Wiring question: Engine main battery starter wire

[Sharphooks]

It was a slow day in the salt mines so I decided to clean up the boat wiring today. The plan was to try and consolidate all the main engine starting wires, electronics wires, bilge pump wires and downrigger wires---get them off the battery terminals and get them on to a Bus Bar. Due to the amount of different wires (and the short lengths I had to deal with) , I took the easier way out and decided I'd attach them to a "Johnny Ray" battery terminal organizer. I purchased two sets of them, and went to work.

Two of those wires (one per each battery), were actually a pair of wires inside a heavy black sheath---a red and a yellow, all four of them heavily fused (30 AMP). I traced them back to the wheelhouse and sure enough, they were both wired in to the main engine ignition (starter) box.

here's the question: On Battery No. 1 (main started battery) , BOTH the Red and the Yellow were wired to the Positive terminal (no wire on the negative (-) terminal.

On Battery No. 2 (House Battery), I could have sworn that the red was attached to the positive (+) terminal and the yellow to the negative (-) terminal so I replaced them that way on the Johnny Ray terminal organizers.

Then I started getting nervous, wondering why the main engine starting wires would be wired that way---i.e. BOTH red and yellow from wire No. 1 attached to Positive Terminal (+) on the Main Battery and on the House Battery, Red to (+) and Yellow to (-) (per attached picture).

For grins, I put the isolator switch on "1" (main engine battery) and turned the key---the Honda turned over.

Then, on the House Battery, I disconnected red from the (+) and yellow from the (-) and again, turned the key. Engine turned over. WTF? All the other electronics worked in the wheelhouse so I had to presume that wire I had just disconnect is indeed a main engine starter wire like its brother

I bought the boat third hand. Lots of hands have fiddled with these wires. Both batteries are properly wired in series and attached to an isolator switch.

Is there are protocol for main engine wiring? Is the ground that I couldn't find on the Main Battery attached inside the isolator switch???? (That would explain red and yellow BOTH being attached to (+) on the main battery and a ground wire I couldn't readily see.

So why would the other heavy-duty wire (red/yellow, heavily fused like its brother) be attached red to (+) and yellow to negative(-) on the House Battery???


Here's a pic of the wires on the House battery (which I could have sworn were wired red to (+) and yellow to (-) before I removed them from the terminals and attached them to the Johnny Ray organizer

Any comments on normal main engine wiring to two batteries in normal series would be very much appreciated

Thanks!!

http://i846.photobucket.com/albums/ab30/sharphooks/IMG_3649.jpg

 

[staying alive]

wiring wiring wiring

it was a slow time for me too so I decided to clean up all the bundle of wires i inherited on mine as well .
Looks to me like the yellow should be on the positive terminal ----never heard of a negative return being fused--- I have been dealing with this for weeks now --all i can say is nothing should be attached to the batteries except a bilge pump (house or starter???)----- you are supposed to go from the common on the switch to everything else -simple way------Switch --------100 amp fuse--------pos. busbar------ inline fuses going out to distribution panels --- then have the neg. returns going to a neg bus then motor. will post a drawing of what I'm doing when I get the scanner working. I went the route of getting a couple of books ----no use at all unless you want to know about the flow of electrons or how a battery works----alls I want is some info of which part goes where ---ended up using info from Bluesea website
good luck

 

[Sharphooks]

The fuse on the yellow heavy gauge wire threw me too---never have seen any ground wire fused like that but I could have sworn that was the way it was hooked up when I got the boat. Everything seems to work fine, but yeah, running all the wiring through a Bus Bar would have been the proper way to do it. Major work trying to get there now.

Bus Bar aside, what's the main engine wiring protocol with regards to a House battery---why would a starter wire be hooked up there in the first place? I could be wrong about that red and yellow wire in the picture---maybe it's hooked in to the switch panel in the wheel house , but I don't think so---it's the twin of the wire hooked to the Positive (+) terminal of the main battery and that one's for sure marked "main Engine battery"

 

[Island Fish Lifter]

You really need to determine what that 12 or 10Ga wire is for. That is not a standard color code that Im used to. I would say that because its fused, then it is probably a (+) wire, however a fuse can be installed on the (-) side of most circuits and still be effective.
You say both black conduits each containing a red and yellow wire go to a "starter box"? Not really sure what you mean by that. What is in the boat for power? Could it be a design by the boat manufacturer?

 

[MGH]

Here is a image of wiring to 2 batteries and to the bus bars. May be of help to you.

http://www.fishyfish.com/boards/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=119.0;attach=4998;image

 

[NewMoon]

I'm with Staying Alive:

" --all i can say is nothing should be attached to the batteries except a bilge pump (house or starter???)----- you are supposed to go from the common on the switch to everything else -simple way------Switch --------100 amp fuse--------pos. busbar------ inline fuses going out to distribution panels --- then have the neg. returns going to a neg bus then motor."

All positive feeds except bilge pumps (and in my case also a propane sniffer) are connected to the common post on the main battery switch. A nice big high-current wire runs from that common post to the engine starter, and another one (not as big) to a positive bus bar and/or distribution panel. All other devices get their positive from the bus bar and/or distribution panel.

All negatives connect to a negative bus bar, and from there to the negatives on both batteries. They're not switched - only the positives.

The main switch determines which battery is supplying electricity to the loads. It also determines which battery is being charged.

This is the simple manual-switching way to go. If you want it more automatic (no switching) you could install a VSR or ACR. Not sure exactly how the wiring is different with one of those - I don't have one.

I have a nice clear Word document showing the main wiring on our boat, which I could eMail if you like. It's pretty easy to modify to fit what you come up with.

 

[Sharphooks]

Hey IFL---with regards to your comment ...."That is not a standard color code that Im used to....."

I read last night on a wiring site that both yellow and black are used interchangeably as (-) ground wires in boat wiring. The heavy fuse on a grounded wire is what confused me.

So this morning I went through the wiring again---my bad---the wires I made reference to in an earlier post (red and yellow) had NOTHING to do with the main engine key ignition (Honda BF150). They are wires coming from the ProSport Series on-board battery charger that was an add-on (that'll teach me to do any of my boat wire tracing in the freaking daylight, not in the dark out in my driveway like I did last night).

Anyway, now that I confirmed what these four heavily fused wires actually do, I might have just solved a mystery---the first time I tried plugging the AC charger in on that system, the distribution box in the wheelhouse got uncomfortably warm after a couple of minutes and I stopped using it. Used a removable 12V trickle charger instead

So now, finding that the guy who installed the ProSport had connected BOTH of the leads of one of the outputs (red = (+) and yellow = (-) ) to the POSITIVE terminal of the main cranking battery might help answer why the AC power box was heating up the first time I tried using it!

Lesson No 1: when you buy used, don't assume that the guy you're buying from had both oars in the water during the time he owned your boat....

Thanks for your responses and referrals to wiring websites in the meantime, Gents.

 

[trendsetter]

I'm not exactly sure what you've got as far as wiring but maybe I can offer a couple of helpful tips.

Black and Yellow are typically used in marine wiring when there are both AC and DC wire runs. This is to differentiate the black AC wiring from the black negative DC wiring. In your case it looks like both Black and Yellow are used in DC which is also OK. (Just don't confuse Black AC with DC or things will go bang).

When two batteries have a connection from Positive on one battery to Neg on another they are connected in series. This changes two 12v batteries to a single 24v battery. Or 2 6v batteries to a single 12v battery etc.

So maybe you have two 6v batteries in series to make 12v?

 

[Sharphooks]

Thanks for that clarification, trendsetter. Your definition of batteries in a "series" is not what I have so it looks like I used the term incorrectly. They are tied together negative ground to negative ground etc. with an isolator to enable battery selection

 

[trendsetter]

Makes sense. What you have is two batteries connected in "parallel".

Let me know if you have any other questions with the wiring.

Cheers.

 

[staying alive]

boat wiring

here's what I am into on my new ride ---had 4 fused lines coming off of battery----new it wasn't right from reading here and other forums-----so I exposed the back of the boat and dove in and pulled stuff apart and am rebuilding with bluesea products ( hey they are from PNW ) looks a little over kill but i am putting the add a battery system in ----- even though a lot of people say just having the switch is enough --- I am a lazy boater -----so this way I don't have to switch over after starting engine ------ If someone wants to critique go head --- i am self taught and could use an opinion

 

[Foxsea]

here's what I am into on my new ride ---had 4 fused lines coming off of battery----new it wasn't right from reading here and other forums-----so I exposed the back of the boat and dove in and pulled stuff apart and am rebuilding with bluesea products ( hey they are from PNW ) looks a little over kill but i am putting the add a battery system in ----- even though a lot of people say just having the switch is enough --- I am a lazy boater -----so this way I don't have to switch over after starting engine ------ If someone wants to critique go head --- i am self taught and could use an opinion
View attachment 3118

Self-taught? Looks like you had a good teacher!!! Nothing lazy here - it's a lot of work.

I bought a 2007 Seafox 256 WA last spring and ran it all summer. Lovin' it. BUT One criticism of many production boats is the sketchy wiring systems employed; Seafox no exception.
This winter I pretty much rewired the whole boat, including the AC system - all Blue Seas components, tinned wire, buses, fuse blocks, weather-proof, fused switches. All wire connections are properly terminated with heat-sealed connectors. I used the Dual Circuit Plus battery management panel, with the SI automatic charging relay. All wire guages are as recommended by ABYC (using Circuit Wizard on the Blue Seas site. EZ AC/DC is also a great site for info and innovative harnesses).

Cost for materials ~ $1800. Does the boat run any better -no. It certainly does make me more confident though, when we are fishing 25 miles offshore. Wiring problems could mean a difficult situation, if the electronics are down and engines will not start. It looks a lot better - all wiring restrained and neatly routed to buses and fuse blocks, then just three - 2 ga. cables (pos. from each battery and a common neg.) from the battery management panel to fused battery connections (plus the cables to the Suzuki outboard and kicker). The panel provides 24 hour circuits for the bilge pumps. It's also more convenient, with weatherproof switching in the cockpit rather than at the helm, for lighting, washdown pumps, fish box pumps, downriggers, etc. I also changed out most of the nav. / cabin / courtesy lighting to LED's.

The new system will get a full work-out this summer. I'm feeling good about it!

 

[staying alive]

Yes it is alot of money for all these bluesea components but i am with you it will make me more confident out there knowing things are done right