grounding points

[timsmcm]

I was wanting to know if it is a good practice to tie grounds together? If I have a trolling battery for that and fishfinder, and a battery for engine and other little things do you tie the ground points together? And also what is a good way to crimp 8 and 6 gage wire and terminals? or do you just solder?

 

[ben2go]

You want all the grounds to run to one terminal block.Then the terminal block should be grounded back to the battery with large gauge wire.I prefer 4 to 6 gauge in case of future add ons.Make sure that no bare wires or terminals are touching the hull.This will cause corrosion to quickly dissolve the hull.There is no need to tie the front battery to the back battery.There should be but splices for 8 gauge wire that should work for the 8 to 6 gauge crimp.

 

[sccamper]

Dont tie grounds for different batts together.

 

[bassboy1]

Dont tie grounds for different batts together.

Definitely. You can run multiple grounds down the same wire, provided it is of a large enough gauge, and all items are run off the same battery. Think about it, you only have one wire running back to your battery, and multiple grounds meet it at the terminal block. In your case, you are merely putting your "terminal block" farther from your battery, and closer to your resistors. I am not one for stuffing multiple wires in one butt connecter, but it can be done. If all your items are at one end of the hull, I probably would put your terminal block at that end of the hull, and run a larger ground wire back to your battery. But, make sure that each battery is completely isolated from the rest. You do NOT want grounds for multiple batteries running down the same wire.

 

[Hanr3]

Something like this

There are 3 sets of terminal blocks, actually #10 machine screws.
Left set for my trolling motors, cneter set for fishfinder and nav lights and they run off a seperate battery, right set for the rest of the circuits and they run off the same battery as the trolling motor.

 

[ben2go]

If the wood gets saturated with water,it will cause corrosion where ever the wood touches bare aluminum.Electricity follows the path of least resistance.

 

[timsmcm]

This is the type of wiring I am using for my boat this is from the electrical control panel that I am using. Now I ask again why can you not tie ground points and batteries together like this? Batteries are seperate but easily combined for charging on different circuits.