Most professionals are always up to level up their fishing skills, and with a fish finder, you can explore the fishing game beyond imagination.
Several people use devices like a fish finder to experience the fishing game to its maximum. It is an extremely portable and fun tool to have on your boat.
A fish finder is especially considered useful for fishing in new areas, helps you become acquainted with your unidentified underwater domain. So, If you have recently invested in the new fishing device, you will be curious to know how to install it, and what needs to be done in order to wire fish finder to fuse box.
So, to make sure that your fish finder works effectively, you need to be sure that the installation and fishfinder wiring process is done correctly. For that, you just need to go through this article. We have explained the process of fish finder installation to a fuse box.
Table of Contents
Tools required to initiate the process
- A battery charger for your fish finder
- Mount kit
- Crimper tool and wire stripper
- The battery for your fish finder
- Goop sealant
- The fish finder
- Heat-shrink wrap
- Rolls of electrical tapes
- Insulated terminal connectors
Learn how to wire a fish finder to fuse box in easy steps
Sometimes you just have to hook up all of its accessories directly to the battery, but in some cases, you might need to fix all your electronics to the fuse box. Well, as far as fish finders are concerned, it would be better to wire them directly to the fuse box.
Furthermore, It’s strongly recommended that you must have a fuse for every power wire, and make sure the fuse is close to the power source. You should size the fuse according to the expected load.
Step 1: Insert the wires
The first step is quite simple, when you will buy a fish finder device, you will get all the connectors and wires along with it. The connection wire usually has a top cut-off for easy wiring. Just insert the wires into the butt connectors in order to insert them into the male heads of the battery.
Plus, don’t worry too much about any extra measures in order to keep the battery waterproof because the connectors will just go straight into the battery. So, it will be enough to keep the unit inside a dry bag.
Step 2: Cut wires
Once you are done with inserting the wires, in this step you might need some basic wire cutters and also some box cutters so that you can easily cut wires. So now just take out the electrical tape and heat shrink wrap. All of these items are required in this step. It is recommended to use shrink wrap for extra security in order to hold all the connectors tight and strengthened.
Step 3: Tighten the connectors
It’s important to put your heat shrink wrap on the black wire first and then the female end on the wire tip. Don’t forget to get the correct wire gauge and the butt connector. You would need something that easily fits snug and fit right away. You must avoid crimping it down too much.
Start tightening the connectors using a crimper and reinforce them with some electrical tape. This makes them double secure. Now fold it down a couple of times along the whole shaft in order to make sure it’s all nice and snug.
Step 4: Use black tape
Do the same thing for black or ground wire, you just need to do the same thing. It would be better to start reinforcing the wire with some black electrical tape. The reason why it is recommended to use black tape is that you would want to make sure that you can differentiate between wire red and which wire is ground.
Step 5: Check the connections
Lastly, just make sure all the connections are nice and snug. Once you have checked them, try to start the fish finder to check whether everything is working or not. Now you need to work on a transducer, after that it’s all done.
Setting the transducer
The transducer mostly draws power directly through the head unit, hence, there is only one cable coming out of it. The cable that is coming out of the transducer will feed into the boat and run around the edge so that it could easily connect directly to the computer display screen.
If you see that there isn’t a proper way to pass transducer cable from the device into your boat, just drill a hole for it. for the sake of safety, never forget to make sure that the hole is not below the waterline of your boat.
If you just don’t want to drill another hole in your boat, the second option is to pass the cable over the side. Note that it would not look as neat, the job will be done. It’s better If your boat has housing, you can run the wire behind. Plus, you may also need to use a wire snake in order to feed it up to the front.
Or you can also tuck the wire underneath the edge of the boat. You can easily do this using wire zip ties, then heading it in the direction of your display unit. You will notice that once you have reached your display unit, there is some extra cable still left to deal with.
Just remember one thing, do not try to cut this cable shorter and reconnect it. If you do this, you will just risk ruining the connection. Plus, One you Cut this cable, it will invalidate your warranty. So, just simply coil up the excess cable and tie it together neatly. Leave a three- or four-inch tail which you can plug into the display unit once you are ready.
Conclusion
The need for a wiring fish finder to fuse box is pretty useful if a fuse box is placed towards the front of your boat. Why? because It makes it much easier to run the cables. Plus, fishfinder wiring is actually a really simple job, but without a proper crimping tool it’s difficult to complete the job.
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