Bob&Alicia
New member
I have made the decision to replace the Guest 5/5/10 charger with a Mastervolt 12-25/3. We may stay anchored in one spot for a more than one day and will have the reefer going and if it’s a “work” day we will have a couple of laptops/phones that need 12V charging. I have a generator and would like for it to be able to bring the battery back to full charge in as short of a time period as possible. Most days we will use around 35-40 AMP hours.
The Guest 5/5/10 is mounted to the right of the Hot Water heater under the aft most dinette seat. The wires run aft. I assumed that they ran straight back to the lazarette. They actually go under the Port Hanging Locker and turn and go by the cabin bilge bump located under the cabin step. I can see that they then go under the Head enclosure and come out under the sink. The wires are run inside a nylon mesh conduit. The conduit then T’s under the sink into another mesh conduit running down the starboard side from the battery lazarette to the helm. The Guest charger wires turn aft and run down the conduit to the aft lazarette. At some point they must have run out of red/black, red/blue, and red wires and switched up colors. One actually is Black and connected to the positive battery post. I have one set of wires connected to the Start Battery and Two wires connected onto the same positive post of the two 12 volts run in parallel.
I thought it would be easy to “tie” my new 10 AWG wires to the existing 16 AWG wires and “pull” the wires through. With this many turns and connections I am afraid I will end up with both old and new all messed up. Per the Mastervolt instructions I think it is wise to increase the gauge to 10 and not use the original wires so I really feel I need to replace the wires. I am thinking about disconnecting the Guest wires at both ends and putting a heat shrink label and heat shrink the ends and just leaving them in place. That way if I ever want to use the guest as a “second” charger it is already installed. I don’t see a good reason to remove the wires and I am thinking I just leave them in place in a disconnected state. I will have to do some more figuring.
The “best” route I can figure for the new 10 AWG wires is to go straight aft following the water lines. The water lines go under the hanging locker and then under the gas fill intake. There is a Beckson plate at the cockpit step and you can just get your hand in there to pull wires from the hanging locker. They then run aft and come out a maybe 4” hole on the port side right by the two 12 volt batteries. There are also large battery cables that run this same route for an inverter mounted above the hot water heater on the wood base under the drawer. I hope that I can get six 10AWG wires through here. I would like to add one more set of wires and “pre-wire” for a solar charger. I would think that the charge controller only needs one positive and negative wire and I would use 10 AWG since I am buying a spool anyway. This would be a total of 8 wires running this route aft. In a perfect world all of his is inside a nylon conduit sleeve and I manage to pull it all through together and have some chafe protection the entire route. I don’t have the wire put may cut 8 small pieces to get a diameter idea and see if it will fit. If they will not fit I am not sure of another route to take. I am guessing it is maybe a 15’ length of wire to go from the Hot Water cabinet to the aft battery compartment and giving yourself some wire to work with on either end. Does that length seem reasonable?
Has anybody done this? Do you see any flaws with what I am proposing? I am open to other route options as well. The last think I want to do is be able to get ½ my wires through and not the rest.
The Guest 5/5/10 is mounted to the right of the Hot Water heater under the aft most dinette seat. The wires run aft. I assumed that they ran straight back to the lazarette. They actually go under the Port Hanging Locker and turn and go by the cabin bilge bump located under the cabin step. I can see that they then go under the Head enclosure and come out under the sink. The wires are run inside a nylon mesh conduit. The conduit then T’s under the sink into another mesh conduit running down the starboard side from the battery lazarette to the helm. The Guest charger wires turn aft and run down the conduit to the aft lazarette. At some point they must have run out of red/black, red/blue, and red wires and switched up colors. One actually is Black and connected to the positive battery post. I have one set of wires connected to the Start Battery and Two wires connected onto the same positive post of the two 12 volts run in parallel.
I thought it would be easy to “tie” my new 10 AWG wires to the existing 16 AWG wires and “pull” the wires through. With this many turns and connections I am afraid I will end up with both old and new all messed up. Per the Mastervolt instructions I think it is wise to increase the gauge to 10 and not use the original wires so I really feel I need to replace the wires. I am thinking about disconnecting the Guest wires at both ends and putting a heat shrink label and heat shrink the ends and just leaving them in place. That way if I ever want to use the guest as a “second” charger it is already installed. I don’t see a good reason to remove the wires and I am thinking I just leave them in place in a disconnected state. I will have to do some more figuring.
The “best” route I can figure for the new 10 AWG wires is to go straight aft following the water lines. The water lines go under the hanging locker and then under the gas fill intake. There is a Beckson plate at the cockpit step and you can just get your hand in there to pull wires from the hanging locker. They then run aft and come out a maybe 4” hole on the port side right by the two 12 volt batteries. There are also large battery cables that run this same route for an inverter mounted above the hot water heater on the wood base under the drawer. I hope that I can get six 10AWG wires through here. I would like to add one more set of wires and “pre-wire” for a solar charger. I would think that the charge controller only needs one positive and negative wire and I would use 10 AWG since I am buying a spool anyway. This would be a total of 8 wires running this route aft. In a perfect world all of his is inside a nylon conduit sleeve and I manage to pull it all through together and have some chafe protection the entire route. I don’t have the wire put may cut 8 small pieces to get a diameter idea and see if it will fit. If they will not fit I am not sure of another route to take. I am guessing it is maybe a 15’ length of wire to go from the Hot Water cabinet to the aft battery compartment and giving yourself some wire to work with on either end. Does that length seem reasonable?
Has anybody done this? Do you see any flaws with what I am proposing? I am open to other route options as well. The last think I want to do is be able to get ½ my wires through and not the rest.