? about battery wire?

[lime4x4]

Looking at relocating my house batteries to the mid-berth storage compartment (removing some weight from the bilge). Is 4 gauge battery wire ok? The length is around 10 feet. Instead of rewiring the whole boat i was going to move the batteries to the forward portion of my mid-berth storage compartment and run a 4 gauge battery cable to the battery switch located in my bilge. All i run off the house batteries are the electronics,frige and lights.

 

[flargin]

Re: ? about battery wire?

4 should be fine.

Assuming 30 amp draw (which would be good to determine), and 10 feet and assuming you don't want too much drop in voltage (electronics) you may be OK with a #6. (note, I would normally add 50% to your distance for routing purposes (i.e. if it is 10 feet from center conosol to back transom, go with 15 feet for calculations)

Look at this link here for a handy chart: http://www.westmarine.com/pdf/MarineWire.pdf

 

[Silvertip]

Re: ? about battery wire?

You better not use 6AWG wire for runs to the battery switch. You are starting an engine through those cables and if the switch is used to select the house batteries in an emergency start situation, that 6 AWG wire will also go up in smoke. Cables from batteries to a battery switch must be the same size or larger than the size of the engine battery cable.