Trolling motor battery

[RippinLips2t]

Hey y'all, been a while since I've posted. Last time i was in florida, I'm now back up north with a canoe rig for smallies. Anyway, picked up an endura 30 to scoot around the local river/ lake with my nephew. Battery is next, I've seen a lot of guys using lithium, some lead acid and everything from 40-100ah. what size/ type battery do I need? 17ft fiberglass sears, 350ish with gear. Need a solid couple hours of use either well trolling or getting to and from dock to spot.

[padlin]

I use a trolling motor on a Bass Raider 10’ pontoon boat and have a 100a lithium. If I were doing it again I’d get a 50ish amp. I do roughly 5 hrs and rarely use more then 20 ahrs.

 

If you want to travel miles and stay out all day, then go with bigger.

 

I wouldn’t be comfortable going with a small battery without having a way of monitoring it, but that’s just me cause I fish alone and don’t want to paddle a pontoon boat back. As you have a canoe it’s not a big deal.

[Alex from GA]

50 ah lithium is plenty.  I use one on my 16' tin bass boat with a 45lb trolling motor and it lasts for 3 days with 3-5 hours use per day.  12 lbs replaced the 70 lb group 27 that I used to use.

[Jar11591]

Generally a 12V deep cycle. I recommend something with 100-120 amp hours, the last thing you want to be doing while fishing is worrying about how much time you have left on the battery. A 30lb motor will be drawing roughly 30A at full power so 100 amp hours will get you a little over 3 hours. 120 amp hours will give you roughly 4 hours at full power (30A x 4 hours = 120amp hours). Can’t speak for lithium batteries as I’ve never used one. 

[casts_by_fly]

As with all battery questions, it comes down to how hard you're going to use the trolling motor and how big a water you're fishing.  Like Jar said above, if you're running it on full power all of the time, you'll get about 3 hours of run time on still water with a 100 Ah.  In a canoe like you describe, I'll estimate 3-ish mph for that, maybe a touch more.  If you're planning to launch, run a mile, fish, run a mile, etc and all at full speed then maybe a 100 Ah is what you need.  If you're launching, going at a moderate speed for a couple hundred yards and starting to fish then you don't need anywhere near 100Ah.  If you're tootling around the bank at fishing speed you could do it on a 15 Ah battery.  I've fished one of my lakes (120 acres, electric only) and used less than 8 Ah of battery in 6-7 hours of fishing in a not dissimilar setup.  So for lakes, you need to figure out how hard you're going to push it.

 

For rivers and streams you have to factor in current.  If there is a 3 mph current and you're able to move at 3 mph, then you're going to have the battery on full power all day and go nowhere (or go downstream REALLY fast when you turn around!).  If the river is more of a still river and very lightly meandering, then you'll probably be fine with a mid range battery size.

 

I've got an 80 Ah in my kayak.  For the two big lakes around here where I will be running full speed for 30-45 minutes once or twice a day it is enough.  I've run it down to about 15% once, and in the the low 20% a couple times.  One lake is 1200 acres and long, the other is 2700 acres.  For all of the lakes under 500 acres its more than enough battery to never worry about it.  For some of the lakes I might use 15% of it in a day.  Personally, I want to be able to fish anywhere for any length of time so the bigger battery is right for me.  If I was only fishing the smaller ones, then I'd consider a 50-60 Ah.

 

Type depends on how much you want to spend vs how much weight you want to carry.  A group 27 Duracell is rated at 90 Ah.  On lead acid you plan based on 50% of capacity, so 45 Ah usable.  For your use maybe a little more than 50%, so consider a group 27 as 50 Ah.  That's 53 lb and costs $150 or so.  In lithium, you get 90%, so a 60 Ah nets you 54 AH, weighs 16 lb and costs $379 from Amped (my preferred /current battery).  Its also about 7"x7"x7" and can just about fit in a fanny pack.

[Bankc]

Here's my experience.  I have a 12-foot kayak with an Endura C2 30 on it.  

I started with an 85Ah lead acid deep cycle battery.  It worked fine, but it was 65lbs.  I switched to a 50Ah lithium battery, and it works just as well, but weighs under 15 lbs.  Not only that, it has a higher voltage which translates to slightly more speed.  Plus it's easier to place in my kayak because 15lbs can go just about anywhere whereas 65lbs needs to be balanced.  

 

Another advantage to lithium batteries is you can discharge them to 10-20% of their max charge and they'll be fine.  Lead acid batteries, even deep cycle, don't like to be discharged below about 50%.  So you get almost double the usable amount of charge off a lithium battery.  They also have about 2-5x's the lifespan of lead acid batteries.  

 

Both lasted me all day without any problems.  When I bought the lead acid, it was with the intention of upgrading at a later date to a lithium, as lithium batteries were really expensive at that time.  Now, they're much more affordable.  So I'd recommend the lithium.  50Ah would be a good compromise between size, weight, and cost.  But 100 Ah lithium batteries are generally not that much more expensive (this is the most popular size) but weigh twice as much and take up twice as much space.  My original plan was to try one 50Ah, and if it wasn't enough, add a second.  It's more costly that way, but it turns out I didn't need more, so I saved money, weight, and space.  

 

So, anything between 50-100Ah would probably be fine.  If you plan on doing lots of long runs, the 100Ah would get you 3 hours of run time at full speed with a little left over.  The 50 Ah would only get you half that.  And the way these trolling motors work, each speed setting (1-5) takes about twice as much power as the speed setting below it, up to 30ish amps on speed 5.  And the higher you go up the speed settings, the less of a gain in the speed you actually see.  So you can get almost double the run time at speed 4 and probably only loose around 15-25% of your speed (or distance).  So you often need less battery than you think you would if you calculate it out, because most people don't run around at full speed all day.  Typically, you'll want to spend more time fishing than driving around.  

[Tennessee Boy]

You're never going to run very long at full speed regardless of how much battery you have.

 

I've measured the current draw on my trolling motor which has a max draw of 41 amps.  At 75% speed it half that.  At 50% speed it draws just 8 amps.  At 25% it draws just 1.5 amps.  So I can run at full speed for about 2.5 hours but I can run at half speed for 12.5 hours.  Think about how fast and for how long you will be running and buy accordingly. 

[RippinLips2t]

53 minutes ago, Bankc said:

Here's my experience.  I have a 12-foot kayak with an Endura C2 30 on it.  

I started with an 85Ah lead acid deep cycle battery.  It worked fine, but it was 65lbs.  I switched to a 50Ah lithium battery, and it works just as well, but weighs under 15 lbs.  Not only that, it has a higher voltage which translates to slightly more speed.  Plus it's easier to place in my kayak because 15lbs can go just about anywhere whereas 65lbs needs to be balanced.  

 

Another advantage to lithium batteries is you can discharge them to 10-20% of their max charge and they'll be fine.  Lead acid batteries, even deep cycle, don't like to be discharged below about 50%.  So you get almost double the usable amount of charge off a lithium battery.  They also have about 2-5x's the lifespan of lead acid batteries.  

 

Both lasted me all day without any problems.  When I bought the lead acid, it was with the intention of upgrading at a later date to a lithium, as lithium batteries were really expensive at that time.  Now, they're much more affordable.  So I'd recommend the lithium.  50Ah would be a good compromise between size, weight, and cost.  But 100 Ah lithium batteries are generally not that much more expensive (this is the most popular size) but weigh twice as much and take up twice as much space.  My original plan was to try one 50Ah, and if it wasn't enough, add a second.  It's more costly that way, but it turns out I didn't need more, so I saved money, weight, and space.  

 

So, anything between 50-100Ah would probably be fine.  If you plan on doing lots of long runs, the 100Ah would get you 3 hours of run time at full speed with a little left over.  The 50 Ah would only get you half that.  And the way these trolling motors work, each speed setting (1-5) takes about twice as much power as the speed setting below it, up to 30ish amps on speed 5.  And the higher you go up the speed settings, the less of a gain in the speed you actually see.  So you can get almost double the run time at speed 4 and probably only loose around 15-25% of your speed (or distance).  So you often need less battery than you think you would if you calculate it out, because most people don't run around at full speed all day.  Typically, you'll want to spend more time fishing than driving around.  

sounds like most everyone here thinks 50, I had the same idea to just order one and push it, if I needed more just order another. with about a $200 budget I think that's best anyway so I don't have to swing extra. Haven't seen many brand suggestions, What are you using?

[RippinLips2t]

6 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

As with all battery questions, it comes down to how hard you're going to use the trolling motor and how big a water you're fishing.  Like Jar said above, if you're running it on full power all of the time, you'll get about 3 hours of run time on still water with a 100 Ah.  In a canoe like you describe, I'll estimate 3-ish mph for that, maybe a touch more.  If you're planning to launch, run a mile, fish, run a mile, etc and all at full speed then maybe a 100 Ah is what you need.  If you're launching, going at a moderate speed for a couple hundred yards and starting to fish then you don't need anywhere near 100Ah.  If you're tootling around the bank at fishing speed you could do it on a 15 Ah battery.  I've fished one of my lakes (120 acres, electric only) and used less than 8 Ah of battery in 6-7 hours of fishing in a not dissimilar setup.  So for lakes, you need to figure out how hard you're going to push it.

 

For rivers and streams you have to factor in current.  If there is a 3 mph current and you're able to move at 3 mph, then you're going to have the battery on full power all day and go nowhere (or go downstream REALLY fast when you turn around!).  If the river is more of a still river and very lightly meandering, then you'll probably be fine with a mid range battery size.

 

I've got an 80 Ah in my kayak.  For the two big lakes around here where I will be running full speed for 30-45 minutes once or twice a day it is enough.  I've run it down to about 15% once, and in the the low 20% a couple times.  One lake is 1200 acres and long, the other is 2700 acres.  For all of the lakes under 500 acres its more than enough battery to never worry about it.  For some of the lakes I might use 15% of it in a day.  Personally, I want to be able to fish anywhere for any length of time so the bigger battery is right for me.  If I was only fishing the smaller ones, then I'd consider a 50-60 Ah.

 

Type depends on how much you want to spend vs how much weight you want to carry.  A group 27 Duracell is rated at 90 Ah.  On lead acid you plan based on 50% of capacity, so 45 Ah usable.  For your use maybe a little more than 50%, so consider a group 27 as 50 Ah.  That's 53 lb and costs $150 or so.  In lithium, you get 90%, so a 60 Ah nets you 54 AH, weighs 16 lb and costs $379 from Amped (my preferred /current battery).  Its also about 7"x7"x7" and can just about fit in a fanny pack.

Don't want to spend more than 200 but lithium sounds like the ticket, would rather not drag around unnecessary weight of lead acid. Not planning to use it a bunch but just to get to the middle of the lake to fish the islands, 400yds (docks and banks by a private b&b) then getting around in a 100yd circle or so, and back to dock. or to get downstream a couple miles and troll for an hour or 2 mid speed on a pretty calm river. High speed for an hour total maybe. What I'm gathering is 50ah should suffice but 100 is preferable. Probably gonna just order 2 over time like I said to the other guy. Have any experience with "power queen" batteries?

7 hours ago, Jar11591 said:

Generally a 12V deep cycle. I recommend something with 100-120 amp hours, the last thing you want to be doing while fishing is worrying about how much time you have left on the battery. A 30lb motor will be drawing roughly 30A at full power so 100 amp hours will get you a little over 3 hours. 120 amp hours will give you roughly 4 hours at full power (30A x 4 hours = 120amp hours). Can’t speak for lithium batteries as I’ve never used one. 

yeah that's my thinking with a 50ah, don't want to be worried about running out. Budget only allows for so much though and I'm only adding weight, getting about the same use out of a 100 lead as a 50 lithium. decisions...

7 hours ago, padlin said:

I use a trolling motor on a Bass Raider 10’ pontoon boat and have a 100a lithium. If I were doing it again I’d get a 50ish amp. I do roughly 5 hrs and rarely use more then 20 ahrs.

 

If you want to travel miles and stay out all day, then go with bigger.

 

I wouldn’t be comfortable going with a small battery without having a way of monitoring it, but that’s just me cause I fish alone and don’t any to paddle a pontoon boat back. As you have a canoe it’s not a big deal.

what brand battery are you using?

 

[padlin]

You want a liFePO4. You can go with top of the line like Ionic, Dakota, or Battle Born, but you’ll need to save more $. Or you could go cheaper Chinese made like Litime, Chins, or any of the many others for a lot less. I went with Enjoybot, it speced out to what I wanted at the time, no idea if they make a 50 ish.

 

i don’t use the boat and motor enough to worry about longevity, it’s just to go out with the grandkids.

[Carolina Pines]

13 minutes ago, RippinLips2t said:

Have any experience with "power queen" batteries?

 

I actually do have a 50ah "Power Queen" battery and I haven't had any problems at all other than having to figure out the charger when I first got it. 

 

You will need the Power Queen brand charger in order to charge the battery.  It's a kind of expensive charger, like $80 I think... but it is a high quality charger and it charges my other lithium batteries too.  I had to contact their customer service in order to figure that out, but they were very responsive and would have replaced the battery if I really did have a problem. 

 

My setup is a 12' V hull with a 6hp outboard, and a MK Endura Max 45lb thrust trolling motor.  It's been a great battery and I use my TM to chop through a lot of thick lily pads.  I've had it last two trips without needing recharging.  Once I dropped a pair of pliers across both terminals and shorted it out.  I thought I killed it, but all it needed was to be hooked back up to the charger for a minute to reset the BMS and it was fine.  

 

You can see some of the battery in the pic below.  It's been going strong for two years now.  I have another 24ah lithium battery that powers my electric anchor winch and serves as a backup just in case. 

[mcipinkie]

I'd go to Wally World and buy a Group 29 lead/acid for about $100.

 

If you can afford Lithium, very nice to have, easy to handle, but not needed for your use.

 

I have Ionic's in the Skeeter, lead/acid in my aluminum boat. 

[RippinLips2t]

8 minutes ago, Carolina Pines said:

 

I actually do have a 50ah "Power Queen" battery and I haven't had any problems at all other than having to figure out the charger when I first got it. 

 

You will need the Power Queen brand charger in order to charge the battery.  It's a kind of expensive charger, like $80 I think... but it is a high quality charger and it charges my other lithium batteries too.  I had to contact their customer service in order to figure that out, but they were very responsive and would have replaced the battery if I really did have a problem. 

 

My setup is a 12' V hull with a 6hp outboard, and a MK Endura Max 45lb thrust trolling motor.  It's been a great battery and I use my TM to chop through a lot of thick lily pads.  I've had it last two trips without needing recharging.  Once I dropped a pair of pliers across both terminals and shorted it out.  I thought I killed it, but all it needed was to be hooked back up to the charger for a minute to reset the BMS and it was fine.  

 

You can see some of the battery in the pic below.  It's been going strong for two years now.  I have another 24ah lithium battery that powers my electric anchor winch and serves as a backup just in case. 

Sweet! power queen it is, looked decent enough and best bang for buck was just skeptical about its longevity/ reliability. Having to buy a charger separate is less than ideal but it is what it is. Thanks for your help and nice fish!

[Bankc]

Mine is a Weize.  

 

I suggest you check out Will Prowse's DIY Solar Power YouTube channel.  He has lots of tear downs and reviews of various brands of lithium batteries.  He's more focused on solar power banks than trolling motors, but the batteries are the same.  So I'd just find a couple that look like good deals and check out his channel to see if he has reviewed that brand and what he says about them.  

[WRB]

Iconic Marine Deep Lithium 12V, 50AH Battery is currently on sale* for $350. 24.3 lbs, 11 year warranty, free shipping.

For a canoe you are loading unloading the battery for every trip and a light weight battery is ideal imo!

Tom

PS you need a battery charger designed for lithium deep cycle.

* Lithium Hub

[casts_by_fly]

1 hour ago, RippinLips2t said:

Don't want to spend more than 200 but lithium sounds like the ticket, would rather not drag around unnecessary weight of lead acid. Not planning to use it a bunch but just to get to the middle of the lake to fish the islands, 400yds (docks and banks by a private b&b) then getting around in a 100yd circle or so, and back to dock. or to get downstream a couple miles and troll for an hour or 2 mid speed on a pretty calm river. High speed for an hour total maybe. What I'm gathering is 50ah should suffice but 100 is preferable. Probably gonna just order 2 over time like I said to the other guy. Have any experience with "power queen" batteries?

 

 

I went straight to Amped and haven't had a second thought.  At the time, cheaper lithiums didn't have much of a track record.  Now though, there are quite a few that have been good for people.  The orange and white ones on Amazon seem to have a following (can't remember the brand) and they are cheaper.  I think its LiTime.  Looks like they have a 50 AH for $159 right now.  And, if you decided that 50 ah wasn't enough, you could add another one for 100 AH and either carry it separately or hook them in parallel.

 

[Koz]

For my Old Town Autopilot kayak I bought a Weize 12v 100Ah LifePO4 for $319 and it kills me now that same battery is only $259. Get yourself a decent charger. I have a NOCO Genius10 and it works fine for my needs.