Bucketmouth King Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 Hey all. Yesterday I took my new boat out for the first time ever to get the feel for it and the trolling motor pedal etc. It has a motorguide pro 75 24 v. 2 brand new full charged batteries. I bbasicaly drained them within 3- 1/2 hrs. Now granted I was using the pedal far more than I would probably use it on a normal fishing day. And I was fighting some rough wind and current. But my question is would adding 2 more batteries in series (or parallel? ) double the life or time it takes to drain them? I have a 2 bank onboard charger for the 2 existing batteries and a separate house battery for electronics with its own charger. Quote
Bassaholic84 Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 You cant add 2 more in series that would give you 48 volts....your best bet would add 2 seperate batteries in series and wire bith sets to a perko marine switch so you can switch to the other set of 2 batteries when the first is low. Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 23, 2015 Author Posted March 23, 2015 Hm. Would I need a separate charger or could it work from the switch as well ? Quote
Super User slonezp Posted March 23, 2015 Super User Posted March 23, 2015 How large of a boat ? What size batteries do you have installed? Are they deep cycle? Do they have a high reserve capacity? Quote
Smokinal Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 How large of a boat ? What size batteries do you have installed? Are they deep cycle? Do they have a high reserve capacity? This is the direction I'm heading in as well; sounds like something else is wrong. You should be able to go almost all day on 2 good, fully charged batteries. As Slone asked, are they group 24's? 27's? Deep cycle or are they just "car" batteries? Are you sure your charger is charging from both banks? Sure they were both fully charged? Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 24, 2015 Author Posted March 24, 2015 Let me first start by saying it is an electric only lake, so it was just trolling all day. 18' fiberglass Winner Bass Tournament from 1987. I dont know for sure the batteries were dead. Im basing that off of how long it took to recharge. (The charger instructions say 4-6 hrs recovery from a dead battery) it took 5 hrs to regain full charge. I dont have a battery life meter. The charger is charging from both banks. Minnkota Mk-220d brand new. The batteries are both brand new walmart everstart 29 or 31 series deep cycle marine. Both were fully charged the night before to going out. This was my first time using a trolling motor pedal. So in getting used to it, I spent most of 3.5 hrs using it. And the end of the day was spent making a throttle wide open bee line from one end of the 243 acre lake back to the ramp at the other end. Quote
Comfortably Numb Posted March 24, 2015 Posted March 24, 2015 I drew this up for you. Hope it helps. You would need five eyelet to eyelet battery cables from aotoparts store. 2 Quote
snapperd1 Posted March 24, 2015 Posted March 24, 2015 Your best bet if it is an electric only lake would be to go and buy 4 6volt batteries they will last all day and then some. I have used this kind of setup for my previous boat and ran 3 minn kota motors and fish finders all day with no issues. Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 24, 2015 Author Posted March 24, 2015 Yes, Comfortably Numb! Thats what I meant! Now will that double the life or time of my batteries ? Quote
Smokinal Posted March 24, 2015 Posted March 24, 2015 Yes, Comfortably Numb! Thats what I meant! Now will that double the life or time of my batteries ? Sure will. You will double your reserve capacity. You said above "I dont know for sure the batteries were dead. Im basing that off of how long it took to recharge." Did you actually have a loss of thrust from your motor or are you just going by how long it took to recharge the batteries. And nice wiring figure there Numb! Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 25, 2015 Author Posted March 25, 2015 Just going by how long it took to recharge. Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 25, 2015 Author Posted March 25, 2015 But if I were to add 2 more batteries wired as Numb showed, would I need another 2 bank charger? Quote
Smokinal Posted March 25, 2015 Posted March 25, 2015 Yes, you can only use one bank for one battery; unless you did some yankee engineering like cut the rings off the wires and put big charging clamps on them Then you could just unclamp them from the first 2 batteries and clamp them on the second 2 without undoing all the wingnuts etc... Personally, I'd try it a couple more times and if you don't lose battery power on the water, I'd leave it alone. I wouldn't go by how long it takes to recharge. Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 25, 2015 Author Posted March 25, 2015 Good thinkin. Can someone recommend a reliable battery meter ? Quote
Smokinal Posted March 25, 2015 Posted March 25, 2015 Well, to truly check a battery, you need to check the specific gravity of each cell. Pick up a gravity tester (around $8 at any parts store) and follow some of these instructions: http://www.trojanbattery.com/BatteryMaintenance/Testing.aspx Please wear safety glasses and basically, you just pull up some of the electrolyte from each cell and get a reading. You can check state of charge that way and test for a bad cell too. If all the readings are similar, most likely the cells are all good. If all are up but one is down, you have a bad cell. Pretty easy and straight forward. The link above shows what the readings should be on a fully charged battery. So, charge them, let them cool and then test them. Then, go fish and test them again after to see what the state of charge is after use. Quote
snapperd1 Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 If the batteries are hooked up in parrell which they would be you could charge both with one charger it will take a while but it will charge them. I use to charge 4 six volt batteries with on 12 volt charger all the time never had issues. The batteries were hooked together in series to form 12 volt batteries then the 12 volt batteries were hooked together in parrell to make one big 12 volt battery. I charged the entire thing with one 10amp charger. 1 Quote
Comfortably Numb Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 With deep cycle batteries get a cheap voltmeter. This chart show voltage and state of charge. http://www.energymatters.com.au/components/battery-voltage-discharge/ Quote
Bucketmouth King Posted March 26, 2015 Author Posted March 26, 2015 Turns out I had a battery with a dead cell not holding a charge. Luckily i found the reciept and walmart exchanged it. Looking fwd to the next trip to see how performance improves. 1 Quote
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