powering my fish finder

[undercurrent]

Alright, I am the new owner of a 1964 14' Hourston Glasscraft with a Merc 20 outboard, rigged with a steering wheel, remote controls, on/off switch, but it is a manual rip-cord start up. I picked up a Hummingbird Piranha Max 240 fish finder so I don't keep running aground and so I can see where the fish are hiding... HERE'S my question:

How do I splice the Hummingbird's power line into my Merc 20 outboard motor? Is there a better way to do this?

Any help is a HUGE help.

Thanks in advance to your help.

undercurrent

 

[whofan]

Re: powering my fish finder

I say you have to have a reliable 12 volt source with no interfearance. A deep cycle battery is what you need. I think you will damage your graph or It will not work from your alternator causing electrical noise.

 

[undercurrent]

Re: powering my fish finder

Thanks Whofan,

So how would that set up go? You're talking about a deep cycle battery is what I need, so how would I hook that up? Did I tell you that I'm new around here? ;-)

 

[jtexas]

Re: powering my fish finder

your fishfinder will have a power cord with bare wire at the ends, one will have red insulation, the other will have black. get a couple "ring terminals", and crimp them on to the wires. put them on the accessory terminals of a "marine deepcycle" battery, red on positive (+), and black on negative (-), and screw the wingnuts down tight.

Walmarts has an "Everstart Trolling Deepcycle" battery for about $35, I use 'em, they work fine.

That's it!

Charge your battery after every outing, and top it off every couple weeks if you don't use it, it'll last longer.

Now that you have electrical power, you can add lights, livewell, bait tank, stereo, heck, maybe even a trolling motor!

welcome to the forum!

 

[undercurrent]

Re: powering my fish finder

Now we're talking!!!!
jtexas, you have tilted the light nicely into the shadows of my shadowy new world. I just head down to Walmart and grab Everstart Trolling Deepcycle battery for about $35 connect my Hummingbird fish finder direct to the battery and ba-da-bing!!!! Power to spare for lights, trollers, downriggers... subwoofers? Okay, maybe the sub is another battery, but for my fish finder all I need is a deepcycle battery? Way easy fix if that's it.


THANKS I love this place!

 

[jtexas]

Re: powering my fish finder

oops, forgot, put an "inline fuse holder" on the positive wire, whatever size fuse the humminbird manual suggests.

Then you've still got to mount the transducer.

and let me know what kinda music the fish like best...............

 

[Chris1956]

Re: powering my fish finder

Undercurrent, I will guess that your motor is non-charging. You will need to be able to charge the battery every once in a while. The fishfinder will take weeks to run the battery down since it uses so little power. A trolling motor will drain the battery in a matter of a few hours.

You might pick up a low power charger, when you buy the battery.

 

[gregtobin]

Re: powering my fish finder

If you have plans to run lights and a trolling motor, you'll want to spring for the largest battery feasible. If you are going to be OK with just powering the fishfinder, a small battery should be fine. I'd suggest that you spend a little extra to get an automatic battery charger rather than a manual one that you'd have to baby-sit.

 

[undercurrent]

Re: powering my fish finder

Alright, so I'm going to get a good battery for my fish finder, one that will power a stero, and lights. At first I was ok with the idea of taking the battery off the boat every once in a while to recharge and top up the battery, but now I'm thinking of pick up a low power charger... seems like the best idea, so how does the charger hook up and recharge the battery?
Just a few more questions and I'll be all set?!?!?

Thanks yawl

 

[whofan]

Re: powering my fish finder

The charger hooks to the battery along with what ever else you hook up to it. If you have a manual bench type battery charger you have to disconnect everything and move the battery to the charger or vice versa. A cheap on board charger is your best bet.

 

[undercurrent]

Re: powering my fish finder

Sounds way easy... I thought I'd have to connect the charger to my outboard's electric system somewhere, but I guess that because my motor is a manual rip-chord without a starter it wouldn't really work that way.

Thanks for all the great help everyone

 

[jtexas]

Re: powering my fish finder

If you want to plug it in & forget it, get a "smart charger" with a "battery maintenance mode".

You can get an onboard charger that you secure somewhere out of the way near the battery, hook it to the battery terminals, and just plug the boat in when you're not using it. Otherwise you'll have to either bring the battery to the charger or the charger to the battery.

You could get a 12- or 15- amp charger that'll charge it from nearly dead in a few hours - if you do, be sure it's got auto-shut-off, you don't want to overcharge.

Or you could get a 2-amp "trickle" charger that'll charge it overnight. Wouldn't want to leave it on there indefinately though, still a risk of overcharging.

Lot of chargers have both a fast and a slow charge setting, and many of these also have a 100-amp "jump-start" setting that comes in handy sometimes when the wife leaves the minivan door open and drains the battery because Toyota's idiot engineers thought it would be cool if the headlight timer didn't start until all the doors are closed, and she calls and says "can you come start my car", and it's surprisingly easy to talk her through it even if she doesn't know a.....sorry, got a little carried away there..........

But any way you go, it's just a matter of hooking 'em up red to (+) and black to (-). So easy a caveman could do it.