Help with wiring diagram

[tgab14]

I'm about to rewire my 1985 sea nymph bass boat. This is what I came up with for a wiring diagram. what do you think?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

Your diagram has lettering too small to make out -- but here's what I can make out:

1) You have the batteries located at the stern but run all of the ground wires for stern mounted accessories all the way to the console. Ground them at the battery to clean up the wiring and save wire.
2) You have EVERYTHING powered by a house battery yet I see no way to charge that battery from the engine (no switch, combiner, ACR etc.). With those few accessories I don't see why they need to be on the house battery. Since this is a "bass boat" why not use the house battery to power it (deep cycle of course) and put the accessories back on the starting battery.
3) Can't make out anything on the console so can't comment on that setup.

 

[tgab14]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

Thanks Silvertip! The grounds going back to the console wouldn't be that bad....the bilge pump and aerator have 15ft. of wire coming off of them so it wouldn't be hard to run it to the busbar. The starting battery is charged by the altenator on the outboard, and the house battery (which is deep cycle) is charged when the boat is not being used at home with a 1.5amp trickle charger. I'm going to in-large the pic so you can read it better. The control panel is a pre-wired panel that I bought from bass bro shops. It has 5 on-off switches and 1 12volt DC plug for a cell phone charger or spotlight.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

If you have a trolling motor I suggest again that you power everything except the troller from the starting battery. Leave the deep cycle for the troller. It makes no sense to have accessories on a battery that is not being charged by the engine. A dead house battery means a dead bilge pump, dead nav lights, dead fish finder, dead everything. If you insist on leaving it this way, at least install an ACR or combiner.

 

[tgab14]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

Bigger/revised diagram...

 

[Mark_VTfisherman]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

...1. I would tie the ground (negative) side of the batteries together to help prevent possible electrolysis issues and to provide a ground path....2. As others have suggested, I would mount the grounding bussbar close to the battery instead of running it from the dash....

Bubba has the right idea.

What I have done which is clean and also permits full bonding of all the accs. in the boat is to install a buss at the rear, tied with heavy gauge black to both battery neg's, and run an 8 or 6 gauge black wire forward to another negative bus at the helm. That way you have a direct path for every power connection. Long runs of wire (more than a few feet) on either the + or neg side will drop your volts more than you would expect. A big fat ground on a bus at the helm can reduce this volt drop quite a bit.

 

[tgab14]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

Did some more adjusting to what bubba and mark said. What do you think about the fuse size? I can easily access the batteries so I was going to skip switches and put in inline fuses off the batteries.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

Glad to see you eliminated the long runs of ground wires. However by adding the ground bus at the back of the boat you now increased dramatically the number of points of failure. Eliminate the ground bus and ground directly to the battery (one point of failure vs many). I still feel having all of your accessories on a battery being used by a trolling motor is a mistake.

 

[Mark_VTfisherman]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

I should have mentioned that I also coat every connection with dielectric grease. Should stop corrosion and lower your likelihood of any failure.

 

[seabob4]

Re: Help with wiring diagram

Here is the hot and ground buss at the stern. Note the 4GA feeds, with the stern equipment grounds terminated on the ground buss. A 40A Bussman will be installed tomorrow coming off the batt switch.

Those 4GA feeds run forward to here:

Where they feed a second hot and ground buss. 10GA feeds the switch panel.