Scotty electric info

scott craven said:
Thought I would pass this on.

Just had a rigger serviced at Scott Plastics and they advised
me they should always be unplugged when not in service.
Something I didn't know , I always left mine plugged in.
Click to expand...


Did they say why?? So thieves don’t yank out your boat plug?
 
Shouldn’t have power if switches are off this would be more if your wired directly to battery is imagine
 
Canso said:
the switch faults to closed circuit. Riggers will randomly turn on and not turn off when the switch goes bad.
Click to expand...
Ah, makes sense then for riggers or anything directly wired to battery. Good reason not to do it other than bilge pump. Thanks.
 
I am too lazy to look but doesn't scotty reccomend wiring triggers directly to the battery with a 20A fuse inline? Makes complete sense to wire to the battery switch, on my list of junk to do. I know mine are wired to each battery, which is direcrly due to laziness by the installer aka me.
 
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best use 30 amp breakers rather than fuses royal pain in the arse having to mess around and then trying to find them...
 
Lots of reasons for not leaving them hooked up. Fires, shorts and the issue of thefts. The riggers are not mounted and plugged in unless we are on the boat and monitoring them and have had a plug short/smoke once while fishing. Have never had a rigger stolen off the boat because we remove them. So it takes a few minutes to remove and replace them in the morning, - It is worth it not to advertise to the thieves to come and rip you off.

We use 30 amp blade fuses in o ring sealed marine type holders with dielectric grease, right off the battery and buy them in bulk (cheap at Walmart of all places) because from time to time even at 30 amps the pot puller may blow one if the heavy commercial style trap has a large load of crabs in it, especially when you lose water buoyancy when it breaks the surface. 20 amps would be useless for us.
 
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If I turn off my main power ever time I finish using the boat, I assume I don't have to unplug? Those Morenco plugs on my boat are under the gunnel and no joy to unplug and plug back in.
 
Does anyone see a reason that I couldn’t put my inline fuse near the female end of the plug rather then directly off the battery ? besides the obvious of being more exposed to the elements. Re wiring currently and accessing the battery’s to swap a fuse isn’t the most ideal task in the slop.
 
tannerc said:
Does anyone see a reason that I couldn’t put my inline fuse near the female end of the plug rather then directly off the battery ? besides the obvious of being more exposed to the elements. Re wiring currently and accessing the battery’s to swap a fuse isn’t the most ideal task in the slop.
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The fuse should always be closest to the battery as possible. If it shorts, the wire could melt all the way to the fuse
 
Corry_lax is absolutely correct. If your lead from the battery should short to a ground (very possible in a metal boat, harder but possible in a fibreglass one) any part of the lead before the fuse would become the fuse and would only protect the circuit after it had melted the insulation and copper wire, obviously not a good scene. In your case I would consider installing a waterproof switch in a more accessible location to turn off the rigger(s) when not in use. The switch should be capable of carrying at least the full anticipated load in this case 30+ amps. I have used one similar to this in the past.

https://www.amazon.ca/Disconnect-Ve...locphy=9001337&hvtargid=pla-587054685735&th=1

If this does not suit your application, you could install, again close to your battery, a 40 amp fuse.The fuse would protect the wire in the event of a short to ground, which would most certainly be over 40 amps. Keep in mind that there already is a circuit breaker to protect the downrigger motor located under the sealed section of the downrigger.
 
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I have a 40 A re-settable fuse between the battery and a secondary fuse panel, where i have the 20A blade fuse, this allows me to turn off the power to the fuse panel when not in use. I have seen the Scotty riggers cause boat electrical fires, know of one boat that was a T/L as result of a fire caused by riggers and heard of 2 other fires caught before they spread too far. So this is something to take seriously enough to put in either a battery switch as commented upon earlier or a re-settable fuse to power up a secondary fuse panel for all your riggers to power off.

images
 
A couple years ago I was going into my boat one evening (on the trailer in my driveway) and noticed this random clicking noise, after investigation i discovered my starboard side downrigger was randomly turning on and off, I touched it and it was so hot you could barely keep your hand on the plastic. I immediately unplugged it and took it in for servicing. Bad Switch. Lucky it didnt do any other damage. Needless to say those things stay unplugged on my boat nowadays.
 
bpsuls said:
A couple years ago I was going into my boat one evening (on the trailer in my driveway) and noticed this random clicking noise, after investigation i discovered my starboard side downrigger was randomly turning on and off, I touched it and it was so hot you could barely keep your hand on the plastic. I immediately unplugged it and took it in for servicing. Bad Switch. Lucky it didnt do any other damage. Needless to say those things stay unplugged on my boat nowadays.
Click to expand...

I agree and ours are not plugged in unless we are on the boat and fishing/monitoring them. This past summer we did have some smoking at the plug while fishing on the riggers and were able to deal with it. It did not trigger the fuse so it is still possible to have a fire while having the system protected with correctly wired fuses.
 
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