25 Cruiser chassis ground location?

[Tomkuehn]

I’m installing a Pronautic battery charger. I’m using the common bus bar (located next to the starter battery) for the negative DC connection to the charger..I also need to bond the charger to the ‘chassis’ ground. Where is that located? Thanks for your help.
Tom Kuehn

[T.R. Bauer]

[journey on]

Here's my 2 cents worth.

Chassis ground is different from signal return or power return. I found out the hard way that modern marinas separate the 110 Vac power and chassis also, so if you have a power return/ground tied to a chassis return (as I did, unknowing) the dock circuit breaker will blow. Took me weeks of searching to find the inverter AC power and chassis were tied together internally. Had to lift the chassis ground on the inverter. Factory had no explanation for why it was designed that way.

So what does the chassis ground do? It ties the chassis to ground in case of a fault on the power side as does the green wire in your house. It also grounds stray signals so you don't have them interfere with the units operation, such as the plotter or the depth sounder. I have separate grounds for the 110 Vac and the 12 Vdc.

On the 25 I have a 12 Vdc chassis ground running to the bronze through hull in the back of the cabin. The AC has its own ground provided by the normal 3 wire 110 Vac wiring. If you're charging a battery by using a 110 Vac generator you can run a separate wire from the generators chassis to the through hull, but you don't need to.

Boris

[thataway]

Tom, Congratulations on choosing a great charger.