As Dr. McCoy once told Capt. Kirk. . . Dang-it Jim, I’m a Doctor, Not an electrician! ! !

There’s probly a better place to put this question, but I am familiar with all y’all and I figure y’all will know what I’m trying to ask.

So, I Finally got a Garmin Livescope for my Kayak. Right now, I have the Ultra 106SV on my kayak. I am powering it with 32ah Lithium battery. (Pictured below. . . Hopefully). Now I need to power my Black Box, and I want to run them off the same battery.

I have 2 questions.

1. Do I just splice my two wires into the butt splice I already have going to the battery? So, having two power and two grounds going into the crimp and then one power and one ground going to the battery. Is that OK?

2. Can I run an on/off switch for the black box? If so, do I put it between the fuse and the box, or fuse and the battery?

The reason I ask question #2, is I heard ya don’t want to have the black box on while the transducer is out of the water.

I think that’s what I need to know.

Split wire connections is what I did. Run the black box and screen from one Lithium a 30ah worked for me up to 6 hours on the water.

Have had Bass fishermen tell me its ok to leave transducer on while out of the water, however, I power down to sleep mode .

For question 1, yes you can do that and it will work just fine. Or, you could run both power cables to the battery. Either way is good.

2) I'm not sure it matters if the switch is before or after the fuse. Mine is after but that's only because I wanted it on the bow panel of the boat. I would recommend a switch. It may not hurt the box to leave it on but it certainly won't hurt it to be turned off. I only turn mine off when i'm off the water. But, I don't have a master cutoff for the battery.

When I take my transducer out of the water i don't turn off my black box. There is a pause transducer icon that I use when running from spot to spot. Sorry, I don't remember how to get to it without the screen in front of me. I do however have a switch to my black box that I use to turn off the black box when I am not fishing.
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I used to run boat from spot to spot with unit on and eventually ended up having problems. Definitely don't recommend doing that. I simply hit the power button, and the sleep mode option will pop up and hit that and pull your transducer up. When you drop trolling motor at next spot hit power button and screen turns on. Way faster than powering unit off and on.

Thanks Guys. I appreciate the answers. I have decided to run the Livescope on the Amped Outdoors 32ah battery in the box I made that’s in the picture. I have an on and off button on that. That’ll give me about 10 hours of operation. I ordered a cheap Amazon 20ah battery for the 106sv which will give me 8 hours of operation. No switch for that one, but I have my graph on all the time.

So, I know I’ve read more than once about Not leaving the black box on when the transducer is out of the water, but I’m glad to hear it’s not the end of the world if I do. I’ll just hit the switch off when it’s not in use.

I’ll probly have some operational questions later😳😳😳

Thanks so much for your help.

I’d recommend using the “transmit off” mode whenever pulling your transducer out of the water as opposed to just using “sleep mode.” See below from Garmjn on this subject:
LiveScope sleep mode primarily saves battery by dimming the screen, while transmit off stops the transducer from pinging, preventing overheating and saving battery.

Good to know !!

Oh Yeahhhhh. I like that option. Thanks.

transmit off when the transducer is out of the water!

I have a transducer that has been JB welded to the inside of my hull and it is never in the water. Works great and has for a few yrs.