Adding front sonar

[nater]

I purchased a 93 alumacraft 16' boat and want to add a unit to the bow. I looked at it and wiring the cable from the stearn to the bow shouldn't be a problem. My question is how to wire the power to the unit.

I have two batteries for the trolling motor and one for the starter. On my old boat I had issues running my trolling motor and depth finder on the same battery, so I don't want to do that. My only other thought is to run it back to the starting battery. Is that necessary or can I tie into something in the console? Any advice or maybe there is a schematic out there possibly??

Nate

[croixflats]

I like to keep my depth finder on a separate circuit. In my boat there is a positive and negative block in the gunnel next to the console that is fused and wired to the starter battery so I can wire my accessories independent.

Under your console you also maybe lucky have one of these blocks for wiring accessories.

[Walleye Guy]

This may sound weird but I run my front graph (transducer is mounted to my trolling motor) on a 12 volt gel cell battery I have securely strapped in the storage compartment directly under where the trolling motor is mounted/located. I have a Lund 1800 Explorer. This eliminated the need to run a wire to the batteries (24 volt) located in the floor or to the back of the boat to the starting motor. Works great, the graph draws very little juice and their is no interference.

[PerchJerker]

You want to avoid wiring to your deep cycle batteries if possible because of possible interference issues.

I prefer to run all the way to my starting battery with an in-line fuse close to the starting battery.

Another good option is to run to a fuse buss near your console if you have one. Depending on how the buss is fused you should still go with an in-line fuse (3 amp) to protect your unit (I've seen lots of boats where units have been wired to the fuse block on 5 amp or 10 amp circuits).

[delcecchi]

That is a great idea. I would never have thought of that. In fact I didn't, but strung wires back to the console and about dislocated my shoulder getting them hooked up.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Fuse block in console goes back to the starter battery. That's what I did too.

[steffanf]

I have a small maintenance-free battery in the nose of my boat to run my front sonar as well. It works great... at least for awhile. Ever since I changed my front sonar to a color Lowrance LMS-520c (was an X-135), the small battery looses power too fast. After 6 hours or so, the unit goes dead. I do manage to keep the unit on full brightness and maybe that has something to do with it. Anyway, I plan on wiring the unit directly to the main starter battery in the rear for next year...

[Northlander]

Yup mine runs back to the main batteries.

[nater]

Great info! I'll check out the fuse box in the console and see what I have to work with. I might just end up going back to the starting battery so I don't mess up the connection with the fuse box.

It would definitely be nice to get the unit with GPS up front for navigating the breaklines. I'm going to try get it in before the seasons over.

Nate