Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

[fishsniper]

I am rewiring my boat and I have a humminbird wide optics fish finder with a swivel mount (kind of an older one, 10+years old). The instructions say to connect it to the red wire (positive) and the the black wire to ground. My problem is that I have only black wires.

I would assume that a handful of these models had the same 12v power plug in the base.

Does anyone know which one should be the positive mount and which one is the negative? Which terminal is closest to the bow and which is closest to the stern (if you were headed in a forward direction looking at the fishfinder)?

 

[John_S]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

I have had an Optic and other models from that era. It should be red and black wires. Check further up the wire closer to the mount. Someone probably added their own wire. Otherwise, when I get home tonight I can tell you which pin goes to the red.

 

[fishsniper]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

I did-- Its all black. I have it now, so I know which wire goes to which pin but, I don't know which one is + or -.


One of the main reason why I had to rewire everything is that the previous owner just hooked things up without mind to fuses, polarity, etc.

 

[Fl_Richard]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

Usually when there are two black wires one wire will have ridges, a white stripe or text printed on it. Does yours? If so the striped,ridged or wire with text is almost always the positive wire. Please note the phrase almost always.

I'd wait for Johns answer to be positive

For 110VAC the riged, striped or wire with text is ALWAYS the neutral.

 

[fishsniper]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

I called hummingbird today and guess what their answer was....you guessed it the +_ terminal information is confidential but you can buy a new power cable. Unfortunately, there are no ridges, it is a 12vdc system. He had replaced the cord because the longest you can buy is 6ft, when I need about 15. The official power cable is called a pc10.

John you are my only hope.

 

[John_S]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

The positive wire on the PC10 goes to the pin on the connector that has the keyed end. If you are looking into the tilt swivel bracket power plug, it is the back pin. I am not 100% sure, but believe the Wide Optic is reverse voltage protected. Hopefully, you don't need to test that feature now.

 

[fishsniper]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

John you are a saint, thank you I will try to wire it up tonight. When this project is complete I will post pictures in the rebuild section.

 

[fishsniper]

Re: Hummingbird Fish finder +- power question

Wired it as described and it worked like a champ. Didn't test to see if there was a fail-safe wiring it the other way.