Boat Wiring
- Thread starter Pieyed47
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
+1 on CMS.
The right crimpers are not all that expensive in the whole scheme of things.
Many quality ones available on eBay for smaller size wire. And for the occasional batty cable buy them pre made. If a major batty system redo it may still be economical to buy a good crimper.
caltexflanc
Guru
I did a lot of electrical work on my old Hatteras. Heat-shrink terminals and a high quality crimper and high quality stripper/cutter, with a heat gun that had a curved attachment that surrounded the terminal, made it a pleasure, even for klutzy, all thumbs me. For battery work, I was always near a good battery shop or rigger who could do it right.
I don't see any need for soldering, though I did use one of those slugs once for putting a new terminal on a 6 gauge cable that came all the way from the ER to the anchor locker. I had it tightly supported and secured; worked out pretty nice.
I don't see any need for soldering, though I did use one of those slugs once for putting a new terminal on a 6 gauge cable that came all the way from the ER to the anchor locker. I had it tightly supported and secured; worked out pretty nice.
boathealer
Guru
Here's a post I put together in a previous life as a C-Dory owner on how I do battery cables - right or wrong, never had an issue: The C-Brats :: - With all of this talk of batteries and wiring
FF
Guru
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2007
- Messages
- 22,552
A "proper " ($75.00 or so ) crimper is claimed to press the terminal enough to cold flow the copper and make the terminal end air tight.
Perhaps , but covering it with shrink tube still is a great idea , the color helps when doing the hookup pr trouble shooting.
Large sized wiring like starter wires are usually long term requirements , so can be ordered on line with well connected terminal ends.
The hassle is wires thicker than a hand squeezer , but not of starter size.
A crimping tool made for swagged life lines or 7x19 rigging will usually handle terminal ends for wiring that is thick .
These will take 4 sizes and are under $30.00 , even at Worst Marine.Tighten 2 hardened bolts to swage.
On large terminal ends even a 5lb copper roofing iron may be hard pressed to do a good solder job.
Then its time to find a cast ladle or pot and simply dip the end into molten solder.
A common (cheap) euro practice is to dip un tinned copper wire for 1/2 inch or so , that it can be captured under a screw head.
Not great but pretty common on lights , switches and radio stuff.
Perhaps , but covering it with shrink tube still is a great idea , the color helps when doing the hookup pr trouble shooting.
Large sized wiring like starter wires are usually long term requirements , so can be ordered on line with well connected terminal ends.
The hassle is wires thicker than a hand squeezer , but not of starter size.
A crimping tool made for swagged life lines or 7x19 rigging will usually handle terminal ends for wiring that is thick .
These will take 4 sizes and are under $30.00 , even at Worst Marine.Tighten 2 hardened bolts to swage.
On large terminal ends even a 5lb copper roofing iron may be hard pressed to do a good solder job.
Then its time to find a cast ladle or pot and simply dip the end into molten solder.
A common (cheap) euro practice is to dip un tinned copper wire for 1/2 inch or so , that it can be captured under a screw head.
Not great but pretty common on lights , switches and radio stuff.
Last edited:
Lou_tribal
Guru
On the wiring subject what would be good wire size to join gc2 batteries in serie & parallel? I gues the obvious answer is bigger is better but for such short length would awg 2 enough or need to go to bigger awg 4/0?
Lou:
To be safe, the jumper wire needs to have sufficient ampacity to equal or exceed the rating of the fuse that protects the wire to the batteries. So, say you have a 200 amp fuse which would be typical for a 2,000 watt inverter which would be the highest amp draw from those batteries.
In that case it takes #1 wire to have enough ampacity for installation inside the engine room. If it is outside the engine room then you can go with #2.
See: Voltage Drop Calculator Genuinedealz.com for a good voltage drop calculator and ampacity table. Note that the voltage drop in an 18" jumper is about 0.1 volt for #2 wire at 200 amps.
Some people are bothered by a less than full size jumper (the wire to the inverter will probably be 1/0 or 2/0). They claim that the voltage drop in the small jumper will prevent full charging. But as the batteries get close to full when the maximum voltage is needed, the current even from a 100 amp charger will be down to 50 amps. The voltage drop at 50 amps for a #2 jumper is 0.03 volt which is probably less than the connections to it and probably less that the 2/0 wire from the charger to the batteries.
So don't worry about small jumpers as long as they meet the ampacity requirements. I have had a #1 gauge jumper on my two GC batteries and they are going fine three years later.
David
To be safe, the jumper wire needs to have sufficient ampacity to equal or exceed the rating of the fuse that protects the wire to the batteries. So, say you have a 200 amp fuse which would be typical for a 2,000 watt inverter which would be the highest amp draw from those batteries.
In that case it takes #1 wire to have enough ampacity for installation inside the engine room. If it is outside the engine room then you can go with #2.
See: Voltage Drop Calculator Genuinedealz.com for a good voltage drop calculator and ampacity table. Note that the voltage drop in an 18" jumper is about 0.1 volt for #2 wire at 200 amps.
Some people are bothered by a less than full size jumper (the wire to the inverter will probably be 1/0 or 2/0). They claim that the voltage drop in the small jumper will prevent full charging. But as the batteries get close to full when the maximum voltage is needed, the current even from a 100 amp charger will be down to 50 amps. The voltage drop at 50 amps for a #2 jumper is 0.03 volt which is probably less than the connections to it and probably less that the 2/0 wire from the charger to the batteries.
So don't worry about small jumpers as long as they meet the ampacity requirements. I have had a #1 gauge jumper on my two GC batteries and they are going fine three years later.
David
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