Battery help

[jgaul]

Hey guys, I am new hear and didn't know where this post should go. I just bought a Lund fisherman 1800. LOVE IT!! This is my second year. Last year, I noticed after trolling for a 1/2 day, my battery was getting low. (30%) I have space to add a second battery, and was thinking of doing this with a Perko switch. My kicker doesn't send any juice back to the battery. I bought a very large battery, but it still gets low. This year I am running electric riggers too. Any advice or help would be great. I do have 2 batteries up front but only have my electric trolling motor hooked to those because they don't charge off the engine. I also can't run my main and the kicker at the same time because I need to switch the gas over to the kicker. grrrr.....

Thanks for any help and I hope to meet some of you on Saturday in Grandville.

Jeff

[Paulywood]

I would add the second battery with the switch and hook all of your electronics (sonar, gps, riggers) to this and just use the main battery as a starter. Use a deep cycle for the second battery. You can have the switch set to "Both" when you run in and out. Then when you switch over to the kicker, turn the switch to the second battery. This will keep it from drawing off of your main battery while trolling. I have a switch on my boat and normally don't even switch it while under way, just make sure both batteries are charged before leaving home. If I am on a trip I will charge the second battery with the alternator. You might want to look into a plug in charger for the front batteries as an alternative. You could run all of your electronics off of the front batteries and charge at home. Just a couple of options.

[jgaul]

Thanks Paulywood... It's good to know someone else has a similar problem. I do have an onboard charger, so when I get home I can plug it in. The problem with putting the electronics all on the front 2 is that I spend 2 weeks a summer in Canada and have no power supply for the front 2 so I believe I have to run all my electronics off the back to charge that battery. I have a feeling my boat projects are just beginning!!! Can I do a perko switch myself or should I bring it in?

[bluegill hunter]

hey jeff

yes multiple batteries is the way to go. I ran a 19' grumman, 21' thompson, and a 31' silverton for years out of frankfort, on my grumman I ran 3 batteries and 4 batteries on the others. Throw another battery on board you will not be disapointed.

[Paulywood]

The switch is easy. I installed one on my last boat, on my new boat it is a factory install. The directions are right on the back of the switch. Just buy a couple of battery cables with the ends already installed. Then you can either direct wire all of the electronics or power them from a fuse or breaker box. On my old boat I powered them from a fuse box. On this one they are direct to the battery with inline fuses.

[1mainiac]

I will start out with a few questions and some answers 1st you need a Marine starting battery connected to your engine. Personally I would go with a diode style isolator to charge the rest of your batteries while the main engine is running there are several styles that would work just make sure what you use is at least capable of 50% more than your alternator is capable of when under way. So if you have a 90 amp alternator on your main engine you would want at least a 140 amp battery isolator. The rest of your stuff needs to run off true deep cycle batteries get the maximum amp hour rating you can afford and buy matched batteries. For instance a average group 24 marine starting battery is roughly 75 amp hours but a deep cycle group 24 can be 105 to 125 amp hours and there are some that are much better than that. Amp hour rating is just that a 100 amp hour battery is capable of putting out 100amps for one hour or 1 amp for 100 hours. Now start doing the math how much power do you use everything on your boat has rated power consumption somewhere you need to know it. Lets say you start with a 200 amp hour load bank of batteries which is pretty common for a couple of batteries. Assuming you start fishing in the dark you use your running lights for 1 hour of fishing this is roughly 5 amps used up your fishfinder will use roughly 3 amps per hour so a 4 hour trip is 12 amps your VHF radio will draw about 1 amp when not talking on it so for 4 hours another 4 amps. Got the stereo on low about 5 amps like it loud 12 amps subwoofer thumping 20amps or more. Small electric downrigger 7 amps ea it all adds up and fast. I blew my lower unit several years ago we were a couple miles from the pier so we decided to try and make it on the electric trolling motor well we made it back to the launch it took over 4 hours and both of my trolling batteries were distroyed.

[Nailer]

hey jeff

yes multiple batteries is the way to go. I ran a 19' grumman, 21' thompson, and a 31' silverton for years out of frankfort, on my grumman I ran 3 batteries and 4 batteries on the others. Throw another battery on board you will not be disapointed.

Curt,

[anmetcalf]

I run 2 batteries as well. One is for the main motor only. This battery has nothing else what so ever hooked up to it. My second battery is a deep cycle that has my sonars, chartplotter, radio, stereo and all lighting hooked to it. This battery also has my kicker hooked to it. The kicker hooked to it serves two purposes, one it charges as I am trolling, and two it has a pull start so I can start this even if this battery is dead.

I prefer to not hook anything to the primary/main motor battery as I don't like being 10 miles out and have a dead battery, before I had 2 batteries this did happen. I has actually out on Erie perching listening to the stereo and the radio, went to leave and it was dead in the water. We were about 8 miles out at this time. This is a bad feeling. We were lucky to have a pull start kicker so we started the kicker for about 15 min and that was enough to charge the battery enough to start the big motor. I can assure you that will never be a problem again.

[zegunisrory]

http://www.bluewatermarinesvc.com/html/bat_switch.html

[jgaul]

Thanks guys!

One last question about the perko switch. Can I run my 3 bank charger into it so I can plug it in at home and charge both batteries that are hooked up or is the switch just for the engine?