Fish Finder Wiring

on my 16 foot jon boat i am wanting to add a hummingbird up front of my boat with tranducer mounted to my trolling motor......I have an optima battery at the front of the boat that my trolling motor is wired to and I have one cranking battery in the back that I have my helix and my motor directly wired to. Can I just take some alligator clips and run the wires to the hummingbird im mounting up front to the same battery up front that my trolling motor is ran to? Ive noticed that the wires are not near long enough to reach to the back of the boat from up on the front deck to reach my cranking battery.....

Not a good idea to have a sonar taking power from the TM battery while using the TM. And really you might be getting some interference on the Helix when the big motor is running. The best set up is to run wire from cranking battery to the front to supply power to the front sonar. Maybe an easier way to say it is that the sonar should be taking power from the battery you are not currently using to avoid RF interference.

That is one of those deals you will have to try it to find out if it will work. You may or you may not have an interference problem. I don't like connecting electronics to the trolling motor battery because of the high current draw caused by the trolling motor. With that said let me add that I have hooked things up that way and had zero problems but I know of others that did have problems.

How do you get power cord long enough to reach from front of boat to the back where cranking battery is? None of the units I've ever owned have had enough cord to reach from front to the back

You can either splice, solder, and heat shrink more wire to your power cord or you can buy longer power cords from HB. Or....You can just do what your talking about doing and see how it works out for ya.

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Originally Posted by tigerinfielder3

How do you get power cord long enough to reach from front of boat to the back where cranking battery is? None of the units I've ever owned have had enough cord to reach from front to the back

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Run a wire from your battery and hook to your power cable on unit.

If the wire is going to run from the back of the boat to the front I recommend you put a fuse in the wire near the battery. You can get a inline fuse holder at a car part store.

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Originally Posted by JCsHOOK

If the wire is going to run from the back of the boat to the front I recommend you put a fuse in the wire near the battery. You can get a inline fuse holder at a car part store.

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And it needs to be probably a 3 amp size. That is what both my HB and Lowrance called for. Don't need a heavy wire either, the DFs do not pull a lot of current. Look at the size of the wire on the factory power plug to get an idea.

I've got one deep cycle battery that runs my electronics only and I never have interference any more

That's 2 1100's my 360 and a small magna 2 or the rear of the boat for cat fishing

For your application an orange 14 gauge extension cord would work ...just use 2 of the wires inside ...

Don't forget a 3 amp fuse at the battery end ...

Rickie