Thread: Putting both trolling motor batteries in bow of this boat, wiring questions too!

Originally Posted by joewildlife

This is a 2005 Express 1756SC. As it sits in the water, it has 3 group 29 batteries in the stern. It is stern heavy, as you can see, especially when my buddy in the back is always heavier than me. I was thinking about moving the two trolling motor batteries to the front compartment. I could tuck one under the deck to the left and to the right of the hatch under the aft part of the front deck.

Good idea or no?

This boat is wired with all the typical stuff...aerator, bilge pumps, nav lights, horn, headlights, depthfinders, 12 v outlets, and all that. It was wired at the dealer, all wired to the batteries with inline fuses but NO fuse block or fuse box. It is a disaster under the console.

Moving the batteries would make me want to and need to rewire everthing. Can you point me to a good design of fuse box or fuse block that I can install to clean up all the wiring? I was thinking of one block under the console for the electronics run from the starting battery, and two up front 12V each for everything else. I run lights at night and power them from the trolling motor batteries. Don't these blocks have one heavier wire going in and all the smaller circuits running out of the box?

thanks, Joe

I think it's a good idea. The weight is much better up front.

I would run good sized wires (8 or 10 AWG) from the battery that you want to power your electronics, to one of these. You will want to use a large fuse or circuit breaker (circuit breaker is preferable, also doubles as a master shut off) close to the battery, sized according to the wire capacity.

12-Way Blade Fuse Box Block Holder LED Indicator 12V 32V Auto Marine Waterproof | eBay

Yes, you would terminate the large supply wires to the fuse panel, and then connect the smaller component wires to the output side, which would either run to the switch panel, or to the component itself if you don't want them switched.

I would probably want to run everything off of one battery for simplicity, instead of having several fuse blocks in the boat. Everything is centralized that way, you would not need to run wires from the bow back to the console switch panel for lights and stuff, presumably all of the wiring is already there at the switch panel, you just need to cut and terminate them at the new block.

I have the same setup in my boat with inlines, it a real pain to get everything set up cleanly with them, I'll be switching over to a central panel soon.

Most boats have the trolling motor separate from all electrical component's unless something has been added. I would think you could move trolling batteries up front and connect back to them. If adding electronics I would add separate fuse block close to cranking battery.