Battery relocation and anchor winch install

[Marchy001]

It's been a busy few months on the boat project front the two that provided the biggest challenges were relocating batteries and installing a flash new anchor winch.

As some of you may know the installation of an F225 on the back of a seafarer swayed the balance of the boat a little too much. I went on the hunt for a location to mount batteries up front. Under the seats in the cab was option a, b and c but it was always going to be tight for vertical clearance.

I drilled a hole made some measurements then measured again and again before feeling comfortable it would work. Out comes the jig saw and the first hole was cut.


Test fitted the new box before a tube of Sika was used to bed it all down prior to glassing.


Box 1 I used Epoxy which is a pleasure to work with and incredibly strong however when it came to tinting it to blend in with it's surroundings it was near on impossible. Box 2 I went with poly resin. Cheap, stinky, and not quite as easy to work with but much much easier to make it blend in.





Like I said earlier vertical clearance is the biggest restriction but I guess I just scraped in.



Now that I have hot wires running full length of the boat I wanted some sort of protection in the loop so went for a 200a breaker on each battery box. Have started the motor a lot since installation and so far have not popped a breaker while cranking off a single battery or when switched to both. However have made a jump cable that can be quickly installed if I'm having a bad day and breakers fail.

Pretty happy with the finished product and after a few fishing trips they are still working well. No cracking of my glasswork or the boat around it which is nice.







Then I finally had some money saved up to get myself an anchor winch Reel Hard Marine was the way I decided to go and I can't praise Kym enough for the work he has done and help he has given me during the install. Heavy duty I think is an understatement and pulling power was phenomenal on it's first trip out on Wednesday.







I have 125m of 8mm nylon with a top shot of 20m 10mm nylon and 6m of 8mm chain which fits quite easily. Still need to pay it all out and spool it up neatly under load which I forgot to do it on Wed. Had to knock up a switch panel to cover a couple of holes in the dash. $2 trailer mud flap worked a treat (until I can get one made up in stainless)



Well I think that covers the most part. Thanks for reading.

[chocolatemoose]

my only criticism is............why did they use Comic sans as the font on the anchor switch lol

[FisHard]

Looks good! How has it improved the balance of the boat? Are you happy with the results?

[Marchy001]

Balance of the boat is much better. Prior to the move the boat was very sensitive to trim and would porpoise if trim was not spot on. It's much more forgiving to drive now and feels good at rest also. Very happy with the boat.
Now just waiting for the new B75M to arrive and I can install that. Then hopefully I can just enjoy it for a while.
Oh no that's right the trailer needs to be rebuilt in the near future.

[snatchy]

Thanks for posting that up.
I started to relocate my batteries up front on a similar size boat/engine/batteries and had some cables made to length at the local auto Electrician, with their suggestion for cable size. When I tested them to start the motor they struggled. So I need to get thicker ones.
Any idea what size cable you have used?
Cheers!

[Marchy001]

I used 32mmsq which I think is 2b&s. I had most of mine made up by a guy on eBay and posted to me for $10/m plus lugs.
After I started the job I bought myself a hyd crimper ($50 eBay) as I needed to shorten a couple of cables a bit. Came in handy for the 25mmsq used in the winch install too.

What size cables did you end up with?

[snatchy]

I used 32mmsq which I think is 2b&s. I had most of mine made up by a guy on eBay and posted to me for $10/m plus lugs.
After I started the job I bought myself a hyd crimper ($50 eBay) as I needed to shorten a couple of cables a bit. Came in handy for the 25mmsq used in the winch install too.

What size cables did you end up with?

Thanks for that

I measured the cables and they are about 11mm O.D. so are probably 2B&S too.
So I wonder why mine didn't work so well when it works for you? I have Blue Top optimas feeding a mercruiser 220 MPI 4.3L and the cables are about 4.5m long. When I added the cables the smartcraft display showed less volts than usual, and when starting the engine the low voltage alarms went off and all the screens died until the engine slowly cranked to life. Definitely not happy with the cables. It was very clear cut and there was no way I was going to risk going offshore like that. Tried without cables and back to normal.
I will have to try a few things and have another test since yours seems to work with a similar setup.
Thanks again.

[Marchy001]

Strange.
My cable runs are a little over 5m from memory I think the long run was 5.8m to switch then the factory yamaha cables from the switch to motor (2.5-3m). Rather long run I know but so far so good.

The fact the display showed less voltage before you tried to start leads me to think it may not be the cables current carrying ability. Any of the connections potentially causing your issue? One connection with high resistance could make it sluggish.
Did it make any difference if cranking off 1 battery or both?

Check the resistance of the newly made battery cables it should not measure much at all.

[snatchy]

Thanks for the ideas - I will check all that stuff. There are two places I can think of that could have caused the issue which I will eliminate next time I test. I checked connections a few times but who knows what I missed. Your cable runs are longer than mine, so it gives me hope that it is possible to work with the cables I have.
I didn't try cranking off both batteries as I wanted it to be able to work with only one, and my test was just a basic setup straight to one battery - no selector etc.
I will report back in a few days, hopefully with good news. Currently knee deep in fiberglass and resin doing yet another project.....
Cheers

[snatchy]

I had another go with the cables and it was not any different. I must have started the engine 20 times, alternating between starting using a battery on the normal short run (at the back of the boat) and then the battery with the cables. Also measured the cables and they are 5m long.
The smartcraft readout showed voltage drop to 11.4 when starting using the battery on the normal short cables. Using the battery on long cables the voltage drops too low for the plotter so it blacks out (last visible volts is about 10.9), engine cranks more slowly and eventually starts. Alarm for low voltage goes off etc.

I tested the resistance and they were both very low and both the same (+ and - cables).

There are still some other things to try like removing the battery selector switch out of the system and two other connections, but it was raining today so i left that for a better day.

Sorry about the thread hijack!

[Marchy001]

No apology necessary this place exists to share ideas and help people (well that's my opinion anyway)

Try measuring resistance from end of short cables to starter motor then again with the long ones connected. Then try measuring volts at battery then again at starter while cranking off each set may need extra hands for that one.

Are you changing anything else other than the cable length? Same battery, same terminals (not the accessory poles), doing all up tight, no corrosion or grease on any connections?
Just brainstorming ideas and mistakes I've made in the past lol. I get low voltage issues when I connect my terminals to the Acc posts on my batteries running the winch which draws around 100amps with engine running at 900-1100 rpm. Hooked to main posts no issue even with engine off. (Spent Saturday dragging a tray of gym equipment up the front lawn testing it all in different configurations)

It's starting to sound like the cables may not be heavy enough but I can't see how a 4.3l can suck those cables dry when my 3.3l cranks fine with longer cables. Assuming yours is a 6cyl also? Even V8 shouldn't make that much difference I wouldn't have thought.

Do you have a clamp meter to measure the amps flowing through a cable? Mine is between 210-280 amps when cranking. Bare in mind that probably misses the initial spike which is probably a fair bit higher than that.

[gofishin]

If the connections/terminals used when swapping cables were "exactly" the same, then you need to start looking elsewhere.

For a start I would Compare required CCA of donks to the rated CCA of batteries you have. Maybe the donks starting requirements are not quite as close as you think they are.
Cheers


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[scottar]

First thing I would do is get my hands on a clamp meter that had a maximum capture mode and check to see how many amps the thing actually draws when it starts with the short cables. Then do the research as to what is required to provide that many amps over the required distance without voltage drop.

[Marchy001]

First thing I would do is get my hands on a clamp meter that had a maximum capture mode and check to see how many amps the thing actually draws when it starts with the short cables. Then do the research as to what is required to provide that many amps over the required distance without voltage drop.

That's far too likely to be successful to be fun.
But yes probably the easiest way to ensure success.

[snatchy]

No apology necessary this place exists to share ideas and help people (well that's my opinion anyway)

Try measuring resistance from end of short cables to starter motor then again with the long ones connected. Then try measuring volts at battery then again at starter while cranking off each set may need extra hands for that one.

Are you changing anything else other than the cable length? Same battery, same terminals (not the accessory poles), doing all up tight, no corrosion or grease on any connections?
Just brainstorming ideas and mistakes I've made in the past lol. I get low voltage issues when I connect my terminals to the Acc posts on my batteries running the winch which draws around 100amps with engine running at 900-1100 rpm. Hooked to main posts no issue even with engine off. (Spent Saturday dragging a tray of gym equipment up the front lawn testing it all in different configurations)

It's starting to sound like the cables may not be heavy enough but I can't see how a 4.3l can suck those cables dry when my 3.3l cranks fine with longer cables. Assuming yours is a 6cyl also? Even V8 shouldn't make that much difference I wouldn't have thought.

Do you have a clamp meter to measure the amps flowing through a cable? Mine is between 210-280 amps when cranking. Bare in mind that probably misses the initial spike which is probably a fair bit higher than that.

Yup I have always been using the "accessory poles" as you call them on my blue tops for the last 8 years to start the engine. Never had an issue.... until now! Maybe that is it. I have just now been looking at what Optima has to say about those smaller poles and I can't find anything yet. Ive been using optima batteries for 15 years and never thought about the smaller poles not being rated as high as the main lugs.

I will join the cables to the main lugs of the battery and see how it goes. I have some terminal lugs spare somewhere to try. Won't get another chance until later in the week however. Given what you said about yours and the anchor winch, that should be my issue sorted.

As an aside, I looked up the starter motor draw, and the starters are usually the same part number for 4.3, 5.0 and 5.7 engines, and are rated about 1.7kw. So if my understanding is right they are about 141 amps at 12V.

Many thanks for your suggestions! I think you found the problem for me...