View Full Version : Does Your Battery Installation Look Like This?
bturner2
05-13-2009, 11:18 AM
Just wondering if everybody's stock battery installation from MC looks like this. Prior to buying MCs my experience was with Cobalts and small Wellcraft Scarabs. I seem to remember them being much neater. I know we tend to look at previous boats with rose colored glasses but this seems to be well, not so good. Not sure if this was a MC install or a "custom" installation by the previous owner or dealer.
At any rate I've decided to move things around and if anyone is interested I'll post my progress. I expect this to take some time to complete as my primary focus will be on enjoying our short season here in MI.
rgardjr1
05-13-2009, 11:21 AM
Wow nice rats nest. Guess I'm lucky since I've got two batteries and they didn't have to try and cram everything on to one.
bturner2
05-13-2009, 11:32 AM
I asked in several other posts where the stock location was for a dual battery switch installation was located but never got a response. As such I decided that it was time to blaze new territory and find what looked like a good location on my own. Based on an excellent post I saw from Sodar I decided to go the Blue Seas "Add a Battery" route. It seemed to provide the best package for size and function.
I decided that the area under the observer seat would provide great access, protection and a good location relative to the batteries. In order to use this location though I would need a bracket to mount switch/isolator to. I had my brother in law waterjet this bracket out for me out of 1/2" alum plate (I know this is overkill but the material was available) and tap the mounting holes. This is what it looked like after it was painted and ready to mount.
Jonathan94
05-13-2009, 11:42 AM
At any rate I've decided to move things around and if anyone is interested I'll post my progress. I expect this to take some time to complete this project as my primary focus will be on enjoying our short season here in MI.[/QUOTE]
yes please!
bturner2
05-13-2009, 11:47 AM
As I couldn't through bolt or screw it to the mounting location (due to appearance or thickness of the fiberglass at the chosen location) I decided to see if that miracle bonding agent JB Weld would work out. Here's a shot of it being bonded (OK glued, thought bonded sounded better. It also makes me feel better about having to secure the bracket this way) to the fiberglass seat base. I'm open to alternative suggestions should this fail. My confidence level on this method is also why the carpeting has not be trimmed back.
I've already made cable to length for the battery connections. Got all the parts from Genuine Dealz out of Sodar’s stereo installation post. Great place to get all kinds of marine grade wire, terminals etc. They also have great service and prices.
This is pretty much where I'm at so far. I'm traveling this week so the JB Weld should have plenty of time to set up. Next step will be to clean up the existing cable installation, add power posts where necessary and hopefully cable everything up.
Sodar
05-13-2009, 11:48 AM
I will tell you one thing... MC's wiring is quite a cluster. Everything is done in two seperate harnesses... one for the deck and one for the hull and when the two are mated, they connect the two harnesses under the dash. My biggest problem with the harnesses is that everything under the dash is not supported or cleanly mounted. The whole boat wiring looks like quite a rats nest.
BigJon
05-13-2009, 11:49 AM
Are all battery locations the same on the older prostars? My 94 I just bought has the battery located in the back next to the gas tank but the manual says its location is up front under the observers seat in the plastic well.
bturner2
05-13-2009, 11:57 AM
Wow nice rats nest. Guess I'm lucky since I've got two batteries and they didn't have to try and cram everything on to one.
Yeah, that's what I thought to. It has always been my understanding that there should be a minimum amount of connections going directly to the battery. This one had 7 ground wires attached directly to the battery ground post and 4 to the positive post. My understanding is that this is why bus bars and terminal posts were created.
If you notice the battery switch is actually mounted to the battery box. What's worse there are exposed screw threads that are digging into the battery casing. I'm finding it hard to believe MC did this installation.
bturner2
05-13-2009, 12:02 PM
Again, hate to look at old boats and remember only the good but both my Cobalt and Wellcrafts had all the wiring tied and laced throughout the boat. Oh well, good project.
Also have to say none of my other boats had as bullet proof a propulsion system as any of my MCs.
bturner2
05-20-2009, 12:29 PM
OK. So for those of you who may have thought my decision to use JB Weld to bond the mounting plate to the fiberglass was a bad idea..... you were right. After having it clamped for nearly 5 days I came back and it basically fell off after unclamping. Looks like the surface wasn't smooth enough or just didn't bite into the fiberglass. Here's a picture of the plate after it came off.....
bturner2
05-20-2009, 12:37 PM
No worries though I have another mounting plate being cut as I write this and believe I've found the secret mounting location for the dual battery set up. To try and get this project moving I've purchased a couple Optima battery trays that I thought looked greeat. They're CNC billet and much more compact than what I was finding at West Marine. Better yet they're made locally in MI and our local shops could really use the business these days. Here's a picture of the trays.......
As soon as I get some more time and the latest version of the mounting bracket I'll update this post. It'd be nice to actually get something installed this time.
bturner2
06-27-2009, 07:02 AM
Well it's been a while since I got a chance to start working on this but I finally got the boat off the water and home in preparation for our vacation trip.
Asked a bunched of questions on this forum and ordered a bunch of parts. Got to work straightening out the wiring mess I had. Took about 10 hours to complete but I think it turned out pretty good and is much better than what I had before.
The first place I started was rewiring the amps and power going to the battery. I combined the power from the amps with distribution blocks and ran the power back to the battery switches. Also replaced the in line fuses and with circuit breakers.
bturner2
06-27-2009, 07:10 AM
In the picture from the previous post you can see the 2 distribution blocks in front of the amps and at the bottom of the picture the single power run going back to the breakers / battery switches. This was wired in 2 separate runs before starting this project. One above the radio and one along the floor.
The next area I went after was the Blue Seas "Add a Battery" installation. If you recall from my first go at this project I tried to bond the mounting plate to the fiberglass under the passenger seat. You can still see where the carpet is pulled back from this failed attempt (I'll deal with replacing the carpet later today).
Here's a picture of the battery installation from the front of the boat.....
bturner2
06-27-2009, 07:22 AM
There's been a bunch of threads on batteries and a few of them critical of the Optima batteries but Costco had these on sale so I went with easy and bought the blue tops. At least they now come with a 2 year replacement policy (maybe because of the bad press). I also liked the idea of the custom cut battery trays that I picked up locally at a place in Lapeer Mi.
Just to give perspective this is where I started.....
bturner2
06-27-2009, 07:28 AM
Here's the final installation. You can see the battery switch and isolator mounted to the seat base. It's a little tight but this was the only place I could find that had fiberglass thick enough to provide a solid mounting point.
My focus on this project was to reduce the number of cables terminating on the batteries and to add the dual battery feature to the boat. I'm pretty happy with the results.
JulioX2
06-27-2009, 09:57 AM
Nice work, looks really good!!
n9740b
06-27-2009, 12:49 PM
Looks great nice work! I have to say that is how they should of looked in the first place....I will be poking my head around some new MCs to see what they look like. I do have to say this is another in the list of minor disappointments I have read about with MC (ballast pumps, sound system, fuel pump, fuel gauges). I am touring the CC factory next week in Orlando....I will be paying special attention to the wiring now. I plan on touring the MC factory in the fall.
Other questions I plan on asking at CC is how they have handled the slowdown relative to their employees. I heard MC laid them off one day with no warning or severence. Curious what CC has done. Maybe people think this stuff doesn't matter to consumers, but it does with me.
I am bouncing back and forth between the x-35 and the SAN230, probably wait till midsummer next year and order a 2011....my girls and still very small, and we are riding the crap out of my buddies new Moomba (don't laugh, 50 hours and not a single thing has gone wrong with it, and I love the wake too, surf all day either side) and his fuel gauge is accurate.
I don't expect any boat to be perfect but fuel gauges and especially wiring quality are engineering issues, nothing broke, just designed and installed poorly.
Sodar
06-27-2009, 12:58 PM
Awesome work! I hate looking at wiring messes. Just screams disaster waiting to happen
How did you end up mounting the Blue Seas to the glass?
Did you get the cables from genuinedealz?
Just wondering if everybody's stock battery installation from MC looks like this. Prior to buying MCs my experience was with Cobalts and small Wellcraft Scarabs. I seem to remember them being much neater. I know we tend to look at previous boats with rose colored glasses but this seems to be well, not so good. Not sure if this was a MC install or a "custom" installation by the previous owner or dealer.
At any rate I've decided to move things around and if anyone is interested I'll post my progress. I expect this to take some time to complete as my primary focus will be on enjoying our short season here in MI.
Did it come that way new, or did you have the dealer add accessories? I would bet that whoever the dealer assigns this kind of work to, isn't up to speed on what is neat vs what isn't.
bturner2
06-28-2009, 08:03 AM
Awesome work! I hate looking at wiring messes. Just screams disaster waiting to happen
How did you end up mounting the Blue Seas to the glass?
Did you get the cables from genuinedealz?
Couldn't agree more. In the three months I had the boat on the water in the orginal wiring configuraiton the wing nuts on the ground post came loose twice. With all the lugs terminating on this one battery post I only had about two threads holding it together.
It turned out that the original location I looked at for the battery switches was to thin to screw anything to so I tried to bond it (glue it) using JB Weld. This was a disaster, didn't bond at all. Pretty much fell off when I took the clamp off it. What I didn't realize was the seat base running parallel to the side of the boat by the battery was an inch thick. I can only assume this is where MasterCraft would mount a factory dual battery set up. I was able to screw the plate to the seat base on the area by the batteries using 6 screws to ensure it would have a solid mount.
Based on one of your posts I did all my shopping for wire and terminals at genuinedealz then made the cables myself. Also went with the "Add a Battery" after reading about your installation. Appreciate you insight on this project, made doing this a lot easier.
Got the idea for combining the power for the amps off this site also and information for cable sizing and breaker placement from JimN. Tons of great information and help. I'm quite certain my installation wouldn't have been up to snuff without all the help I received.
bturner2
06-28-2009, 08:29 AM
Did it come that way new, or did you have the dealer add accessories? I would bet that whoever the dealer assigns this kind of work to, isn't up to speed on what is neat vs what isn't.
In all fairness to MasterCraft 90% of this mess was created by the dealer (the battery on/of switch installation) and the shop that did the tower speaker/second amp installation. After pulling this all apart it was easy to see what was factory and what was dealer/stereo shop installed.
The battery switch was screwed to the plastic battery box with 4" zinc screws that rubbed against the battery inside the plastic box. The cable that was used for the battery switch was off the shelf "Pep Boys" parts that were two feet long and should have either been purchased much shorter or made to fit properly. The quality and type of components used were clearly not Marine rated or from MasterCraft.
The stereo installation was equally poor. Undersized power and ground cables, everything poorly routed using an assortment of tie wraps and low end terminal components.
To be truthful I wouldn't know all this now if it wasn't for taking on this project and getting educated by asking question on this site. The more I dug into the correct way to do this installation the more I found out how poorly my aftermarket installation was.
When I bought this boat I was told that there was a $3K custom stereo installation added to the boat by the original owner. Makes you wonder how many people out there are paying top dollar for this type of second rate work.
bturner2
07-01-2009, 06:35 PM
Well found yet another problem with the wiring on my new (used) boat which would further indicate that my issues are not from the factory but from the hack stereo installation that the previous owner had paid for. When cleaning up the wiring for the dual battey installation I noticed that only one pair of wires were going from the amp to the tower. At first I thought this amp was being used for the sub. After more closely looking at the installation I was able to confirm this wire was going to the tower on the drivers side. Pulled all four speakers down and verified that indeed these hacks had wired all four speakers to one channel of the amp. Spent some time today running a second channel to the tower using the correct wires provided by MC in the tower for this purpose. The difference in sound is amazing.
I've been on vacation for the last week with bad weather and had taken the opportunity to clean up this mess. Feeling pretty good about fixing all these short comings. Should have a solid boat with just a coulple more days of rain. Should be all set for the good weather predicted for the fourth.
I was able to screw the plate to the seat base on the area by the batteries using 6 screws to ensure it would have a solid mount.
Can you elaborate a little bit on this? I assume you drilled into the fiberglass from inside the storage area and lagged some SS screws in. Can you post a close-up of the switch now that it's installed? Thanks!
I am installing a second battery, but just for redundancy - two starter batteries and a selector switch. I don't have fancy stereo and amplifier set up. My battery died this year (not just out of juice, it was permanently dead), and I had to get a jump.
bturner2
09-17-2010, 05:44 PM
Weather permitting I'll be surfing in the morning tomorrow then pulling the boat home for the winter. I should be able to get some pictures of the battery switch for you by Sunday again weather permitting.
To answer your question I did exactly like you said. Was able to get an approximate thickness of the glass then used some masking tape on a drill bit to ensure I didn't drill through the side. It's worked out pretty good so far. No problems and the Blue Seas charging system has kept both batteries fully charged.
Thanks, just confirming your method of mounting everything is really helpful. The storage area where the existing battery lives in my 2000 210 VRS is a little different, so I'm not sure where I'm going to mount the hardware, and even if two batteries will fit in that spot, but that's one of my winter projects.
Thrall
10-05-2010, 09:43 AM
FWIW, my battery wiring looked very similar in my 06, either from the factory or the dealer, but I would suspect that the boats come from the factory with basic stereos???
It was a complete mess, compared to the impeccable wiring in the rest of the boat.
Now it looks like this. Got twice as many wires as originally installed, but at least they're not all piggy backed onto the battery post.