Hello, my first post on here and this is my first attempt at rigging up a boat. I apologize because I know this has been beaten to death, but over weeks of researching I can't find anything that is related to what I'm looking for. I've never done any wiring of any sort, and have been researching for a long time, but just don't feel comfortable yet trying this.
I have an 8' pelican bass raider that my wife bought me, and I've been trying to get it set up for bowfishing. As you may know, this is a fairly small boat with a 500lb weight limit, so I am very limited to what I can carry on the boat with me.
I have taken it out twice so far with me and another friend. It is extremely stable for its size, and works great for getting into small creeks off the rivers, but I'm trying to keep the weight at a minimum. I am running a minnkota 36lb trolling motor with a small deep cycle battery. I have built a small plywood deck that goes in place of the front seat and have an aluminum square tube frame for my lights. I bought 4 30w LED lights from CustomFitz that I am hoping to wire up in the boat.
Everything I've found so far leads me to people running generators and converters, but I don't have the capacity for it. I would prefer to have a bigger boat, but my budget doesn't allow for that right now, or in the near future.
What I am looking for is the most efficient way to run my trolling motor and lights from the minimum amount of battery's. I am assuming the best thing would be to run both the lights and trolling motor from two separate group 29 battery's. But I have no idea what kind of run time I can expect from that set up.
I am going to keep both battery's in the back under the rear seat and run the light wires to the front through a pvc tube. Once the wires are up front I planned to wire in a fuse, switch, and Junction boxes for the positive and negative wires, and run the wires individually to each light from the Junction boxes.
I guess my questionson would be, what battery's should I run for this setup, what size wire should I run, and in what order should I wire the fuze, switch and Junction boxes? Is there anything I am missing, and does my plan sound safe and effective for what I want to do?
I am open to criticism and critiquing, and I apologize for such a long post.
Thank you for your help.
I have an 8' pelican bass raider that my wife bought me, and I've been trying to get it set up for bowfishing. As you may know, this is a fairly small boat with a 500lb weight limit, so I am very limited to what I can carry on the boat with me.
I have taken it out twice so far with me and another friend. It is extremely stable for its size, and works great for getting into small creeks off the rivers, but I'm trying to keep the weight at a minimum. I am running a minnkota 36lb trolling motor with a small deep cycle battery. I have built a small plywood deck that goes in place of the front seat and have an aluminum square tube frame for my lights. I bought 4 30w LED lights from CustomFitz that I am hoping to wire up in the boat.
Everything I've found so far leads me to people running generators and converters, but I don't have the capacity for it. I would prefer to have a bigger boat, but my budget doesn't allow for that right now, or in the near future.
What I am looking for is the most efficient way to run my trolling motor and lights from the minimum amount of battery's. I am assuming the best thing would be to run both the lights and trolling motor from two separate group 29 battery's. But I have no idea what kind of run time I can expect from that set up.
I am going to keep both battery's in the back under the rear seat and run the light wires to the front through a pvc tube. Once the wires are up front I planned to wire in a fuse, switch, and Junction boxes for the positive and negative wires, and run the wires individually to each light from the Junction boxes.
I guess my questionson would be, what battery's should I run for this setup, what size wire should I run, and in what order should I wire the fuze, switch and Junction boxes? Is there anything I am missing, and does my plan sound safe and effective for what I want to do?
I am open to criticism and critiquing, and I apologize for such a long post.
Thank you for your help.
