Poke holes in my wiring plan

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by sailingunity

Look at thta, same website you mentioned also sells tinned copper bar!

https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/buy/...edge/pid/23802

Suspect that would be better than using untinned copper? Strange that it appears to actually be cheaper than plan copper.

Mike

They also sell silver flashed copper for IIRC less than tinned. The silver is very thin but it is even better than tin in a marine environment.

[sailingunity]

Looking at marine how to's website, it looks like I could even forgo having a separate bus bar for the charge bus and just link the fuses together (perhaps with the same silver plated bar). Thoughts?

[sailingunity]

Well darn, it looks like a solid bar between the batteries would block the vents. Probably not a good idea to do that.

[guyrj33]

how much vertical clearance do the vents actually need? There might be enough room.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by sailingunity

Well darn, it looks like a solid bar between the batteries would block the vents. Probably not a good idea to do that.

Solid bars connecting the battery posts is a bad idea in my opinion. If the batteries move at all - which is likely - it puts a strain on the posts. Wire jumpers of the appropriate size allow for this movement without any force on the posts.

[jmdenmark]

Unless I'm missing something and also missed someone else pointing it out, isn't your battery wiring just parallel? With T105s this wiring would give you about 1000ah of 6V power, surely what you are looking for is closer to 400ah of 12V power which would require 4 batteries. Not sure how you do 12V with 5x6v batteries.


My recommendation (which has already been made) is series parallel of 4 or 6 T105s as a house bank using short leads and one positive from the left side of the first pair to one negative to right side of last pair connected to your bus bars.

[sailingunity]

My current arrangement is 2 banks of T105's, 4 in each bank yielding 900AH total or about 450AH at 50% DOD. My new arrangement will be 5x12V firefly batteries, yielding 550AH or 440AH at 80% DOD (which they can reliably handle).

[Bycrick]

The original post says that you have two alternators mounted on one engine. Therefore, according to the Balmar website, you don’t need a Centerfielder, which is to enable using two alternators on two engines. Balmar makes a regulator, the MC-612-Dual that is designed to run two alternators on the same engine.

[Captain Graham]

I would recommend the following

[sailingunity]

Originally Posted by Captain Graham

I would recommend the following

What is the "power post"?

[Bycrick]

A power post is simply a threaded post on an insulating base. Blue Sea sells them with either one or two posts. They’re used to connect two or more, usually heavy gauge wires. You’ll often see them used when the studs on the battery are too short for all the lugs that people try to connect to the battery. ��

They’re fine for attaching several smaller wires to a common point fed by a larger wire. They serve a similar function to a bus bar, are far less expensive, and a lot more inconvenient when you have to move wires.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by sailingunity

What is the "power post"?

As Bycrick posted above but in the diagram it adds nothing. If there is a battery monitor the shunt is installed there.

[Captain Graham]

Here is a better drawing showing the following

1. There are 4 areas (Battery Locker, Electrical Locker, Motor/Alt and the VHF radio)
2. The Electrical Locker has 2 power posts because thw wires from the battery locker are large battery cables and the wiring in the electrical locker is smaller.
The battery cables need to be large because the two lockers are a distance apart and you do not want any voltage lost.
3. The Battery Locker with a single switch for turning off the power to the entire boat.
4. The Motor and alternator is also connected using the large battery wires.
No need for a special power posts because the connectors on the motor is already sized for the large battery wires.
5. The VHF radio. Because the radio is a safety item do not wire it to the switch panel. Instead I wire it directly to the power posts, this way if the switch panel breaks the radio will still work.

Sorry I should have put the loads outside the electrical panel.
The loads are the boats nav lights, interior lights, nav equipment etc that are located all over the boat.
Notice I use a terminal strip to connect the switch panel to the loads.

In general by having the power posts, terminal strip and bus bar it makes it much easier to wire up and troubleshoot.

[Captain Graham]

Here is an example of a power post.
https://www.defender.com/product.jsp...89995&id=50686

[sudarkoff]

Originally Posted by sailingunity

I like the idea of the solid bar between battery posts as suggested by stormalong

If you go with the bars, make sure to insulate them well. Shorting those by accident (e.g. with a wrench) will be a disaster.