Wiring clean up project

[Ozark Bob]

Well done. You made good use of a small space. Time to go fishin! Bob

[REW]

The one thing that I might suggest with a wire clean up project on the battery is to completely do exactly that.

i.e. at the end of the day, have only two wires connected to your batteries.

i.e. one wire on the + terminal and one wire on the - terminal.

A person is installing a separate wiring, bus system, so be complete and completely eliminate every extra wire from the battery.

Only two wires total on the battery.

Assuming that excellent bus and cable systems are installed, it will not matter if the battery charging cables are connected to the battery or to the bug bars.

Best wishes.

[andersaki]

Originally Posted by REW

The one thing that I might suggest with a wire clean up project on the battery is to completely do exactly that.

i.e. at the end of the day, have only two wires connected to your batteries.

i.e. one wire on the + terminal and one wire on the - terminal.

A person is installing a separate wiring, bus system, so be complete and completely eliminate every extra wire from the battery.

Only two wires total on the battery.

Assuming that excellent bus and cable systems are installed, it will not matter if the battery charging cables are connected to the battery or to the bug bars.

Best wishes.

REW,

Since it is generally recommended that the main motor cables and the battery charger cables go directly to the battery, then I don't know how you could only have two wires on the battery. Also, to have switch, a buss or a fuse panel the power has to come from the battery.

I do agree that only two wires to the battery would be ideal, but to accomplish this could end up being much more complicated than the fairly simple and workable system that I now have.

Thanks for your input.

Mark

[REW]

Mark,
THe post was about cleaning up the boat battery wiring.

The minimum number of cables that one can have on a boat battery is one wire per post.

So, wire up your boat battery so that you have one battery wire size 00-00 and run that wire from each post to an appropriate bus bar. Make your motor and charger connections to that bus bar. Then, do what you wish with other fused and or switched connections to other parts of the boat.

One battery. Two cables connected to the battery.

Simplest possible battery setup.

---
Yes I have also read all of the recommendations about putting the main large motor wires on the battery as well as the on board battery charger.

But, the post was all about simplifying the battery itself wire clean up. So, clean it up, and run two heavy wires to an appropriate power distribution system and you have resolved your issue.

p.p.s.
When I first got into working on the wiring on my boat, I set up the following system.
I have the motor wires bolted directly to the motor. Then, I have a large circuit breaker bolted to the + terminal of each battery that runs an appropriate sized wire to a fused power distribution panel in the boat. Every circuit is then fused separately before going to the appliance in the boat.

Easy, simple, straight forward and it works very well. The motor has its unfused direct battery connections. All other circuits in the boat are protected against a dead short by the circuit breaker bolted to the battery. The circuit breaker bolted at the battery prevents any wires from burning up, in the case of a dead short. Then, every other circuit is protected by an appropriate fuse for that circuit that is in a convenient panel mount. No inline fuses please. Inline fuses are prone to issues and often tough to find to service.

Take care

[TexasTarheel]

Am adding instrument panel at console. Want to include tach, voltmeter, and tilt gauge. This requires access to the wiring harness that ends at the remote throttle beside the driver. How do I remove the panel that the throttle is bolted to and covers the wiring harness and the steering cable? I have removed two screws but there must be more and the panel must be attached another way also. Thanks.

[JRinNE]

Looks great, I’m planning on doing this to mine as well. You confirmed how I thought mine would end up, with just a couple wires left connected to the battery.