so after fighting with this all day, I can get two of the reels to run by bump starting them. What I mean is if i take the hot wire and touch the solenoid on the outausw it runs fine, but if I hook it up to the solenoid it blows the fuse.
However for the 3rd reel it blows the fuse either way, hooked up or just bumped.
getting closer, I think I can at least say my ground is good 
I have an old Dodge pickup that I used to start the same way. Screwdriver across the solenoid and don’t shut it off until you’re done with it. She’ll ride.
Sketch on a piece of paper a diagram of what you have and take a pic of and post. You’ve got something crossed or wires touching. Wiring up reels about the easiest thing to do, easier than a 12v almost. How old are the reels or are they new? Though most of us use a circuit breaker instead of a fuse, just reset. How long is your run from battery to reels? What is reel bolted to?
This guy goes through the process of elimination for trouble shooting your reel.
Ain’t that the truth, try ordering camshafts and head gaskets for race motors lol.
these are brand new reel, never used, the bottom reel blows the fuse no matter what, when I hit the botton it blows the fuse, or when I take the power line off the terminal of the solenoid and touch the case like the other two instead of working like the other 2 do it blows the fuse. Waiting to here back from supplier now. Also thanks for the heads up on the breaker instead of the fuse
Note I forgot to put the fuse in the picture but it is in line right next to the battery
I don’t believe you need that negative running from your reel back to your battery. If you grounded reels to trailer and you have battery grounded to the trailer, you should be fine.
The two posts on the solenoid are not + and -. One post is for the power wire from the battery. The other is for the power lead to the reel motor. Ground the solenoid by running a wire from the metal mounting flange to your ground point.
I don’t see on your diagram how you have your switches wired.
Follow the Hannay diagram @DJPWS posted above. I just wired up two of these reels last week using that diagram and they work perfectly.
I wired my reels based on the diagram as well. If you want to do parallel, you just jump the power from the solenoid to the power point on the next solenoid till the end. Same for the ground.
Yup, that’s how I did it as well. Nice to only run one set of wires from the battery.
FWIW, I ran 8GA from the battery to reels. According to the Blue Sea chart above, that should be good for up to 40 amps over 10’ with only 3% voltage drop. Seemed to me that’s plenty to run one reel at a time.
I really like Blue Sea components too (breakers, fuses, bus bars, etc) - excellent, marine grade quality.
thanks guys for all the help, I got two reels running and they are connected to eachother so only one power line.
But the third reel seems to be a issue, the solenoid came apart wear the threaded brass bar goes into the body, but it was blowing the fuse every time, hooked up the same way as the other 2 reels that are now finally working. oooooooo the joy
new solenoid arrived today and all three reels are working properly,
thanks again for all the support
Glad you got it worked out.
If you have checked grounds and they are good, check resistance between your 2 big terminals. If nothing then solenoid is bad, I have just used regular olé Ford fender mounts to replace.
Yeah, it’s dead. Ordered another one like you said. Like 16.00, no biggie. Thanks for the feedback.
You will be much happier with no electric reel, but if you keep it… Wire loom, heat shrink, and real connectors
Yeah keeping it bought for 200.00 18” Hannay. I have 2 other electric reels and love them. It’s just me and the wife, we take care of our equipment. If I had employees probably would have manual. Just bought as is, did put new solenoid and it works just fine, will heat shrink the connections though….
