I just installed a new dinension tower on my 99 Sport Nautique. When I was in the local Marine store, they were telling me the tower has to have an electrical gound - all T-Tops, Fishing towers, wakeboard towers. He said you run a low gauge gound wire from the bottom of one of the attach bolts to the boat main boat ground. Anyone know where that is ?
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I think the reason they are suggesting you ground the tower is the same reason you ground the frame of a washer, dryer or any electrical appliance. If there is a fault in the wiring, like the insulation frays or a connection comes lose, and the conductor touches the tower, the current goes through the ground wire instead of a person leaning up against the tower.
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Whoops, hit the submit button too quickly. My post above only applies if you have electrical wiring running through the tower. If you don't, then the only reason I can think for grounding the tower is is for lightning protection. Not very likely, but it is cheap insurance.
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Okay,
For example.
Your car motor hood is extra cable grounded, just ground over the hinges isnt reliable enough.
When the grounding isnt okay for example this can disturb the radio quality, in early cars you could hear the ignition over the radio when reved up.
Most components are electric shielded, housing and metal frames atached on a common ground.
So your tower could function as an antenna and when not grounded on the common ground interfear mainly inferior electrical systems.
Futher their the tower can be electrostaticly charged, in al kinds of ways, when not grounded.
Above isnt sience but pure practics over the years.
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1,000 Post Club Member
- Jul 2003
- 2908
- San Francisco, CA
- Current 2005 SV 211, due for upgrade! GS22 or GS24 perhaps? Previous
RE: Tower ground
It's not necessary on a wakeboard tower. They most likely sell towers for Radar and fishing equipment and are confusing a few things. Grounds really only exist in higher voltage wiring systems, it's technically a connection to earth, not possible in a boat. The neutral conductor is the conductor attached to ground at the service entry point, again not something applicable in our wakeboats. Marine wiring is significantly different than most common electrical systems, but since we typically have nothing over 30 volts on our boats things fall into lesser category codes.
I like to call the conductor connected to the (-) battery terminal the negative conductor, BLACK. A good wiring practice is to have a terminal strip of common (-) attachment points near the block or battery. This avoids the opportunity for different (-) voltage potential through conductor losses. It eliminates most noise issues in sensitive electronics like stereo amplifiers. Unfortunately, I have not seen this technique applied in Correct Craft wiring systems (it may be used but not in the boats I have owned). I have seen this applied in Malibu wiring systems.
If you would like to apply this to your boat the connection point should be either end of the negative battery cable, at the block end would be best. I tend to make my common connection point at the negative battery terminal for convenience.
If you would like to meet the intention of the "ground" wire to the tower you need to size it equal greater to the maximum possible current present at the tower. For example if you have four 100w lights on the tower you need to size for 400W/12V=33A or #10 wire. At this point you can use your tower as the negative conductor for your tower systems and just run the positive leads to power the systems. Most people don't do it this way because it requires a solid electrical connection at the component attachment point. As things get oxidized or corroded this solid electrical connection is often lost. I can remember when most trailers used the frame and ball connection as the negative electrical path. This often caused the lights to flicker as they lost connection rolling down the road.
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