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I need to move on to electrical elements too, especially my trolling motor. I have a Minn Kota and the wires have two aligator clips on the end. I would prefer something a bit more elegant and practical. Is there a certain type of plug you would recommend? My guess is that many run conduit of some sort around the boat for both plugs and switches, yes? I know I'll use the battery for the motor, but I will most likely install some lighting too. Perhaps later I may go for a CD player. Any recommendations along this line? What kind of specs should I be looking for in a battery? I imagine I'll get a circuit panel from Duckworths too.

Some bother with a small electrical panel. Jim Sanders has done a nice one. I don't see the need on such a small boat. Even well equipped, you'll only need a few branch circuits. Personally I'd use an inline fuse on the back of the switch, for each particular circuit you need.

All trolling motors draw a lot of amperage, which means big wire, big switches (or better yet relays) and hefty connectors. The cigarette lighter style of socket will work, but the ground is usually a "spade" lug, which doesn't offer a lot of surface area for the load a trolling motor will suck through it.

I use a big bulkhead connector on my detachable trolling motor mount. It's a three pin style of connector, but I'm only using two.

Marinco makes a dedicated trolling motor plug and receptacle. It'll set you back 40 bucks at West Marine, but it will not melt in use, like the low amperage receptacles will.

The standard two prong deck connectors (Pergo part) and plugs will accept 15 amps, but these will burn up pretty quickly, on anything but the smallest trolling motor.

A typical bigger boat would use a battery switch, so you can isolate the battery from any onboard loads. Every thing else would be attached to this switch with ring terminals. With a Weekender, you could skip the switch and just use the wing nut on the battery post to accept all the circuits. Yep, you'll have a few wires on each post, but this is a pretty common, low buck way to do it and has the benefit of fewer parts to buy, or to clean or that can break.

Your battery needs are dictated by the load you'll have on it. If the load is modest, like a set of navigation lights, a radio and a 25 pounds of thrust trolling motor, you could easily use a small group 24, say 75 AH, deep cycle. But, if you had a 55 pound trolling motor, spot light, high wattage stereo, VHF, cabin lights, cockpit lights, navigation lights, underwater fishing lights, etc. then you're going to want a bigger AH battery (again deep cycle) maybe a group 31 or possibly duel batteries.

So it sounds like all circuits remain in parallel with each going to pos and neg on the terminals. Basically I think all the circuit panel does is isolate the circuits, plus whatever load protection you have. And it sounds like a 24 will do. Out of curiosity, approximately how much current does a trolling motor draw?

hmmm... come to think of it, I think I may have just the ticket for some of this. I have some strips with moderately hefty terminals mounted on a bakelite strip. I've used these in some of my amps amd power supplies. These could be used to organize the leads for a strip of positive and another for the negative and then feed just one line from each to the terminals. The motor leads, however would be a bit beefy for this and would need its own lines to the battery.

Tom, I used the panel from Duckworks. It basically is a switch with a fuse and indicator light for each circuit. I think this is a good value compared to buying these components separately. As you suggested terminal strips are a great way to keep things organized as well. They can be very handy for collecting all the negative wires at the distribution panel. I know there is minimal wiring on the Weekender but it can get messy very quickly if you don't think things through. I would limit the connections at the battery positive terminal to 2. One feeding the fuse panel, and one to the trolling motor. It is a good Idea to include an appropriately sized inline fuse as close as possible to to each of these battery connections.

Wire size is also important . A 50# trolling motor can draw 30 or 40 amps. Voltage drop will depend on where you locate your battery. The wire will be #4 or #6 minimum.

It may be overkill but, I ran a 2" PVC conduit the length of the boat. It's cheap , protects the wire, and allows for easy repairs or upgrades. It's a good idea to drill some holes in the conduit every few feet so it doesn't trap any water inside.

Here are a couple of pictures of the installation on my Weekender.













Here is a link to a website about boatwiring. It is geared toward larger boats but there is a lot of info on basic electricity, wire, batteries etc.

http://boatwiring.org/


joel