hooking up trolling motor and sonar

[lil re-speck]

hi i was trying to figure out how to hook up my trolling power i have 2 wires here a red and black and thats as far as i got. same for my sonar unit.if someone could help with a diagram that would be great.

[Barnacle Bill]

12 or 24 volt?

[lil re-speck]

it is a12v.

[Kenny]

Red is positive, black is negative, on both TM and sonar. Hook sonar to main cranking battery and trolling motor to it's own deep cycle battery.

[lil re-speck]

what about fuses.

[Kenny]

For the sonar an inline, glass 3 amp fuse should do it. You can go to any auto parts store and buy the inline fuse holders and glass fuses. You can either fuse the trolling motor or do like I did and go to a boat dealer and buy a breaker for your trolling motor. The size of the breaker will depend on the size of your trolling motor and the wire to it. If it's a new motor it should say somewhere in the owners manual. If it's not new you may have to ask a dealer. Whether you go with fuses or a breaker you need to get it sized right tho..too small and it will trip while operating normally and too big will allow your wiring to catch fire before it tripped if you happened to have a problem. Large trolling motors pull a lot of current at 12 volts...my breaker is a 40 amp breaker. If you get a breaker you don't have to worry about keeping a couple extra fuses in the boat somewhere. Oh..also, put the fuses (and/or breaker) in the positive line.

[Barnacle Bill]

You don't give us much to go on. How many lbs thrust? Bow mount or stern? How far away is the battery from the troller?

[lil re-speck]

hey guys thanks for the response. sorry i didn't mean to be so vague. the trolling motor is 50# thrust minnkota the distance it is from the batteries are about 4ft

[lil re-speck]

it is bow mounted as well.

[wilbur]

Just go to auto parts store and get automatic breaker about 7 bucks I would go with a 50Amp. It will be cheaper than boat shop.