Wiring My GPS?

I just purchased a Garmin 162 GPS from Jolly Ann Marine and Outdoor, thanks Wade ! I am going to mount this unit on the bow of my boat along side a Garmin 240 that I have on the trolling motor. Would a guy be able to splice in to the power wire of the 240 instead of running the power wire of the 162 back to the main battery or fuse panel?

If this is possible to do with out interference on either unit it would save me a lot of time and work. I am going to buy another mount and use this GPS in the back of my boat as well when I am on the kicker motor. I already have a Pinpoint 7420 depth finder mounted by my kicker and am hoping I could just splice in to the power wire of the pinpoint in the back of my boat if that’s possible with out interference?

I’m not much of an electronic guru so your help will be appreciated .

Splicing shouldn’t be a problem Dustin. I would recommend keeping the splice as far away from sources of interferance as you can. Also, rosin core solder (not acid core as used in pipe connections) and heat shrinkable tubing is the only way to splice in my book.
Don’t cut out the inline fuse if there is one.

B

Dustin, I don’t like to share power sources to graphs with anything. It seems to me you may run into some interference issues.

I wired in a cigarette lighter adapter to my boat up front and use that adapter to power my Garmin Map 76. That works slick! Garmin makes a power cord with the cigarette adapter. That way I can use the whole set-up in my vehicle also and the power cord works there two. Just another idea.

Dustin, I would run a seperate wire. There is to much of a chance for interference. also if you blow a fuse you lose both gps and locator. For a very reasonable price you can get a Garmin extra mounting station, wire directly to your battery in back. When you are trolling you can easily switch your gps unit to the back of the boat. I run my electronics to a seperate power power supply, not the main battery.

I run separate batteries on my electronics. I use a 12 volt 18amp gel cell that you can get from Batteries Plus. You can place it in the bow storage area and not have to worry about acid. They are about the size of two gel cell batteries that you would use for ice fishing.

I agree with Derek, I run all my electronics from a seperate power supply.

Been there, done that…Ditto run each piece of electronics with its own wire.

I hope I was clear…LOL

I personally wouldn’t worry about splicing into the power cord for the graph, especially if it’s a 200Khz transducer. If it’s a dual freq or a 50Khz unit, there is probably more potential for problems, but more likely from your kicker or outboard than the GPS.

Think about it this way: Noise feedback on the power supply is going to be primarily caused by surges and breaks in the current draw of the unit. For the most part, today’s GPS receivers take about a third of a watt, and since most are twelve channel units, there is not a lot of switching on and off within the unit that would cause variation in the current draw.

Some GPS receivers are known to be very noisy in certain frequency bands, but consider that the fundamental frequencies involved in GPS receivers are orders of magnitude above that of your fishfinder’s operating frequency range. As an example, a majority of commercial receivers probably use 10Mhz or 10.23Mhz based frequency plans. At 10Mhz, it’s frequency reference is running 50x the freq of your transducer. [geek on]The spectral density of any interference from the GPS receiver within the functioning band of the sonar is going to be far below the thermal noise floor of the sonar’s internal componentry.[/geek off]

Also, given that most sonars draw about 100millamps, and most GPS receivers are in that same range, you should be able to splice it after the 1 amp fuse and not worry about blowing it.

All that said, there’s a very good reason why some of these guys run electronics off of a separate power supply. The motor noise when operating is tremendous in certain ranges. The coil discharge generates a large amount of interference in the operating frequency range of the motor (rate of rpm/# of coils for 2-stroke, that/2 for fours). Most fishfinder companies I would think expect this and filter the livin’ crap out of the power input below a few kHz. There’s probably a greater variability in the stator charge and rectification though, and it would be expensive for them to guard against all possibilities.

I’m rambling… I’ll shut up now. English translation: Go ahead, you can always change it later if you have problems.

I agree with Gianni. Go ahead and use 220, 221 whatever it takes!

Thanks for all the replies guys . The help and info is much appreciated

Either Gianni knows his crap or he is baffling us with bullsh#t …come on, which is it?

But seriously I appreciate the tech talk although I don’t understand it

I do understand that there is a difference in the performance of each model and that corelates into price.

It’s that baffling thing… At least it worked for a while.

I’m sorry Gianni …I didn’t mean to blow your cover

Quote:

---

I run separate batteries on my electronics. I use a 12 volt 18amp gel cell that you can get from Batteries Plus. You can place it in the bow storage area and not have to worry about acid. They are about the size of two gel cell batteries that you would use for ice fishing.

---

Quote:

---

I agree with Derek, I run all my electronics from a separate power supply.

---

How do you guys charge the separate batteries?

would a 2 or 3 bank on board charger work?

Also when you say (separate batteries on my electronics) do you run your electric trolling motors on the same battery as your GPS & Locators?

Steve, I use a two bank Guest on board charger. By electronics I meant depth finders and gps. The trolling motor has a seperate power supply, nothing else runs off the trolling motor batteries.

Steve, like Don said. I just run my finders and GPS on separate batteries but they are wired to the same batteries. I use the gel cell in the bow to run my finder and GPS and then I have a group 31 battery stored under my console that I run my dash finders,GPS,CD player,and marine band radio. This battery is hooked up to a three bank MinnKota onboard charger. The other two banks charge my batteries for the bow trolling motor. The gel cell in the bow is charged with a standard battery charger.

I run a 12 volt trolling motor, but if I wanted to upgrade to a 24 volt would one bank charge both batteries, or would I need two banks to charge the two batteries for a 24 volt system?

Hey Steve!
“Most” of the new on board “smart” charges are 12/24 volts..

I don’t recall how old your boat is (was an Angler wasn’t it?). But it looked brand spanking new at the ARM event last year.

Brian

Go with at-least a two bank(ten amps each bank) charger.

Steve – Take a look at the Minn Kota MK 220 On-Board Charger for example. There’s also a link to FAQ about battery chargers, and a link to Selecting a Battery Charger there. Recovery time is about 4-6 hours with the MK 220. Hope this helps.

I run the MK 330 and had to replace it once but it was under warranty. Minn Kota chargers have a good warranty. I lost my receipt but they gave me no hassle on the exchange. That made me happy. They didn’t bother fixing mine, they just shipped a new one with in two days.
BTW, Exide makes the Minn Kota chargers. Haven’t had any problems with my new one. They are pretty slick.

I only run units to fuse box or home run to battery.If you have problems it is always easier to figure out one problem than two.This is why many people choose two have two seperate units.If fishfinder goes down G.P.S.can get you to the area,if G.P.S goes down you can still use fishfinder.Keep wireing seperate .