Re: Tm Battery hook-ups
I fully understand what you want to do, but I don't understand "why" you want to go through so much trouble and possibly create more electrical problems that take time away from fishing. A Perko (or similar) switch (OFF-BAT1-BOTH-BAT2) is fine if you are worried about having a dead start battery so you want a second battery as backup. It's obviously nice to be able to switch to BAT 2, fire up, switch to BOTH and go. However, you are talking about trolling motor batteries here -- and 24V besides. Remember also that to make 24V you have two batteries in series. The battery switch accommodates two batteries, not three. My point is, the engine (and we don't know what you have) would have to be run wide open for hours to fully charge two deeply discharged trolling motor batteries so having them on the switch in the hopes of charging them is just silly. For the cost of a set of jumper cables you can forget the switch, all the wiring, and simply jump the start battery from either of the trolling motor batteries if the need arises. Your on-board charger will be used to charge the trollers much more efficiently and properly than the engine. Chew on this for awhile. If you are really convinced this is what you want to do, I'll draw something up. But once you see what's required, I'll bet you change your mind. Just so you know, all of the connections between the batteries and the switch need to be at least the same size as the start battery cables going to the engine. Why? Because you intend to start the engine from them -- remember! That means you need big crimping tools to handle big lugs.
