First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

[juicegoose]

I appreciate the patience and responses.
I recently bought a 16' alweld boat. It has several power points(perko connector, 12v outlets) throughout the boat. I'm also running 2 batteries(starting, trolling), fish finder.

1. Trolling motor - should it be on it's own battery with nothing else connected?

2. How should all the grounds connect. My thought was to take all the grounds from the front of the boat to a common bus then bring one wire back to the battery. Do i connect the blacks of both batteries together?

3. If the motor is connected to the battery and i have both battery negatives and the system negatives connected to the same terminal is that a correct ground path?

4. my trolling motor is a 46lb motorguide that has #8 ran from the battery to the plug. Currently it has an inline 30amp fuse. I'm thinking i need to put in a 50a resettable but am not 100% sure. Your thoughts?

5. Any special considerations on the fishfinder? I've heard about noise issues but am not sure the path to take to isolate them.


Thanks again.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

Personally, I'd run the trolling motor on it's own battery with nothing else connected to it.

 

[juicegoose]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

would you connect the neg of the troller battery to the negative of the starting battery?

 

[ezmobee]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

No, because why would I do that?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

No, because why would I do that?

You would NEED to do that if the boat has a dual battery switch or ACR and you expect the engine to charge the troller battery (but then we don't know that it has either). The referenced "Perko Connector" may actually be a Perko Dual Battery Switch. If that's the case, then it is mandatory to connect the negative terminals together. And that must be done with the same size cable as the engine battery cables. The troller definitely gets connected to the troller battery. Locators draw little power so it doesn't matter which battery they get connected to. You definitely need a 50A breaker on the motor.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

Good point. juicegoose, disregard my comments. I really have no idea what I'm talking about. :facepalm:

 

[brnschoneck]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

Yes id run trolling to its own batt.., i have a seperate batt in frnt also for my 3 55w lights for my nght fishn.. As well as a couple other little deck lights..I beleive my fishfinder is running off the engine battery ..I guess it depends too on what u do on the lake ,if u use lights etc ....I like to run a different circuit for eeverything that way if i have a problem i know where to go and what connection to look at , but thats me ....

 

[juicegoose]

Re: First Boat Grounding/wiring questions?

Good point. juicegoose, disregard my comments. I really have no idea what I'm talking about. :facepalm:

Thanks for the reply guys. The perko connector is just a simple floor 2 pin connection for a livewell.

My connections are the following
46lb thrust 12v trolling motor (#8 already run with 50A manual reset circuit breaker)
front 12v cig lighter plug
front perko deck connector(for livewell bilge pump)
rear 12v cig lighter connector
fish finder.

My plan
keep the trolling motor isolated as it is now.
run #10 to front fuse panel for all misc loads with 30A main fuse to panel
connect #10 to starting battery


Lights are all portable d cell battery powered.