Shielded Cable for Chart Plotter

[Frank P]

Hello All,
I am installing a Garmin chart plotter to my helm station and the round trip length to the main breaker pannel at the nav station is around 50'. The unit only comes with a 3' power lead. I contacted Garmin to see if they offer an extension cable and they do not. They told me to a use 14 awg shielded cable. I found that it is about $180 for a 100' roll of Ancor Marine duplex shielded cable. Does anyone know of a more economical alternative?

Thanks
Frank
Hunter 40.5 - Malu Lani

 

[Bill Roosa]

The helm has power to it already from the other instruments, auto pilot,etc. just use a splice off them

 

[navigator97]

The Signal Wires certainly do not need to be 14 Ga. wire. On my installation of the Garmin GPSMap Chart Plotter at the helm Station, I use a 2 conductor 20 Ga. or 18 Ga. unshielded cable to bring power from the DC panel to a junction box (a radio Shack Project Box) that I placed in the aft cabin on the bulkhead. I had a spare length of Wind Inst. shielded cable that I used for the signal from that same junction box to my VHF-DSC Radio at the nav station. The wire guage size on that signal cable wasn't any more than 26 Ga., if that. It all works fine. The current level in the signal cable is quite low. It's just delivering a digital data stream with Lat/Lon info.

 

[Frank P]

Thanks for your input Guys,
I am only concerned with power to the plotter. The max current draw on the plotter is 2.6A and I agree that 14 AWG is on the large side. The manual states to use 14 AWG for "extended runs" however no length is defined. I am assuming that impedance plays a big roll. Also based on the total wire run and current draw a 16 AWG is recommended to maintain a 3% voltage drop so jumping up 14 AWG is not htat big of a stretch. I am concerned with potential EMI issues so I dont want to use the existing power leads already running the to the helm. I am just getting tired of these $200 hits on this project every time turn around and I was curious if anyone knew of alternative to the expensive Ancor cable.

Thanks Again
Frank