Fish Finder Grounding

[will_l]

Hi,

When installing a fish finder, is it important to ground the power cables for the sounder? Its a 628 going on a smallish boat, with closest electronics being a VHF radio.

Thanks 

[Fab1]

3 hours ago, will_l said:

Hi,

When installing a fish finder, is it important to ground the power cables for the sounder? Its a 628 going on a smallish boat, with closest electronics being a VHF radio.

Thanks 

If you don't ground the Neg - cable you won't have a complete circuit and the screen won't power up.

I run all my positive + power from the positive post on the battery to a + busbar and all my Negative - power from the negative post on the battery to a - Busbar protected by the required fuses for whatever electronics I'm running to these.

I have my sounder,bildge pump,nav lights,deck lights wired like this.

 

hope this helps.

 

[will_l]

2 hours ago, Fabian Sosa1 said:

If you don't ground the Neg - cable you won't have a complete circuit and the screen won't power up.

I run all my positive + power from the positive post on the battery to a + busbar and all my Negative - power from the negative post on the battery to a - Busbar protected by the required fuses for whatever electronics I'm running to these.

I have my sounder,bildge pump,nav lights,deck lights wired like this.

 

hope this helps.

 

Hey Mate, sorry this is my first time wiring so sorry I'm a little confused.

The wiring in my boat is really all over the place making it a little difficult. I have one battery for my boat that is for cranking + all electronics. This is situated to the back of the boat, and it has a positive and negative wire running up into the console. These wires are quite a heavy gauge and the positive and negative wires are separately connected to a little device similar to a busbar but they only have one tiedown/nut down (I'll call them a tiedown/nut down busbar) spot for the wires. So all my electronics, nav lights etc have their postive wire connected to the single tiedown/nut down positive busbar and their negative wire connected to the single tiedown/nut down positive busbar, with the thick wires also connecting to these, running back to the battery. There is also a 6 switch fuse switchpanel which some devices are connected too. So my sounder has its negative and positive wires which I will just connect to the postive/negative tiedown/nut down busbar's and also another wire which I will connect to the switchpanel. But the sounder also has a specific wire coming from a separate port at the back of it that needs to be grounded. However since this is a small fibreglass boat I dont think I have a ground, thus I'm wondering how it should be done.

Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.

Edited October 28, 2016 by will_l

[Fab1]

1 hour ago, will_l said:

Hey Mate, sorry this is my first time wiring so sorry I'm a little confused.

The wiring in my boat is really all over the place making it a little difficult. I have one battery for my boat that is for cranking + all electronics. This is situated to the back of the boat, and it has a positive and negative wire running up into the console. These wires are quite a heavy gauge and the positive and negative wires are separately connected to a little device similar to a busbar but they only have one tiedown/nut down (I'll call them a tiedown/nut down busbar) spot for the wires. So all my electronics, nav lights etc have their postive wire connected to the single tiedown/nut down positive busbar and their negative wire connected to the single tiedown/nut down positive busbar, with the thick wires also connecting to these, running back to the battery. There is also a 6 switch fuse switchpanel which some devices are connected too. So my sounder has its negative and positive wires which I will just connect to the postive/negative tiedown/nut down busbar's and also another wire which I will connect to the switchpanel. But the sounder also has a specific wire coming from a separate port at the back of it that needs to be grounded. However since this is a small fibreglass boat I dont think I have a ground, thus I'm wondering how it should be done.

Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.

Firstly I'd tidy that wiring up you mention as soon as you can as there's nothing worse than wires all over the place not to mention the fire hazard side of things.

   Secondly all boats have grounds/earths.
ALL earths/grounds MUST run back to the negative side of the battery or to a seperated Busbar feed by the battery ONLY (alloy or glass). The engine block is already earthed/grounded to the battery and that is it, no other earths/grounds to the hull anywhere.

Too many people earth tinnys through the hull and end up with problems with electrolysis and battery draining issues.

In your case ground that wire to that existing negative Busbar or directly to the battery negative terminal post.

ps make sure you fuse that sounder too.

Cheers, Fabian

Edited October 28, 2016 by Fabian Sosa1

[will_l]

13 hours ago, Fabian Sosa1 said:

Firstly I'd tidy that wiring up you mention as soon as you can as there's nothing worse than wires all over the place not to mention the fire hazard side of things.

   Secondly all boats have grounds/earths.
ALL earths/grounds MUST run back to the negative side of the battery or to a seperated Busbar feed by the battery ONLY (alloy or glass). The engine block is already earthed/grounded to the battery and that is it, no other earths/grounds to the hull anywhere.

Too many people earth tinnys through the hull and end up with problems with electrolysis and battery draining issues.

In your case ground that wire to that existing negative Busbar or directly to the battery negative terminal post.

ps make sure you fuse that sounder too.

Cheers, Fabian

Ok thanks a lot Fabian.

So I'll conect positive to switch board, negative to negative busbar and also the ground wire to the negative busbar? Also both positive/negative wires from sounder have fuses.

Cheers

[Fab1]

Yes,that's what I would do.

[will_l]

57 minutes ago, Fab1 said:

Yes,that's what I would do.

Great. Will let you know how I go.

[Sigma]

4 hours ago, will_l said:

Ok thanks a lot Fabian.

So I'll conect positive to switch board, negative to negative busbar and also the ground wire to the negative busbar? Also both positive/negative wires from sounder have fuses.

Cheers

Positive must have appropriate fuse, not negative.

I'm also in the middle of re-wiring my whole boat. I have installed a 12 port fuse box and I am running all my wiring to the box. 

I have just finished installing my dual batteries and I have added 2x digital volt displays to my dash/console.....looks awesome. Half way thru installing led deck lights too. It's not an easy job but at least you have a piece of mind knowing some wire won't fail you (due to corrosion or poor contact) when you are out on the water.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Sigma