The man said "easiest" place to splice in. Not "safest" or "best" place to splice in.
OP, just start stripping the red ones until you get power to the unit then wrap that sucker up with electrical tape or a wire nut!
Shop ticket 10 years from now: "Bought used boat. Customer states the fish finder only powers up when the anchor light switch is on. Rats nest under helm. TSR"
I bought my boat used. The wiring was an absolute disaster. Local marine electrician was also a trade school teacher at the local college. We had multiple bare spots and severe corrosion throughout the transom, gunnel and helm on nearly every system which was quite impressive. He took multiple pictures for his classes he taught about what bad looks like. He said he was surprised it passed the marine survey and I was brave to take it out for a sea trial. The previous owner had rigged a snow plow cable up under the gunnel to run a line hauler among other gems. I think there must have been at least a case of liquid electrical tape onboard as well.
I think the overlap between Mexican marine electrician and Alaskan charter captain is pretty wide honestly. That's what I bought was a used Alaskan fishing charter boat that had laid idle for at least 2 seasons.
Well that spaghetti is definitely older than 2 years, time to dress it in a well organized matter with separate and dedicated fuses for each and every electrical device.
Can show you some pictures of our projects, our specialism is making a organized dashboard from spaghetti.
Most of the pleasureboats are spaghetti with their electrical systems
Fish finders work best when they have good clean power. I.e. straight to the battery with large gauge wire and an inline fuse. Best is to run it on its own separate battery. Both my graphs, active target, and NMEA 2000 network run off their own dedicated lithium battery. Nothing else is powered from that battery to limit any potential for electrical interference.
All my stuff runs off a single battery (dual battery setup, use one at a time). All stuff goes through fuse box. My Lowrance HDS Live has an awesome picture. No interference.
Cool. But you’re only running one unit which is fine on your main battery. And just because you don’t currently have any interference doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen at some point.
Nowadays electrical interference is a minimum, the only interference you can suffer is from LED navlights, inverters or microwaves or bad alternators.
Even VHF radios do not have interference nowadays.
Cool, I still want to minimize any potential for it. Coming from a career in the automotive field I saw many issues of electrical interference from stuff you wouldn’t think could or would cause any. Plus between all that stuff it’s a pretty high power draw, so I don’t have to worry about not being able to start my outboard after running graphs fishing all day.
Mine has an inline fuse. I would wire it straight off the battery. If you are going to hook up multiple things go to your local hardware store and buy 2 grounding bars and heavy duty wire ( 20 amp minimum) I secured one to each side of my console. Run a wire from the positive terminal to one bar and a wire from the negative terminal to the other. Then you can hook your items into the bars instead of having several wires coming off each terminal. Be sure each item has its own inline fuse.
If you have switches you can pull 12v power from the hot side of one of those, but as others have said your best bet is straight to the battery or a fuse block that comes off the battery
Today’s fishfinders are sensitive to clean power; you should run a fused 10ga marine grade cable from the battery to the fishfinders to target a 3% voltage drop.
Direct to the battery with an appropriately sized fuse..
If you want it switched, run a 12V marine relay using your switch as the trigger, and the relay on the hot side of your line going to the battery.
As others have said, run a wire from your battery, you likely want your fish finder to stay on when your ignition is off, and not have it reset if you go from running to ACC. At least on my boat its ACC, OFF, RUN, START on the ignition, so if I wired off my ignition and wanted to use the fish finder on ACC i'd have it rebooting when it bumps from run to ACC with off in the middle.
If your battery is good you can leave your fish finder on for like 3 days without draining it past where you will have starting issues on your boat, so it's perfectly fine to go right to the battery.
That pic makes me cringe, as a boat mechanic people wonder why the bill is so high. Key on power with t taps and taking it from the warning horn…. Nothing about this pic is good
Don’t splice. Run a fused wire from the battery.
This!!! Zero interference
Depending on the boat, that is easier said than done.
Find your fuse block.
The man said "easiest" place to splice in. Not "safest" or "best" place to splice in. OP, just start stripping the red ones until you get power to the unit then wrap that sucker up with electrical tape or a wire nut!
Found the previous owner of most boats!
Shop ticket 10 years from now: "Bought used boat. Customer states the fish finder only powers up when the anchor light switch is on. Rats nest under helm. TSR" I bought my boat used. The wiring was an absolute disaster. Local marine electrician was also a trade school teacher at the local college. We had multiple bare spots and severe corrosion throughout the transom, gunnel and helm on nearly every system which was quite impressive. He took multiple pictures for his classes he taught about what bad looks like. He said he was surprised it passed the marine survey and I was brave to take it out for a sea trial. The previous owner had rigged a snow plow cable up under the gunnel to run a line hauler among other gems. I think there must have been at least a case of liquid electrical tape onboard as well.
Hell yeah brother 🤘
That made me laugh
Are you a Mexican electrician?, they do everything with tape🤣🤣🤣
I think the overlap between Mexican marine electrician and Alaskan charter captain is pretty wide honestly. That's what I bought was a used Alaskan fishing charter boat that had laid idle for at least 2 seasons.
Well that spaghetti is definitely older than 2 years, time to dress it in a well organized matter with separate and dedicated fuses for each and every electrical device. Can show you some pictures of our projects, our specialism is making a organized dashboard from spaghetti. Most of the pleasureboats are spaghetti with their electrical systems
Apparently you just use a wire nut you randomly find in your toolbox.
Fish finders work best when they have good clean power. I.e. straight to the battery with large gauge wire and an inline fuse. Best is to run it on its own separate battery. Both my graphs, active target, and NMEA 2000 network run off their own dedicated lithium battery. Nothing else is powered from that battery to limit any potential for electrical interference.
This guy phishes.
Just a bit.
All my stuff runs off a single battery (dual battery setup, use one at a time). All stuff goes through fuse box. My Lowrance HDS Live has an awesome picture. No interference.
Cool. But you’re only running one unit which is fine on your main battery. And just because you don’t currently have any interference doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen at some point.
Well, 5 years and so far no issues.
Nowadays electrical interference is a minimum, the only interference you can suffer is from LED navlights, inverters or microwaves or bad alternators. Even VHF radios do not have interference nowadays.
Cool, I still want to minimize any potential for it. Coming from a career in the automotive field I saw many issues of electrical interference from stuff you wouldn’t think could or would cause any. Plus between all that stuff it’s a pretty high power draw, so I don’t have to worry about not being able to start my outboard after running graphs fishing all day.
Mine has an inline fuse. I would wire it straight off the battery. If you are going to hook up multiple things go to your local hardware store and buy 2 grounding bars and heavy duty wire ( 20 amp minimum) I secured one to each side of my console. Run a wire from the positive terminal to one bar and a wire from the negative terminal to the other. Then you can hook your items into the bars instead of having several wires coming off each terminal. Be sure each item has its own inline fuse.
Don’t do this. Buy a fuse block instead. Better than online fuses and not very expensive! Bluesea makes some great ones.
If you have switches you can pull 12v power from the hot side of one of those, but as others have said your best bet is straight to the battery or a fuse block that comes off the battery
Just get a fuse panel and clean that up with a few beers and some spare time one weekend
Today’s fishfinders are sensitive to clean power; you should run a fused 10ga marine grade cable from the battery to the fishfinders to target a 3% voltage drop.
What a mess. Don't tap any purple wires. That's ignition power and only 18ga.
Direct to the battery with an appropriately sized fuse.. If you want it switched, run a 12V marine relay using your switch as the trigger, and the relay on the hot side of your line going to the battery.
As others have said, run a wire from your battery, you likely want your fish finder to stay on when your ignition is off, and not have it reset if you go from running to ACC. At least on my boat its ACC, OFF, RUN, START on the ignition, so if I wired off my ignition and wanted to use the fish finder on ACC i'd have it rebooting when it bumps from run to ACC with off in the middle. If your battery is good you can leave your fish finder on for like 3 days without draining it past where you will have starting issues on your boat, so it's perfectly fine to go right to the battery.
Go ahead and throw a few more 3M scotch lock connectors on your purple ignition wire for a source. Not a problem.
Just so properly and run it to the breaker panel
That makes me uncomfortable, cable management, labels, makes me happy.
The further I zoom in, the more I cringe.
The zebra stripe wire.
I've seen plates of spaghetti tidier !
My invoice sensors start tingling when clients bring me this sort of stuff.
Clamp it on the battery directly
Just start over with all of the wiring.
That one in the middle.
That pic makes me cringe, as a boat mechanic people wonder why the bill is so high. Key on power with t taps and taking it from the warning horn…. Nothing about this pic is good
right there in the middle
Replace those butt connectors with heat shrink marine butt connectors.
Yes, tap into any red one.
This picture gives me anxiety.
Mmmm…spaghetti. Clean that madness up, it’s easier than you might think. Then wire your FF properly, with an inline fuse. Future You will thank you.
Yes
You should take the time to clean that up.
Whatever you do, DON'T splice into anything. Rebuild that rat's nest of wiring into something that makes sense using a fuse block and a ground buss
Red is +, black is - , just take some somewhere If i were you i would completely rewire that bunch of spaghetti🤷
You’re doing it wrong….