Perko Switch

I am planning to put in a Perko Battery Switch....
Question is location?

Underneath/Behind both stern seats is a compartment, the port side has a battery in it and I want to put second battery in the other one.
I plan to put the switch underneath the seat and outside the battery compartment. My concern is that the switch could cause a spark when rotating between positions and I feel I should treat the battery compartment as one with the engine compartment since there are openings between them.
Any thoughts?

Buy a Yandina combiner (yandina.com). Connect it according to the directions and you can eliminate the "Perko switch". The Yandina provides complete automatic charging and emergency parallell in case the start battery goes flat.

The 1,2,BOTH, OFF switch does not provide a means of charging both batteries independently at the same time, which the Yandina does. You also have to know when to switch, that is, when the start battery has gone flat. It can also kill both batteries if you have it in the BOTH position and one battery is weaker than the other.

place this switch in a location you can get at easy. use large guage wire and solder the lugs on the ends. best to have two batterys exactly the same size /age.

yep, put it where its easy to get to, most switches are made not to make sparks, have a better chance when connecting the batts.if you going to try using the engine alt. to charge them then you will have to add a diode ,

yardina, perko etc.

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wc...1&storeId=11151&partNumber=10161958&langId=-1

my personal favorite

http://bluesea.com/products/7650

Wire to use: welding cable has fine strand wire that carries more current.

guyjg said:

Wire to use: welding cable has fine strand wire that carries more current.

Click to expand...

is that stuff tin plated? I know its jacketed to resist moisture. or do you just apply no lox and don't worry about it, something to think about.

guyjg said:

Wire to use: welding cable has fine strand wire that carries more current.

Click to expand...

Use marine grade battery cable from genuinedealz.com. He has both Ancor brand and off brand that is very good. For a little extra he will make up the cables for you with heat shrink and crimped lugs. Welding cable is not marine quality.

with low voltage these lugs at the cable ends need to be crimped and soldered with heat shrink covering the joint.
welding cable is good choice because of the fine conductors aid in flexing/locating the cable. also low resistance and normally a very thick highly durable covering. I would use some 3/0 or 4/0 cable. expensive but very low power loss.

then you can use home depot cable with the coarse strands , not as good but it will work .

gonna need a big crimp tool !

Weld cable jacketing is not rated for fuel or fire resistance. Use only marine grade tinned copper cable. No need to solder the ends with good crimp and adhesive lined heat shrink. Genuinedealz will do this for you and I think he charges just an extra buck per end. Well worth it.

>then you can use home depot cable with the coarse strands , not as good but it will work .

Please don't! Not marine grade and the saving of a few cents per foot is not worth it. I have seen boats wired with lamp cord, extension cords, Romex, phone wire, and even connectected up with wire nuts and electrical tape. Scary.

While this may be an extreme example, you do want your wiring to be neat and tidy and firmly secured against movement (remember, yellow is ground on a boat and red is pos):

Weld cable jacketing is not rated for fuel or fire resistance.

Click to expand...

How much elec. current do you think flows through welding cable? A hell of a lot more than 12 VDC can produce. It isn't being used in the gas tank! I/ve used it for years w/great success. To each his own.

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You won't have any trouble w/it even if it is crimped. Just make sure to use a heavy shrink tube cover. If you solder it to a copper lug, tin the end of the cable first. Put the lug in a vise and fill half way w/molten solder before inserting the wire. Keep applying heat to the base of the lug for 15-30 seconds to ensure a good connection.

Dispite what some of the technical authorities will say to this, I have been both crimping and soldering my battery cables for 40+ years.
Solder alone is a NO-NO! And crimping alone is inadequate...... IMO that is!
When done correctly, the addition of solder neatly seals all voids in a properly crimped fitting.

I crimp intially with a mild crimp to hold the two together. (pre-tin if you wish to)
I then solder, and finish my crimp with a professional type appropriate crimping tool.
I then heat the fitting one last time, and follow that with brushing solder flux, and cleaning.
I then apply a heavy wall battery cable self-sealing shrink tubing..... color coded is best, IMO.

In forty some years of doing this, I have yet to see one failed connection that I have made.
Often proof is in doing this for yourself, and then seeing the results in the years to follow.
This makes this Non-Theoretical, and puts this in the light of actual experience!
I'll buy that any day!

Do as you wish! It's your call!

As for the Perko...... you can do better.
My experience is that Perko has the smallest contacts, and lightest spring tension, of most any MBSS available. (I have broken them apart for just such a comparison!)
Bluesea offers a great product!

Ditto on relacting the MBSS out of the engine bay where it is readily and easily accessible.
Often the increase to cable size is a non-issue regarding cost and working with the heavier cable.

Yes, ditto "Yellow" being "Negative" on all later boats whereby the ABYC codes were initiated. You will be looking at AWG cable for your marine use.

Good luck with it, and have fun!

Rick... aka Ricardo:

The proof is in the pudding!

guyjg said:

Rick... aka Ricardo:
The proof is in the pudding!

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Well, yes..... at least for me it is!
And this "Vibration" thing is drastically over-rated, IMO.
If we're not securing our cables so that they become prone to excessive movement, I'd be so bold to say that any wire, next to a termination point, is subject to this vibration damage.... not just soldered fittings.

Rick, I bought one of those whack it with a hammer type crimping tools. Believe me, you wouldn't need to solder the resulting crimp unless you plan to hang King Kong from the battery terminals.

I just follow ABYC guidelines for wiring. They are just that, though...guidelines. People will do what they want, thinking they either saved a few bucks or some labor or whatever. As I wrote earlier, I've seen a lot of oddball wiring that "worked", like lamp cord run thru the bilge (Carver Yachts, this means you).
Do whatever works for you DUUUUUG, it's your money, your boat and you have to live with it.
I use only marine grade wire, adhesive lined heat shrink tinned crimp terminals, and fasten it all with zip ties and split loom. My batteries are AGM and the cables are on with nuts and washers, not wing nuts. I don't think it's going too far to do all this because I don't want any of it to fail from corrosion or cheap-sh1t parts when I'm away from the dock.

How much elec. current do you think flows through welding cable? A hell of a lot more than 12 VDC can produce. It isn't being used in the gas tank! I/ve used it for years w/great success. To each his own.

Amen, brother. Still lots of boats being shipped from the factory with welding cable used for the battery cables, with black jacketing to boot. I do hope you are not suggesting that welding cable is a better alternative or even equal to a true marine grade wire, cuz it just plain ain't so. Not my opinion, it comes from a bunch of smart EEs who did the research. I tend to believe them.
There are no laws that say that you have to use marine grade anything on a boat. There is lots of wiggle room as to what is what. I mean really, a 18 foot trailer boat that spends 99% of its life in the garage and only sees fresh water can get away with a lot less than a boat that lives full time in salt water and is regularly taken far off shore. I fall somewhere closer to the latter but my boat lives in a barn most of the time. Even so I go in the salt so I have to be a bit more anal about the components. I tend to look at boat stuff from a safety/survival standpoint in that boating is a risky endeavor and quality gear helps to minimize the risks.
After all, I don't want to embarrass myself in front of the Swedish Bikini Tanning Team with a dead battery.

Sorry, but I didn't catch this earlier.

o2batsea said:

The 1,2,BOTH, OFF switch does not provide a means of charging both batteries independently

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It will for an O/B charger....., but this is true if you are speaking of engine alternator charging only.
For this, Bluesea offers an ACR (automatic charge relay) that can be used that takes care of this.

having installed a electronic equipment in commercial vessels crimp and soldering is the standard . corrosion will eat at the crimp . solder and then sealing the joint makes this less likely.

I can see you are in this type of work.

All good stuff. I have to agree w/using marine grade wire in a salt/offshore environment. Me, I'm just a local fresh water lake man w/an 18' bowrider. I try to crimp, solder and shrink tube most connections.