Wiring Your Boat

Evening gentlemen and ladies, i need a little advice on wiring. A couple years ago i received a fish n easy 2 for something. that was the only bit of electronics i had on my boat so i just tapped into the light wiring and was on my way. now a days i have an fl-8se up front and an eagle intellimap480 and the fishNeasy2 on the console. last year i just ran the vex off a battery but this year i want to hard wire it to the boat batterys. so my questions are is it best to run a different set of wires from each item to the battery or can i pigtail a couple of them together, or should i just skip running wire and pigtail off the boat lights for all of them. i was also thinking of installing a toggleswitch board. could i run one larger wire to the board and then hook up all the electronics to that. i need some good advice. all is welcome

You have not mentioned fuses. Talk to a marine mechanic and be sure everything is properly fused. Luck to ya.

I personally like clean power to each electronic. This helps avoid interference, and should make each electronic work properly. I would run separate wires from the battery to the electronics. I have not tried the toggle switch board, so not sure how that would work as far as interference goes. I run a flasher up front as well. My advice there is to keep the connections on the end of the wire the same. That way come winter you can just unhook the connection to the vex and hook right up to the battery for ice fishing without stripping wires or changing connections. Good luck, you will learn to become an expert marine electrician in no time

I went and got a fuse block system for the original Jalope, i then put it inside of a plano tackle box, James saw my water proofed fuse block, but, i then run a good heavy gauge wire from the battery to the fuse block. then from there, I ran new wires to each peice of electronics. I had a depth finder on the counsel and also on the bow, along with a trolling motor.

thanks

shane

On the console, I like to run seperate wires direct to the battey. On the bow, I tap into exsisting wires. Positive to the trim switch and neg. to the light. Never had any problem with interference.