Your thoughts on this trolling motor accessories wiring?

Hi all. Ran my 16ft 2001 bayliner with a Minn Kota PD40 last year. Would only get up to 2mph with the boat loaded. Worked ok, but wanting to upgrade a bit. Picked up a PD65 and will be running a 24v system via an 18ft run of 6ga cable from the rear. I have 2 graphs, a stereo and a 12v accessory outlet for accessories. I’ve just pulled 1 battery’s source in the past for 12v on a buddy’s boat that had a 24v system, and am evaluating a better option for more consistent draw.

What do you think of this diagram below?

6 ga, 18ft for 24v trolling.
12v running in PARALLEL from both batteries for even draw for accessories.

Your thoughts?

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Some glory pix.

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Did you actually calculate the voltage drop to arrive at 6 ga wire size? What load figure did you use?

Grouse

You are going to have one helluva spark when you connect this wire! You cannot have BOTH series and parallel connections at the same time, with only 2 batteries.

HRG

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I’d designate 2 batteries to trolling motor only with circuit breaker installed.

Run your graphs and other accessories off of a separate battery.

My opinion.

A group 31 battery for
starting,locators,bilge/livewell pumps and all other accessories. 2 group 31 batteries for the 24v trolling motor. If room and weight are an issue, going to group 28 batteries would be ok. Go with the biggest batteries that will fit. Add a 3 bank onboard charger and you have something. A deep cycle battery will start your motor long after a regular starting battery will fail you. It is NOT recommended to run your trolling motor from the starting battery. Another point is I can’t think of any main motors that are 24v.

Thanks guys.
I did not include in the diagram my separate starting battery that is dedicated to the motor. I don’t think I have space for a fourth battery, so I may just have to run the single 12 volt off of one battery. It will get charged a late anyways. That’s good to hear that you cannot run both series and parallel off of the same batteries. That was my main concern. As for the 6 gauge wire, I used the minnkota site which recommended it gauge, & I figured going a little thicker wouldn’t hurt.

You may find problems with interference from your trolling motor affecting your graphs. Depending on the size of your outboard with todays newer engines a Deep Cycle does not have enough CC ( cold cranking amps ) to start outboards. Even the old EFIs require bare bare minimum of 499 CC and thats with nothing else connected and then it is iffy. I would run my graphs off of the starting battery with a direct wire..

I would not run the sonar off a depleting voltage source like the trolling motor batteries. They like full charge as possible for accurate readings. I run my 24v system very similar to your diagram with my stereo and a couple 12v plugs running off of one of the batteries.

My optimax needs a minimum of 1000cca. My group 31 has 1200cca and will be on its third year. When I shut it down in November it was still starting strong. This is the battery recommended by eddy lyback, it is the same battery be sends out the door in the big yarcrafts and bass cats that he sells.

DO NOT run both series and parallel! However if you run the TM in series, then hook the fish finder up to ONE of the batteries for twelve volts you will do just fine. I have it on the both bow and helm graphs of both of my boats and it works great.

Id rather do that than add a fourth battery or run the power to the starting battery which can cause interference and shut the unit down if the starter drags the voltage too low.

munchy wrote:

DO NOT run both series and parallel! However if you run the TM in series, then hook the fish finder up to ONE of the batteries for twelve volts you will do just fine. I have it on the both bow and helm graphs of both of my boats and it works great.

Id rather do that than add a fourth battery or run the power to the starting battery which can cause interference and shut the unit down if the starter drags the voltage too low.

I agree. You got me thinking, perhaps i”‘ll split the two graphs, one on each of the batteries. That just means another fuse block, but I like it.

Thanks for the info everyone!

Phillip Pappano wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Munchy wrote:</div>
DO NOT run both series and parallel! However if you run the TM in series, then hook the fish finder up to ONE of the batteries for twelve volts you will do just fine. I have it on the both bow and helm graphs of both of my boats and it works great.

Id rather do that than add a fourth battery or run the power to the starting battery which can cause interference and shut the unit down if the starter drags the voltage too low.

I agree. You got me thinking, perhaps i”‘ll split the two graphs, one on each of the batteries. That just means another fuse block, but I like it.

Thanks for the info everyone!

Although it won’t hurt there really is no need to go through the extra expense and effort splitting both graphs to different batteries. They draw such little power compared to the TM that you will never notice it.

i would hard wire the graphs directly to the battery with a fuse. going through the fuse block will draw down on the graph and cause it to shut down when starting the main motor. this happens when the battery starts to get run down.