Hunky Dory
Petty Officer 2nd Class
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2003
- Messages
- 102
So I installed a trolling motor near the front of pontoon's deck, primarily for limp-home capability. It draws 50 amps so the battery is collocated. Anyway, I park the trailer at a storage lot so keeping the dedicated battery charged will be a problem, even if unused. I want to fix that and to fully exploit the presence of the deep cycle battery for both common and emergency situations.
My thought is to install a battery selector switch at the helm just for lights and accessories. Trolling would be direct wired and fused at the front. The outboard would be direct connected at the rear. Both batteries would be tied to the selector switch with fuses at each positive terminal to protect the interconnecting cables. This would allow for absolute shutdown of lights and accessories, and in the 'both' position, would parallel the batteries for charging.
Trouble is that the two batteries are >20 feet apart and big cable gets costly. Maximum Evinrude charging current appears to be 25 amps which 10 gauge should handle but I am concerned about the implications of someday switching a fully discharged trolling battery into parallel with a fully charged starting battery. Additionally, it would be nice to have the deep cycle as cranking backup of last resort.
It turns out that an affordable solution might be to use #4 jumper cable to tie the batteries to the switch. I can easily swap clamps for lugs and route the cable through the deck within PVC conduit along the top of a pontoon to the helm but I am very uncomfortable with using cranking-capacity fuses in this extended lashup. And there may be other "marine" considerations I have missed.
What do you think?
My thought is to install a battery selector switch at the helm just for lights and accessories. Trolling would be direct wired and fused at the front. The outboard would be direct connected at the rear. Both batteries would be tied to the selector switch with fuses at each positive terminal to protect the interconnecting cables. This would allow for absolute shutdown of lights and accessories, and in the 'both' position, would parallel the batteries for charging.
Trouble is that the two batteries are >20 feet apart and big cable gets costly. Maximum Evinrude charging current appears to be 25 amps which 10 gauge should handle but I am concerned about the implications of someday switching a fully discharged trolling battery into parallel with a fully charged starting battery. Additionally, it would be nice to have the deep cycle as cranking backup of last resort.
It turns out that an affordable solution might be to use #4 jumper cable to tie the batteries to the switch. I can easily swap clamps for lugs and route the cable through the deck within PVC conduit along the top of a pontoon to the helm but I am very uncomfortable with using cranking-capacity fuses in this extended lashup. And there may be other "marine" considerations I have missed.
What do you think?