What does every one do to accommodate several electronic items that need to be hooked directly to the positive terminal of the battery? Just attach them all directly to the terminal, or do you use something else and then have just one connection to the battery. Just looking for ideas and opinions.
Best thing that I ever did on my boat was install two distribution studs. I took a 2/0 wire and ran it to a black/red studs. Now when i need to take the battery out for winter storage or even work on something it is just the one wire at battery. They did a shitty job wiring this boat. All sorts of shit just wired straight to the battery.
A short length of heavy cable to a fused distribution block is virtually the same as going directly to the battery terminal. Car audio battery terms that have multiple accessory outputs work well too, but a fused distribution block makes it neater and cleaner if you need fuses. Understand that the cable to the distribution block should not be the same cable going to your starter or other high current devices, because that would negate the reason for keeping things clean and separate.
Really you're trying to prevent a situation where current draw from one device can induce noise or voltage drop on another device, so a large short length of cable to a distribution block takes care of that quite well. I'm not a big fan of spaghetti wiring coming from a battery terminal, then leading to a bunch of individual inline fuses.
Go to a junkyard and find an 88-98 Chevy full-size pickup or suv. On the rear passenger side firewall behind a plastic cover will be a junction block. It will be held to the firewall with two screws and will have 5-7 studs sticking out of the plastic, I can't remember the exact number. All of those studs are connected inside the plastic housing by a metal strip. Run a fused heavy gauge wire from the battery to one stud then attach all your Accessories to any stud that they'll fit on including the one with the feed wire. I grab a few every so often at the pick and pull to keep in stock for my next project.
I use batteries that have both top and side posts then use post adapters on the sides to get more connection points. That way the winch can go straight to the top terminals.
I use batteries that have both top and side posts then use post adapters on the sides to get more connection points. That way the winch can go straight to the top terminals.
Bingo, I started buying dual-post batteries awhile ago, explicitly to separate the winch cables from the rest.
You have to look closely though, it's common for the cheaper ones to have "side posts" that are literally just a 2Ga tab that comes off the side of the main post.
