Buss bars and connectors

[Captain Ahab]

I need to install a few buss bars on my ongoing boat project. I have the batteries in teh center under the deck - would like to have the battery to one cable that goes to a main buss that splits out to other buss bars so i can hook the engine up in the stern, a trolling motor (or two) in the stern and a front TM as well


What size and type of buss bars do i need?

I am looking to order online and confused by the selection

 

[fender66]

Captn.....I'm not sure of exactly what buss bar you have in mind, but I think (will have to check) that I have one or two simple ones at home not in use. If I can find them tonight, I'll be happy to send it to you if you are interested. Hard part for me.....finding it. Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to remember to look tonight.

 

[Honky Tonkin]

i just bought terminal bar from the autoparts store and wired each terminal in sequence to create a ground bus. You could do the same thing for the hot side if you were not going to require switches. I have a switch box that all my hot lines run to and acts as a bus for the hot, sending one line to the battery. I bought the 4 terminal bus , but you can easily scale this to as many as you like "daisy chaining" them, and they come in a variety of sizes for 5-10 bucks. I am not sure if this helps yu, but that is what I did and it works!

 

[LonLB]

IMO they are only for hooking up accessories.
The engine, and all trolling motors should be hooked directly to the battery.

 

[Captain Ahab]

IMO they are only for hooking up accessories.
The engine, and all trolling motors should be hooked directly to the battery.

It was my understanding that the connection point woudl be through a buss - is there another way? Perhaps my terminology is incorrect?

 

[HookedUp443]

I will be running into this same situation soon. Makes me wonder if anyone ever posted a sample "schematic" drawing on this site of how to create a basic DC system on a small boat. Would be nice to see the proper way to layout battery cables, circuit/fuses, switches etc. Maybe with a few pics of the different products used to create the whole system.

I will keep searching here and on the web and if I do find...I will make a post here in "Boat House".

This book gets good reviews. It says its for sailboat wiring but can't be much different than a tinny.

https://www.amazon.com/Sailboat-Electrics-Simplified-ebook/dp/B001QSBGCQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1301688603&sr=8-2

 

[LonLB]

IMO they are only for hooking up accessories.
The engine, and all trolling motors should be hooked directly to the battery.

It was my understanding that the connection point woudl be through a buss - is there another way? Perhaps my terminology is incorrect?

The main engine cables and trolling motor cables should be hooked direct to the battery with ring terminals. A separate set of wires to a bus bar would be needed to power the accessories.

The wires to the bus bar can be MUCH smaller than the trolling motor and cranking wires need to be.

 

[Specknreds]

The motor and TM draw to many amps for a normal buss bar. They should be hooked up direct to the battery like everyone said or you can go threw a battery selector switch (on/off switch) like you have in your big boat. Your going to have a hard time finding a buss bar rated for that many amps.

 

[bobberboy]

LonLB and Specknreds are right. TM and motor are direct connections to the battery and the others are a separate wire to the buss bar.