CD-25 Guest Charger Wiring

T

tpbrady

New member
I was trying to determine the way the Guest Charger is connected to the battery banks and ran into a dead end. It appears on my CD25 the two outputs of the charger are tied together into a single wire and then spliced into the DC primary connection from the house battery to the DC bus at the helm. The splice is under the galley. In other words the start battery is not directly connected. When I bought the boat there was no ACR which I have added, but the start battery is toast and wouldn't take a charge. My inclination is to wire the Guest directly to each battery and abandon the other wire. To me that is more straight forward and allows charging independent of the ACR.

Was this a standard practice to splice the charger into the DC house bus?
 
When I installed a decent battery charger, Journey On had the following charger wiring.

The guest charger is a 2 bank, 5 amp ea charger. Each bank was run through a small gauge wire (18 ga?) to each of the two batteries the boat came with. A fuse was in line at each battery. The charger wiring was directly to each battery and did not go through the battery switch or main buss.

I'd replace the Guest with at least a 20 amp 2 bank charger. I also would increase the charging wire to 10 ga. I still have the guest (I think), and if anybody wants it, let me know

Boris
 
I also had to re-wire my battery charger on the 25 when I went over the charging circuit. The factory charger is OK only for long term maintance. What I did was put in a charging system which would accomidate a 30 amp charger when necessary to give a more rapid charge. Frankly I didn't find this necessary, since we ran the boat almost every day, and there was enough charging capacity from the engine alone.
 
It seems that like with other things C-Dory how your boat was wired must have depended on who was on the floor that day and what cable they had on hand!

David is right, I just completed removal of the Guest 5/5 and installation of a Guest 10/10, which was electrically a drop in replacement. On our CD25, which appears to be wired per the Guest instructions, there are separate #10 positive cables going directly to each battery, with a fuse holder at the battery. One is red with a blue stripe and the other is red with a green stripe, so you can identify them easily at each end. There is also a common #10 black ground cable also going directly back to the ground post of one of the batteries. The ground posts between the two batteries are connected with a very large cable (#6?). This is the correct way I believe.
 
Thanks for the responses. I am going to run new #10 with fuses at the batteries. I am also going to rewire the windlass which now takes it power off the DC bus at the helm. I am going directly to the battery switch with the circuit breaker close by.
 
Yes, absolutely! The windlass is a current hog! Big cable going to the breaker and then directly back to the battery!


tpbrady":1xcn539o said:
Thanks for the responses. I am going to run new #10 with fuses at the batteries. I am also going to rewire the windlass which now takes it power off the DC bus at the helm. I am going directly to the battery switch with the circuit breaker close by.
Click to expand...
 
had an interesting event today, while cruising back from ocracoke lost all electrical power on my main distrubution panel. GPS went out first followed about a minute later by everything getting electrical power from the rocker switches, wipers, lights, radio etc. still had the windlass, the trim tabs etc. motor ran fine thankfully since we were 60 miles from our morehead city home. could not do much trouble shooting due to the requirement to navigate using my old map skills and a compass. rusty but managed to get home. did check the thermal relay near the battery and downstream from the perko switch and it was not popped. anyone had a similair problem and might be able to point me in the right direction on my 2009 25 ft c-dory

USMC Dory
 
The Gunny here,

I would start looking at the back of your panel. Visual inspection for corrosion on the screws and things of that nature. Then if you do not have a good multimeter, I advise that you get one. They are pretty helpful in troubleshooting.

Check power at the incoming side of the ckt breaker, then on the other side. Also, check your ground for corrosion or loose connections.

on edit: be sure and verify that you're getting good voltage out of the alternator(s).

Steve
 
My best guess is that you were not charging the house battery off the engine charging circuit. This could be caused by several items. One could be that you didn't have the battery switch on "all". It could also be that there is a fuse or breaker which is by the house battery (it should be with in 7" of the house battery and wired between the wire which comes from the house battery, or the switch (common) to the console. This would carry all load to the console.

The Windlass, engine and trim tabs would be hooked up to the engine start battery which is chared directly by the engine charging circuit. So get that volt meter out--and check first the house battery voltage, then the voltage all along the way from the house battery to the console.

It oculd be a grouond, or a positive wire to the console which has corroded also--but most likely the above.

If you don't have a VSR, then consider putting one in place, so that once the engine start battery is charged, the house batttery will be charged from the engine.
 
It's time to replace that 12 volt light bulb with alligator clips with a real tool. Volt meter/multimeter prices range from a few dollars to hundreds. Any suggestions for a good general purpose tool?
 
If you have a Harbor Freight (or equivalent) near you get their cheapest digital voltmeter and use it in good health. Frys is good also.

You can get a more expensive one, but then you have to treat it carefully, and the readings are the same.

Remember to shut it off between uses, or you'll be replacing batteries.

Keep the alligator clips.

Boris
 
All the advice above is worthy, but you should check voltage at every point from the battery working your way forward. This is definitely a task for a small digital multimeter, in this case you will be using the digital voltmeter function. The first thing you want to check is the battery itself, is it fully charged? Then the big 50 amp circuit breaker between the battery and the positive bus bar (assuming your setup resembles mine at all), then the circuits on the bus bar, up to the panel behind the helm where the one big positive cable is connected to the panel. It is mainly a matter of being methodical. If your battery is fully charged, you will locate the point where the problem is...
 
I was reading the current issue of DIY Boatowner in which Nigel Calder says that his personal toolkit contains a "good quality digital multimeter with a clamp-on ammeter that reads to 400 amps." Thoughts? Recommendations?

Warren
 
I must have a dozen various digital volt meters scattered all around. It is worthless unless you have it with you. That is why I buy a reasonable quality but in-expensive meter--and have one on each boat, RV, car, truck and in the shop. Frankly you are interested in relitative values, so 2% error is very acceptable.

If you totally loose all of the 12 volt related functions suddenly, it is likely to be either a break in the circuit--ie switch not closed, battery not charged--and falls to critical voltage, or a breaker/fuse blown, rather than corrosion.

Yes, there is definately a place to trace out the voltage step by step, but you don't have to do that in this perticular case at this time--find out what is the catastrophic failure of the electrical system. Go for the big possibilities--and it may well be ground as well as positive. For example a negative terminal may have fallen off.
 
Radio Shack, I think it was about $25, this lives on Daydream. Patty recently bought me another one for the house, will have to see what brand it is. I would not be afraid to try one from Harbor Freight...

Doryman":o8h7hwoh said:
Pat, what multimeter did you buy for the boat?

Warren
Click to expand...
 
Yes, a light works, but it does not give you differential voltage: no amperage measurement, no resistance or short measurement, and no low (AA battery for example) or high AC (110 mains current). Sure I have a bulb with a couple of wires and clips soldered on, but I use the digital meters 100 times for the once I use the light bulb.
 
Back
Top