Trepper’s Bow Mounted Eagle Fish Finder, Including Wire Diagram

I got a new Eagle Strata 128 for the holidays so spent the New Years weekend hook’n her up. Not being an electrician my first attempt at wiring did not work. I had used the center + and what I thought was a – wire on the bow Tilt switch. What I did not understand at the time was that there is no grounded – wire on the Tilt switch. When I could not make it work, I turned to the NitroOwners Message board and a number of folks helped out quickly. John Foster even sent the wiring diagram below. If you are thinking of doing this your self, it is easy, but pay attention to the wiring diagram (Thanks a million John Foster!):

Since my boat, Crappie Pro 175, has a lowered front desk, I wanted a mounting place for the graph where it was out of the way when the trolling motor was up (and would not get in the way when boarding from the front) yet easily visible when the motor was down/up. Here is a shot of the wiring in progress, I took everyone’s advice and attached the + to the center wire on the Tilt switch and the – to the ground – on the bow light. I ran the power cord for the Eagle through the deck so no wire will show and made sure to install the in-line fuse (it came with the Eagle) for extra protection.:

I then attached the Transducer with the standard hull mount to the Trolling Motor with a metal pipe-clamp (thanks for the idea Rich Stern) and used plastic cable ties (Rich and others suggested Black as they are UV protected, but I already had 500 clear so we’ll see how they hold up) to attach the Transducer cable along the Trolling Motor shaft, along the motor cable to the foot peddle and all the way to the accessory panel. Since I mounted the Eagle right next to the panel, I just ran the Transducer cable right to the Eagle so no additional drilling was necessary.

Here is a shot of the completed job (the boat is a mess, I had not vacuumed or cleaned the carpet yet):