Rigging Big Jon Captains Paks

[Grizzly]

Ok,

I want to do this right the first time. When hooking up the electrical on my lund i have 3 batteries. 2 are isolated from the main engine for my trolling motor. They are big series 30 batteries. I intend to use 1 of them for my riggers. My question is for you folks do you put a circuit breaker inline on the hot side of the battery going to the riggers or just run it straight up to the power with nothing. The manual shows nothing but the connection. I am a bit nervous. If i wear a battery down it will be an easy switch to the second battery. Any help or thoughts will be greatly appreciated as always.

Grizzly

[Just Hook'n]

It may show nothing because there is a "trip" on the riggers themselves.

The little button on the side of the motor.

[79Dyne]

You should breaker or fuse that line prior to the riggers. Where are your trolling motor batteries located, bow or stern? You may want to run a large gauge pair of wire to a fuse block then step down wire size from there. Frank and or Ryan have a good post about installing rigger.

Justin

[Paulywood]

I put inline fuses on mine. I liek the added protection.

[HONDAM]

DO NOT TAP INTO 24 VOLT BATTERIES TO POWER 12 VOLT. There are all kinds of electrical issues that can arise and several industry standards strictly prohibit this without the use of a 24 to 12 volt converter which is expensive. I don't know that your Lund is 24 volt or not but I'm guessing it probably is.

Also it is very important to fuse the power line going to the rigger. The breaker on the rigger is only to protect against an internal failure. And will not protect against a short in the boat, and that is a big safety issue.

The way that I do it is to use electric trolling motor plugs for disconnects because I like to be able to remove my riggers. Then I run appropriate size wire to a breaker or fuse panel that is connected to the house battery. I usually have a vsr isolating and maintaining my house circuit from the starting circuit.

[Grizzly]

The batteries are located in the floor near the console. I have disconnected them from the trolling motor harness as i run my graph and GPS on 1 and the other just sits there as a backup. My kicker motor does not charge anything. I plan to run 10 gauge wire and put a 30 amp breaker per the email I got from big John. 15 per rigger. They say its not necessary but I feel it's cheap insurance and piece of mind if something dead shorts to ground at least it will trip the breaker.

The breaker will mount right on the battery and should be an easy installation. This upgrade to electric riggers is going to be nice. I am saving for some auto stops now.

Thanks again to all who replied.

Grizzly