Couple of thoughts as someone who has done some wiring...

1) Perko/battery cutoff switches are good. If you don't have one, it's worth putting in.

2) If you have a parasitic draw, track that down. I follow a lot of automotive youtube channels and they have covered how to track that down very well. Would be worth it both for your boat and for your own abilities to track it down.

3) Does your trolling motor circuit have a circuit breaker? Can you cut power to the TM that way? My boat has one of those resettable circuit breakers that you can cut power with. Maybe you have one too.

4) I am here in Austin. I have the heavy lug crimpers. If you buy some marine lugs and need them crimped, reach out to me. BTW, you can buy ancor products at west marine. I have bought a few from them as they are quality and west isn't too far. If you need more quantity, it's better to order from Greggs Marine Supply.

These from Cavalier are the good marine grade terminals


These things are much thicker than the cheap, auto parts ring terminals. These are sold through our supplier in a 25 pack for around $60. These are 6 gauge.

This is a cheap auto parts kinda ring terminal.


The red nylon insulator denotes the gauge wire it’s appropriate for. In this case, it’s an 8 gauge terminal. They are ok, but not intended for wet (or even just humid) applications.

The red one is a crimp style. The bare one is really intended for a BIG, compound crimping tool (looks like a 2ft long set of bolt cutters), or soldering.

Yep


Melt that red plastic off. Heat it up till you can pull it off. Solder the terminal to the wire.


Having shrink tube up the wire. After it's soldered. Push the shrink tube over the end. Heat that up.



Y'all speak of Marine grade. To me, that sounds like liquid black tape. Secondary to shrink tube. Double protection.

I bet you run across some real janky wiring in your line of work.

Marine grade has little to do with the insulation, heat shrink, or liquid tape. It has to do with the coating over the copper. The cheaper terminals are usually not even copper. The marine grade is to prevent corrosion of the connection. It’s thicker and crushes slightly when tightened. Kinda like a banjo washer crushes. This crushing seals the surface areas for longer lasting, corrosion free conduction. The exterior part, where the wire terminates into the ring terminal is critical as well, that is why it is tinned as well. As a side note, pure copper wire in a boat is a bad idea as well. You want tinned copper wiring there too. Soldering wire is great, if done well and sealed. Soldering can remove the coating, promoting corrosion and most just don’t know how to do it correctly. Heat shrink is good, but get the good 2/1 adhesive lined shrink. To really seal the wire ends. Not the normal stuff.

Every day. All day. It’s part of the job. There is a lot of times when I tell customers I won’t warranty ANY of my work, unless I get to rewire everything related to what I’m doing. I’m probably one of the most meticulous DC wiring guys around. I want it perfect and bulletproof. It’s also why I get to do a lot of work on some special cars…and a few boats.

+1

Made in the USA.

These are the ones I use. Steez , can you take a pic of the box the ones you use come in. I would like to order some. I always trying to up my wiring game.

I learned on motorcycle wiring because I'd ride through water. My only transportation to work.



They changed the formula of liquid black tape. It's not the same. Like black liquid silicone. That air hardens. The previous was a brown tinted black drying goo.

Sadly, the first picture I posted was of the packaging. It’s a company called Cavalier. They have bins at our shop that they drive to us and fill a couple times a month. We don’t keep the ring terminals in stock at the shop, but I get what I need for projects on an as needed basis. I bought this bag of 6g terminals when I installed the Ultrex onto the boat. I wanted to keep the factory wiring, but I rerouted it down the middle of the boat to make the wiring run shorter. That made the need for new terminals at the batteries.

CavalierProducts.com is their website, but they don’t sell online or to the general public that I’m aware of.

Yes, mine is on a breaker that I trip
Pergo switch after cranking battery kills all parasitic draw

This is a pic of another setup so you can see routing of wires. 8 guage coming in, then a ten and and 12 coming out.

I have a 2 switch set up. First switch cuts all power to boat, second switch ties all batteries together for emergency starting capacity. I'll always have a switch to kill power to the boat, due to burning on to the ground while towing through Mathis Tx. Quite a shock to look in the mirror and see a ball of fire chasing you down the highway.

Full disconnect to the TM when charging, my old boat has a big plug at the front (Otherwise I would do one of those thermal switches), I use Anderson Power Pole connectors the electronics connections. Anything is better than removing the nuts on the batteries,