I got a new jon boat and am getting new trolling motor and lights for it but I don't want to screw it up by wiring it wrong, im just wondering how I can wire in my 12v Trolling motor to the battery/batteries and also wire in a charger, navigation lights, and a green night fishing light without something catchin on fire or burning up my trolling motor.....any help would be greatly appreciated
I would run a separate battery just for the trolling motor, if you have room. This will give you the maximum amount of trolling time. If you have to use just one be sure to get the largest reserve capacity deep cycle you can fit in the boat. Everything can hook to the battery; positive (red) to positive and negative (black) to negative
Take your time, plan each wire run out, and make sure you fuse every Positive lead as close to the power source. The best protection against fire is to have a properly rated fuse on each circuit.
Each of your items must have a power + wire and a ground - wire to operate. To be safe your supply + should run to a fuse or fuse block to power your accessories. It should also be fused as close to the power + terminal of the battery as possible. The fuse at the battery should be just a bit higher than the total amperage of fuses or the fuse block. Most accessories will run off of 14 gauge wire, except the trolling motor.
The trolling motor wiring will be determined by how what TM and how far from the battery/batteries it is located. For example, my reservoir rig has a bow mount and a stern mount motor on it. I used 8 gauge wire to power both because neither is more than 7 feet from the batteries. Both have in-line circuit breakers @ 60 amps.
I would suggest that if you are going to use an electric trolling motor as your primary power to use two Group 29 or larger in parallel. That means taking two batteries and connecting them positive to positive and negative to negative. You still get 12v but usable power for a longer period of time. If you use a 24v motor the batteries would be connected in series. That is positive to negative between the two batteries and 24v trolling motor connections to the unconnected positive and negative.
Your on-board charger is easy to connect. Usually the red wire to the positive and black to the negative for each bank the charger handles. My Ranger uses a three bank charger because I have two trolling motor batteries and one cranking battery. Depending on your setup you should consider an on-board charger that will do all your batteries.
If you have any other questions I am more than willing to help.
If you have a gas motor for running I would mount the batteries toward the bow, it'll trim out better.
Rodney