Fishfinder Wiring

[ausable riverboat]

I have a Tracker 175 Pro Crappie and am putting a new Hummingbird in the bow. There is a hot 12 volt wire up there but no ground wire. I get 12 volts by using the boat for a ground. Would it be right to ground the Humminbird to the boat?

[HTHM]

Be better to go to the battery

[rnvinc]

HB's are very sensitive to voltage drop...

It would good insurance for you to run a dedicated 2 conductor wire all the way to your battery...with a 3amp fuse, of course...

And try to run it down the opposite side of the boat as your trolling motor power supply wire to guard against interference....

[ausable riverboat]

Good advice go to the battery. Have you ever looked at how this could be done looks imposible.

[majflyboy]

I have a Tracker 175 Pro Crappie and am putting a new Hummingbird in the bow. There is a hot 12 volt wire up there but no ground wire. I get 12 volts by using the boat for a ground. Would it be right to ground the Humminbird to the boat?

We have the same boat (mine is '06) and same problem. I took a Lowrance off the bow and wired the HB 788 to the exact same wires but the HB won't power up. It seems that most people that know about this kind of stuff all say to run wire direct to the battery but I haven't figured out how to get the live well out so I can run the wires under the side panels. Any thoughts on that? And, what do you use to connect the wire to the battery? And which battery sould the HB be connected to, the crank battery or the TM battery?

[Fishtaco]

We have the same boat (mine is '06) and same problem. I took a Lowrance off the bow and wired the HB 788 to the exact same wires but the HB won't power up. It seems that most people that know about this kind of stuff all say to run wire direct to the battery but I haven't figured out how to get the live well out so I can run the wires under the side panels. Any thoughts on that? And, what do you use to connect the wire to the battery? And which battery sould the HB be connected to, the crank battery or the TM battery?

Have you tried to pull back on the wires that the old fish finder was connected to? These wires are usually routed in a tube that runs in the bilge. If they move easily, then I would tape a stout string to them and pull them out. Use the string to pull a new Positive and Negative wire in plus a new string for future use.

The fish finder should be connected to the cranking battery. Connecting to the trolling battery sets up ground isolation issues and interference issues.

[majflyboy]

thanks taco.

[rnvinc]

We have the same boat (mine is '06) and same problem. I took a Lowrance off the bow and wired the HB 788 to the exact same wires but the HB won't power up. It seems that most people that know about this kind of stuff all say to run wire direct to the battery but I haven't figured out how to get the live well out so I can run the wires under the side panels. Any thoughts on that? And, what do you use to connect the wire to the battery? And which battery sould the HB be connected to, the crank battery or the TM battery?

I've heard guys having problems with either of battery hookups....cranking the big motor shuts off the HB....TM battery gets low shuts off the HB...

These HB's are very sensitive to voltage drop...

I actually have a dedicated battery for electronics...but then everyone doesn't have room for 4 batteries in their bilge...

[jaxxman]

I have a tracker crappie pro also, you sure there wasnt a ground, I had one one mine. mine came with a fish finder installed , did yours. I used the same two wires from it to run my 898.. it works fine.

[ausable riverboat]

I looked again last night I have three wires going to the bow light, three wires going to the trim and tilt, two trolling motor and a single hot 12V wire with a crimp conn. on the end. I striped the black wire going to the bow light and it is a ground wire so I will splice in my ground wire there also going to put a inline 3V fuse in the hot line. Hope it works.Will work on it tomorrow. Well off to church Thanks for all the help.