battery terminals

[catfishcarl99]

well i was asking a Q about a weak starter and i got a suggestion from a member about all the wires i had running to my battery. and he suggested a master terminal. well not wanting to drop a $100 i did come up with a nice solution. since i already had new inline fuse connectors on all the new lights ect ive installed i devised a plan that was about $20. i got 4 ground terminal strips from the farm store. just like the ones in a breaker box in your home. what i did is installed a 4"x4" block of 3/4" thick wood to the battery compartment. and screwed a small plastic storage container with a latching lid to the wood. i had cut a square out of the side for wires. then i put 2 of the 3" ground strips in the box with 1/2" screws so they wouldnt hit the boats alum. then another block of wood for the 2 ground strips. i installed all positive light ,pump, wires ect... to the ones in the box. and all the negs to the two others. i have a troller battery for all led lights and troll motor and a starting battery with just the nav lights and pumps i want seperate so i dont run it dead with lights night fishing.

anyway then i put a red pos and a black neg heavy guage wire from each block to there corrosponding battery. so now instead of the 30 wires i have the two heavy starting wires and a pos and neg from terminals to start battery. and the troller wires and a pos and neg from blocks for all lights ect... really made a neat compartment from a wire filled mess. and i used wire loom on everything i could bundle up. went out on the 19th fishing and went through all lights pumps ect. everything worked 100%. and now i can pull out batteries without stressing 40 wires. and i made the terminal wires a lil longer than what i had. so the batteries can slide out a bit further to make opening the boxes for removal much easier.

couple pics hard to see but gives an idea of what i did. with the new wire and all i spent $25ish.

 

[catfishcarl99]

Re: battery terminals

posted this in another forum and a guy mentioned an isolater switch. where he can pick which battery is getting a charge or shut them off if needed. i run 2. a troller with leds for night fishing. and a starting with bilage and live well pumps and nav/anchor lights. both batteries are seperate and the starting is grounded at the motor. whole boat is grounded on that one. the troller is isolated with no ground to the alum boat. what type of switch would i need to do it the way he explained??? would be nice to be able to throw a charge while running on the troller battery if i wanted to. any ideas. thats why i isolated the ground bars for the common with the block of wood. the motor has the start battery grounded throughout the boat so i kept the ground blocks off the alum to isolate the troll battery. wasnt sure if that was needed but i wanted to be sure my leds i run at night didnt have any effect on the start battery.

 

[Georgesalmon]

Re: battery terminals

Look at a Guest(marinco) of Perko switch. They make several kinds. You need a Off/One/Two/Both type switch. The switch will come with a wiring diagram. If this is what you want the switch will shut off both batteries completely, nothing will operate(most people do wire the bilge pump float switch directly to a battery for safety) In the 1 position everything will run off battery #1, in the 2 position everything will run off battery #2. In 1 and 2 the battery selected will also be charged by your main engine. In the BOTH position the batteries will be paralled and they will both power everything and be charged by the main engine when running. Also in an emergency the BOTH position will paralelle the batteries sort of like jumping your car to get the main engine started. I usually use one battery for starting and running, then when I stop to fish or play I switch to the other battery. If my "fishing" battery goes dead i will always have the "starting" battery to get home with. There are hundreds of ways to do this same thing. Lots of electronic devices to do all of that automatically for you. The more sofisticated the more money they cost. The switch is the cheapest, but you have to pay attention and do it yourself.

 

[catfishcarl99]

Re: battery terminals

thanks. thats what im looking for. a switch that does the shutting off and swapping of the batteries as well as the parallel thing. sounds exactly like the one he was talking about. when i re wired mine last week i wanted to run every led light i had to the troller so like back in august before i switched all my lights from old bulb style to led strips and ran my start battery to low to crank my motor and also the troller from buzzing around with it. but with this i could put a charge to both unlike now as i have to rely on a charger when i get home to charge the troller.

 

[Lyle29464]

Re: battery terminals

I would keep everything but the engine on the house battery. Charge it at home. You can rig it to charge the house battery but is just does not have that output.

 

[catfishcarl99]

Re: battery terminals

I would keep everything but the engine on the house battery. Charge it at home. You can rig it to charge the house battery but is just does not have that output.

ya thats what i did. ran all leds that are on either for a bit of hours to the house or troller battery. only thing on the engine battery is live well fill pump and the bilage whice neither get used alot and the nav lights. the accessory plug leds and live well submersible leds are all on the troller now. but after one outing even after running these leds my troller charged very quickly back to full charge with a trickle since the leds pull such low milli amps. thought it would be nice to have the option of putting a few volst into it too if need be bu taking a cruise after a few hrs. but in reality i lake fish and am never far from shore so its not like i should run it dead with leds even if i fished the full night on a good charge. but im up for any imput to juggle around.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: battery terminals

You realize you need to have a fuse on every wire that leaves that terminal block and a fuse on the one going to the terminal block right?