Busbars and battery charging

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scroggs

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First... complete novice with boat wiring here
Second... My general layout is to have a marine starting battery in the stern and a trolling battery in the bow of the boat. My plan is to have a forward center console and mount a bus bar there, wired from the starting battery, that will be running lights, bilge, gps/sounder.
Question- If i get an onboard charger- that is mounted in the bow area, can it be attached at the busbar to charge the stern starting battery? This would be to avoid running heavy gauge wire from battery to bus and also charger to battery. It seems like my busbar basically moves the starting battery terminals to the bow of my boat and therefore I could attach my charger to those pos/neg busbars to charge.

Am I way off base here? Am i making any sense? Thanks
 
did you check with the OB charger manufacturer to see if they have any diagrams that match what you're trying to do? I would give them a call and ask for some assistance.
 
scroggs said:
I have a Guest 2611A, 2 bank, 5/5

While it would probably work, I wouldn't wire it that way. That charger has inline fuses at the terminal ends. If a fuse blows, getting access to your busbar is probably harder than accessing the battery. The older versions of that charger had rather librel power cord lengths, longer than the Guest Sportsman 10/5 I replaced it with. That charger only has one set of indicator lights. When you blow a fuse on one, you don't notice it until you go to use it again. Ie a blown fuse or open line, produces a "green" (good) indicator at the charger. If you plug it in after a day of use, and goes green within an hour, suspect a fuse blown.
 

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