Either way works. In my last boat, it was wired with 4 wires to the front of the boat. The TM was a MotorGuide Brute, and it had a 3-way switch on the side of the foot control, 12v, 24v and off. I found I never used the 12v option. I rewired without really re-wiring. I hooked a big jumper between + on one battery and – on the other. I took the two red wires and bonded them together with one ring connector and hooked that to the open + post on the pair. Did the same for the two black wires. That effectively gives you a significantly lower resistance pair of doubled wires. I took the 3-way switch on the TM foot control, 12v, 24v and off, and turned it into “momentary on”, “always on” and “off”. Was much happier and it worked like a champ. The original wiring was pretty silly in that in an 18 boat, the 24v wires were 36 long since the circuit goes back to front to back to front to get a 24 volt series connector. Doubling the wires was a big boost in TM power and battery life. Yes, by all means put a circuit breaker on one of the wires. Doesnt matter which one. Even on the jumper is OK, as all you care about is interrupting the circuit if a short develops. If you want to go mega-cable, visit a welding supply shop and get some 0 or 00 gauge wire. They can mount crimped-on ring terminals on both ends. No voltage drop, no resistance to speak of, wires will be about the size of your little finger. Not really needed, however, assuming the current TM wiring is of decent gauge. Bigger wire = lower resistance and voltage drop. Once you reach optimal, bigger wire is just more expensive. Copper is not cheap nowadays. Nice thing about welding cables is that they are stranded and will lay down nicely. BTW, in those days, my boat had two runs (4 wires) of 10 gauge wire. Marginal for 24v when the current path was 72 long. Much better with 2x10ga @ 36 total circuit length. I think BCB uses 6ga wire nowadays, as my 2008 certainly has that. doubling might be marginally better, but only marginally…Last edited by oldtimer57 on March 8th, 2017, 4:24 am, edited 1 time in total.2008 Pantera Classic2014 Mercury Pro XS 200
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