Electrical System Upgrade – battery charger and relocation of master battery switch

Posted on by scoobscobie

For the last year I have been sharing a battery charger with my folks.  To avoid the complication I installed a battery charger this afternoon.  The best location to provide airflow is on the v-berth bulkhead in place of the large red battery switch.

cabin
v-berth forward (sails in bags: main, 110 jib and 150 genoa); electrical panels, galley to part and 1/4-berth to starboard.

I removed the switch, covered the hole with a stainless 5″ louvered vent (this will help with cooling the battery charger), and then installed the charger.

charger
The Guest battery charger installed under the v-berth.

I purchased a smaller battery switch to save ‘bulkhead space’.  The new switch is installed to the right of the main power panel.  The positive battery lead is just long enough to reach.

battswitch
The batt switch is red; the silver cylinder above the switch is the 12V accessory plug; to the right you can see the back of the main power panel switches.

This is how everything looks ‘from the cabin side’ –

bulkheadview

The project took about 90 minutes.  Much more comfortable doing this then when I installed the electrical system on my old M15.  It is true that after doing something once future efforts are much easier.

One thought on “Electrical System Upgrade – battery charger and relocation of master battery switch”

  1. Pingback: Upgraded electrical system – M17 #375 – SWEET PEA

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