat Wiring Standards

May 2nd, 2011 by Kevin Hannula

Kevin,

I understand the need to switch the positive wire in a car’s electrical system, but why is it standard practice to do it on a boat that does not have a chassis ground?

I am working on a solid state circuit that would be far easier and cheaper to build if I can switch the negative lead. Is this just unconventional or will ABYC frown on it if I mass produce it for the marine market?

Thank you,Setting standards for safer boating

Kurt

Hi Kurt,

ABYC E-11.6.2.1 reads “A battery switch shall be installed in the positive conductor(s) from each battery or battery bank with a CCA rating greater than 800 amperes”. There are exceptions for trolling motors and emergency equipment but nothing for switching the negative side. The NMMA has adopted the AYBC standard for their electrical inspection. Most of these standards were written when all pumps were metal case without safety grounds and most hoses were conductive.

I see the benefits for both a negative switched and a positive switched system, but getting the industry to re-write the standard would be a challenge. I would first contact the ABYC to see when the next E-11 technical committee is meeting and find out if you can attend.

Kevin

Posted in ABYC, Battery Switch, Boat Wiring, Marine Electrical, New Products | Comments Off

Boat Wiring Diagram for 1966 TriHull?

March 7th, 2011 by Kevin Hannula

Kevin,

Ok, so I just recently purchased a 1966 18ft Caravelle trihull boat. Caravelle Trihull

Are there any boat wiring diagrams or anything like that for me to use for the rebuild?

Jake

Hi Jake,

Probably not. You may be able to use our standard boat wiring color table combined with a meter to decipher the wires. Most likely you will end up pulling new wires for circuits that just don’t work anymore.

Our partners at EzAcDc have everything from bulk boat wire to snap together boat wiring systems that would work great in your boat.

Good luck,

Kevin

Posted in Battery Switch, Bilge Pumps, Boat Batteries, Boat Wiring, Gauge Panels, Harnesses, Harnesses-Dash, Harnesses-DC, Horn, Ignition Switch, Marine Electrical, Navigation Lights, Signaling Devices, Switch Panels, Trim, Voltmeter, VSR | Comments Off
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