Battery Charger

[Paulus]

Installed the battery charger today.  Waiting for two in line fuses before I turn it on.  The only difficulty I had was the temperature sensor wire was a foot short.  It is 6 wire phone line, not difficult to get at Radio Shack, but a crimping tool for 6 wire phone cable was more of a challenge. The company recomended adding a length instead of redoing the battery terminal.
Paul

[Paulus]

I added 2' of phone wire to the existing temperature sensory wire with a coupler but it did not work.  I re-routed the wire, did require drilling a hole under the teak floor below the chart table.  Worked great.
Paul

[KWKloeber]

I added 2' of phone wire to the existing temperature sensory wire with a coupler but it did not work.  I re-routed the wire, did require drilling a hole under the teak floor below the chart table.  Worked great.
Paul

Paul.

Ahhhhh, enter the wild wacky world of straight-through cables and flip-over cables and cross-over cables, and straight thru and cross-over couplers!!    Probably you needed a cross-over coupler and had a straight thru (or vice versa.)  Or if you made up the cord, it needed a flip-over and it was a straight thru (or vice versa depending on what kind the coupler was.) It gets confusing as hell.

Consider a 6 wire phone/data cable and plugs --  Plug A and Plug B are crimped on the same way at both ends.  That's a straight-thru cable -- when you lay it flat on the table the left-hand conductor (#1) on plug A goes straight thru along the left side of the cable, to Plug B. 

Simple enough right?  BUT - pick it up and hold the plugs next to each other, like you are plugging both into the same equipment jack.   Conductor #1 on Plug A is still on the far left (position #1) on the jack.  Good to go.   Where is conductor #1  on plug B?    Oooops, it's on the extreme right (position #6) of Plug B.  HOWEVER Jack B is expecting that data to be coming into Position #1, not into Position #6.   So Jack B would need to be wired opposite of Jack A.  The problem is that we would need to know every piece of equipment in the Milky Way and whether its jack is a "sending jack" or a "receiving jack."   Impossible and confusing. 

So enter a flip-over cable.  Plug A is one direction and Plug B is flipped upside down when crimped.   
Voila' - no matter whichever plug is inserted into whichever jack, data stream #1 will ALWAYS be coming to Jack position #1 (at the far left,) and data stream #6 will ALWAYS be coming to (the far right) Jack position #6.  But, most normal phone cables are straight thru (in the olden days it didn't matter because the phone pairs worked whether or not the Plugs were flipped.  Phone A is conductor #1/#6, phone B conductor is #2/#5 and phone C conductor #3/#4.   And it didn't matter which was the positive or negative wire.  Easy crap, but it's gone wild in the digital age and not so goof for data streams when jacks are looking for specifics like sense voltage, or a variable 4-20 miliamp signal, or digital zeros and ones on specific positions.   So enter the flip over coupler.   The left to right switcharoo is taken care of inside the coupler, rather than with one of the cord Plugs being upside down.  I suspect that's why the extension didn't work - you needed a flip over cable or a flip over coupler.   There's also "cross-over" cables and couplers that cross over only a few specific pairs of conductors (not all of them wholesale.)  It can drive one to drink to keep it all "straight."  -Bad pun.

Another way to overcome (we shall) is to use two RJ-25 wall jacks with a short patch cord to the charger.  Then hard-wire them together w/ round 6-conductor phone cord, making sure that each data path ends up on the conductor that the charger is expecting to see it.

The burning question is why these manufacturers think most installs are neat and within 4 feet of the batteries!!!  ProMariner should know better. Or now since PM is part of the Marinco, et al conglomerate, PM and Guest will eventually be scrapped and out of business in favor of a single line of chargers.  Who knows - stay tuned to the wacky and also ever-changing world of marine acquisitions!

K

[Paulus]

Thanks, for the explanation.
The temperature cable that came with the charger only has 2 lines in, line 3&4.  Could not make out the colors without a magnifying glass.
Paul

[KWKloeber]

Thanks, for the explanation.
The temperature cable that came with the charger only has 2 lines in, line 3&4.  Could not make out the colors without a magnifying glass.
Paul

Ok so reversing 3/4 at one of the plugs should have worked.

[Paulus]

I think that it might have worked, but I did notice that the extension they made for me had the colors reversed on one of the plugs.  It is working now and appreciate knowing why it might not have worked.
Paul

[Mike and Joanne Stimmler]

I would bet that if you had gotten a straight through cord of the proper length, all would have been fine but when you start adding extra length with adaptors is when you run into problems.

Mike (retired telecom tech with 37 years service)

[Paulus]

Maybe that would work.  Would be interesting to hear from other ProNautic owners.  I spoke with a technician at the main office twice.  Two different people but the same answer.  Put in a coupler and added the two feet.  Would not send me a longer piece and not to change the connection at the negative end.
Paul

[KWKloeber]

Maybe that would work.  Would be interesting to hear from other ProNautic owners.  I spoke with a technician at the main office twice.  Two different people but the same answer.  Put in a coupler and added the two feet.  Would not send me a longer piece and not to change the connection at the negative end.
Paul

Mike hit it on the head!  I was confused when you said 'they' made a cross over cable, I thought it was from PMar.  A straight thru cable and straight thru coupler is what works in this case.  Think of a straight through as an "extension" cable, and a flip over as "patch" cable.

Most every 'layman' making an RJ-25 cable would by human nature make it a straight thru - just because it seems odd to flip the plug over. Whomever made the cable was thinking that you were patching one data source jack to another data input jack. An alternative would have been to use that cable cable, but with a crossover coupler. 

Beyond me why PM would use an R-25 cable/jack, when there's only two conductors.  Different just to be different?

kk

[Noah]

I installed my ProNautic P under the chart table. It gets plenty of circulation and I installed the remote readout just above my switch panel, using a removable teak dashboard-style faceplate panel that encloses the shelf area and support everything nicely; including my LPG fume detector gauge, Charger remote, Fusion Stereo, and VHF. My wet locker houses my NEMA 2000 gear, inverter, autopilot computer, and Haletron fire extingusher.

[Noah]

Wet locker