Kayak Helix 7 battery size?

[superkamikazee]

I just setup a helix 7 on my old town sportsman pdl and went out with it using a 10ah lithium battery. I only got around 6 hours out of it. I was running max brightness, side imaging, down imagine, and auto charting. 
 

I was trying to find a balance between size, weight, and run time, thought the 10ah would be enough. My buddy runs a helix 5 on a 7ah all day, side imaging, down imaging, and auto charting.

 

is there a way to increase the battery life or do I simply need larger battery? Would a 12ah be enough to get me at least 8 hours? 

[Way2slow]

The laws of electronics says that's not possible.  

According to HB, the Helix series draws 600 mA.

10 Ah battery with a 0.6 amp load is only going to last 6 hours.

Depending on the condition of the battery, that time is going to vary.  A good, new 10 Ah battery may have 12 or 13 amp hours, depending on the brand.  If they sit on the shelf very long before being bought, they may only have 9 or 10 Ah.

[MN Fisher]

Just now, Way2slow said:

According to HB, the Helix series draws 600 mA.

The 5's draw 600mA - the 7's draw 800-900mA according to the manual

https://humminbird.johnsonoutdoors.com/sites/johnsonoutdoors-store/files/assets/misc/HU/H/HUM_productmanual_OPS_HELIX_SRS_532509E4/HUM_productmanual_OPS_HELIX_SRS_532509E4.pdf

[Deleted account]

50 minutes ago, Way2slow said:

The laws of electronics says that's not possible.  

Laws of electronics?

[superkamikazee]

2 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

The 5's draw 600mA - the 7's draw 800-900mA according to the manual

https://humminbird.johnsonoutdoors.com/sites/johnsonoutdoors-store/files/assets/misc/HU/H/HUM_productmanual_OPS_HELIX_SRS_532509E4/HUM_productmanual_OPS_HELIX_SRS_532509E4.pdf

If that’s the case shouldn’t I be getting close to 8 hours of use on a 10Ah battery at the least? 
 

I used battery calc sites and most were suggesting at least 10 hours. What am I missing here?

 

 

 

 

[MN Fisher]

6 minutes ago, superkamikazee said:

If that’s the case shouldn’t I be getting close to 8 hours of use on a 10Ah battery at the least? 
 

I used battery calc sites and most were suggesting at least 10 hours. What am I missing here?

 

 

 

 

Are you sure the battery is fully charged?

Is anything else running off the battery?

[superkamikazee]

44 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Are you sure the battery is fully charged?

Is anything else running off the battery?

battery fully charged according to the charger that came with it, green light was on.

 

it’s the marcum 10ah 12v lithium. 

[MN Fisher]

Well, according to the info, the Brute should run your Helix-7 for up to 12 hours. Only thing I can think of is another drain on the battery somewhere...other electronics plugged in or a short in the system.

[superkamikazee]

I only have the helix 7 wired up, nothing else running. 

[MN Fisher]

If there isn't a short in the system draining power - I'm out of ideas.

[Darth-Baiter]

Do you have a multimeter?  You need to make sure you’re re starting off with a full charge.  Which IMHO is in the neighborhood of 12.4 volts.  I had a 10ahr battery that would max out at  11.99-12.04v. It got replaced. 
 

you could put a sunshade hood over it so you can run it at a lower brightness setting. 

[Way2slow]

OOOOOpps.  Sorry, I forgot the final steps in my math when doing the quick calculation.  

Figure a 10Ah battery, and you don't want to draw it down to more than 75% discharged makes it a 7.5 Amp hour battery. The voltage is going to be low enough the sonar is probably going to shut down by then, if not before then, anyway.

 

Now, if the Helix 7 is 800 - 900 milliamps, I would just round that off for easy math to 1 amp draw.  

So, a one Amp draw on  7.5 amps of battery, you should get 7.5 hours of run time if the battery is fully charged and is actually capable of producing 10 Amp Hours.  

 

Since your buddies is a Helix 5 and it only has a 600 milliamp draw, that's about 30 percent less that your 7, and he should be getting about 30% more run time.

 

Like I said, the amp hour rating on the battery is when the battery is considered fully discharged, close to 11 VDC.  The Helix is most like is not going to operate on a voltage that low, so the lowest voltage it will operate on is going to be it's cutoff point. So, it's sounds like it's probably getting all it can out of the battery.  

Fully charge the battery and have it tested and see what the actually amp hour capacity is of the battery you have, make sure it's at least a 10 amp hour, it may not be. 

 

[txchaser]

Ok I have a helix 7 SI and run it off a 10ah battery. Six hours sounds pretty good -IF- you are running the charting/map-making. With the charting off the battery seems to last much much longer. I can't imagine why it draws so much more power just writing to the memory, but perhaps it is doing some crunching on the data too. 

 

 

[MT204]

Turn your screen brightness down if possible, that's where most of the current is being used. I use a helix 10 for ice fishing with the screen brightness at 1/2 it doubles the battery life.

[Dens228]

I use an Amped Outdoors 18ah lithium for my 9 inch Garmin with side imaging.  I'd say I get at least 14-15 hours usage out of it. The 18ah is plenty small and light enough to fit in the pod of my SS127

[HenryPF]

Sorta on topic - if you have 18v power tools, why not just use those batteries and 12v adapter instead of buying another 10-12ah battery?

[MN Fisher]

13 minutes ago, HenryPF said:

Sorta on topic - if you have 18v power tools, why not just use those batteries and 12v adapter instead of buying another 10-12ah battery?

I dunno what 18v tools you have - but my Ryobi 18v batteries only have 4AH - dropping to 12v with an adapter raises that to 6AH@12v

 

So you'd need two of them - and you can get a 10-12AH 12v for cheaper than two Ryobis...easier to hook up too.

[superkamikazee]

On 5/3/2021 at 10:11 PM, MT204 said:

Turn your screen brightness down if possible, that's where most of the current is being used. I use a helix 10 for ice fishing with the screen brightness at 1/2 it doubles the battery life.

 

I turned the brightness down to 6/10 vs my first trip at 10/10. I managed to get over 6 hours of battery life, so hopefully with the brightness down I'll be able to get closer to 8. Next trip should be longer, so I'll see how it holds up. I was also auto charting.