Rookie Battery Wiring Question

Rook question right here. I have two batteries in my boat right now. One is a cranking for the motor and one is a deep cycle for my radio and other electronics. I am looking to put a terrova 24 volt on my pontoon and only have enough room for one more battery. So my question is if I add one more deep cycle and put it in series with the other to get the 24 volts for the troller can I still connect my radio and other electronics to one of the batteries that is in the 24 volt system and get 12 volts? Or is this nonsense? Or can I just run my electronics off of a 24 volt system? Thanks in advance.

-James

I’m not sure on the type of boat you have but my boat has the Electronics and radio going into a fuse panel. This fuse panel is powered by the cranking battery. The only thing my trolling motor batteries power is my trolling motor or my anchor mate anchor which I almost never use

when you put two batteries together you cross pos to neg to make it 24 volt this makes everything 24volts. You can tie two batteries together to make them a 12volt system but that is going pos to pos and neg to neg.

All of my stuff is wired to a single battery while trolling motor is on 24v. system. You can always touch a gage and find out.

if memory serves me right,hook your twelve volt needs to the first battery,just make sure your not hooking to the twenty four volt sides ground,you will fry stuff, or you can hook the positive wire to the first batteries positive post,and the negative to the boats hull if it is aluminum,,either way should give you twelve volts.
use a volt meter to test,but remember,if you use a lot of twelve volt juice off of the first battery,it will be depleted before the second one,so your trolling motor will run out sooner,and,it will take longer to recharge.

Typically you will have two dedicated batteries for your 24volt trolling motor and a single starting battery that runs your electronics and starts the big motor. If you use your trolling batteries for your electronics you will not only deplete them faster but you will get interference from your trolling motor to your electronics. You will fry 12volt electronics or their fuses if you try to run them with 24volts. I would suggest you running all your electronics to a fuse panel with a master switch and then to your battery and keep the 24 volt system strictly for the trolling motor. IMHO

24v for the trolling motor. All other electronics should go to the starting battery. Having other stuff connected to the trolling motor batteries will cause interference on your electronics. I would suggest hard wire all your locators directly to the battery with a fuse, the rest of your electronic equipment can be run to the fuse box. The reason to hard wire the locators is so they always have power. Sometimes when starting the motor, it will draw down the volts and the locators will shut off due to lack of power. Next install a 3 bank charger so you can keep all the batteries fresh. I run a group 31 deep cycle battery for my starting battery it has over 1100 MCA, which is enough to start my optimax as recommended by mercury.

YOu can do what your asking riverrat but it is not advisable as you will only reduce the power of your overall 24V system by continually draining more from one battery and not the other.

I’d advise you hook everything up to your starting battery and have two dedicated batteries for 24V.
If you do long trips and are worried about 1 starting battery being enough power – be power conscious (turn off radio) or add a 2nd battery for your starting.
I run 4 batteries. Two in parallel and two in series. The only thing i run off my 24V besides my trolling motor is my 24V spotlight; which draws no differently than my TM.

And yeah, trolling motors cause major interference with electronics when hooked to the same battery.

Aaron wrote:

when you put two batteries together you cross pos to neg to make it 24 volt this makes everything 24volts.

Not exactly. It only makes something 24V if you hook your device up to the Pos on one battery and the Neg on the other.

If you hook up your pos/neg of your device to the same battery you have a 12V system.

You can do both, but again not a good idea.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Aaron Yliniemi wrote:</div>
when you put two batteries together you cross pos to neg to make it 24 volt this makes everything 24volts.

Not exactly. It only makes something 24V if you hook your device up to the Pos on one battery and the Neg on the other.

If you hook up your pos/neg of your device to the same battery you have a 12V system.

You can do both, but again not a good idea.

X2

Hey thank you for all of the responses that clears everything up. I really appreciate it. I will put my electronics on the cranking battery. I suppose the motor charges it at least a bit when it is running.

Yes motor should charge it a little bit while running.
Your radio will most likely draw 4X what your depth finder will draw for power…So if your looking for somewhere to shave some juice on long trips turn off the radio.