Hiya,
I just bought a project boat.. basic tiller steer fishing boat. It does have lights and a bilge pump (all maybe trash, but I don't know yet). It does have a storage compartment for a battery, and I'm intending on putting a fish finder on it. So, rather than power the finder from a battery pack, I'm gonna re-wire the boat to get the lights operational, maybe replace the bilge pump, add a horn, and run the finder off the real full-size battery.
Straightforward enough stuff... I'll add switches for the stuff at the back end, and probably make a little compartment under one of the seats at the stern for a small fuse box.
Question: On an aluminum hull, do you tie the negative battery terminal to the hull, and then ground all your lights, bilge etc just to the hull, or do you run duplex wire to everything and ground it to the negative battery terminal and leave the hull un-connected to the negative terminal?
The boats that I have that have electric's are all fiberglass, so have dedicated runs for the return path that are connected to the negative battery terminal. From the wiring that's left on this aluminum boat, it looks like the lights were just grounded to the hull... but maybe there's a reason why it's best not to do it that way (?).
Thanks!
I just bought a project boat.. basic tiller steer fishing boat. It does have lights and a bilge pump (all maybe trash, but I don't know yet). It does have a storage compartment for a battery, and I'm intending on putting a fish finder on it. So, rather than power the finder from a battery pack, I'm gonna re-wire the boat to get the lights operational, maybe replace the bilge pump, add a horn, and run the finder off the real full-size battery.
Straightforward enough stuff... I'll add switches for the stuff at the back end, and probably make a little compartment under one of the seats at the stern for a small fuse box.
Question: On an aluminum hull, do you tie the negative battery terminal to the hull, and then ground all your lights, bilge etc just to the hull, or do you run duplex wire to everything and ground it to the negative battery terminal and leave the hull un-connected to the negative terminal?
The boats that I have that have electric's are all fiberglass, so have dedicated runs for the return path that are connected to the negative battery terminal. From the wiring that's left on this aluminum boat, it looks like the lights were just grounded to the hull... but maybe there's a reason why it's best not to do it that way (?).
Thanks!
