It pays to check your wiring out yourself sometimes

[WalrusLike]

Since you marine lecky wiz's are all here....

Question I am wondering is what happens if battery is full and you are doing a long trip? Does the engine charging system ramp up and down according to the battery's state, or does it always charge at same rate?

In the old days with cars you used to drive long trips with lights on to stop your battery cooking. Better now?

[WalrusLike]

PS... Nice transformation pics. Well done that man.

[Grand_Marlin]

G'day Walrus,
There is a little man who lives inside your outboard... His name is Reg.
If your battery is low Reg runs down the wire to the battery and stacks some amps in there for you... If the battery is full, Reg throws the extra amps over the side of the boat
The problem is that the Amps thrown over the side of the boat are poisonous to Dugongs... That's why we have so many marine parks

Ahhh Walrus, I knew you would be on to me with the Dugong comment... We all know Amps aren't poisonous to Dugongs... They actually make their skin shiny

It's too early for that sort of thing
Take a look here:

http://www.trailerboats.com/output.cfm?id=2428525&

Cheers

Pete

[WalrusLike]

I don't want Reg loading up my batteries with those heavy Amps... The boat will go low in the stern.

So I am going to stare at the wires until I see Reg then I will tell him to give the dugongs all the Amps so they are all shiny. Thanks for the tip.

[fat-buoy]

OK so I have had some 3 B&S cable made up and I fitted them the other day... much happier now..

And just for curiousity sake I measured the diameter of the power cable that was installed previously and it was 4mm diameter (including the plastic outer).

The motor is a Suzie 90 4 stroke which is all computer controlled etc so I really don't know how this thing was running and I am very happy that it does not seem to have done any harm to the computer etc..

Funny thing (not) is that I could see these two skinny red wires going in to the isolator switch but thought that they were for the accessories and that the main power cables came into it from the back... it seems so obvious now though !!!

End result is that I am about $100 out of pocket by the time I re-ran the appropriate cables but at least I can rest easy knowing that the motor has the battery power it needs.

[Zippidy]

I completely re-wired up my boat when we bought it. That way I know what everything is in case something goes wrong.

Mind, it is an old Rogue :-)

[upstart]

There's a website called Fridge and Solar ( I think) which does a good job of explaining the different gauge wires and their uses.