Battery Question

[Moss_835]

I did try to find the answer to my question in past posts but am still confused and would like a few opinions form others ...I have purchased my first trolling motor and am looking for suggestions as to which battery seems to work the best for most of you...the motor I got is the Minn-Kota Endura Transom mount the one with 46lbs of thrust....
What I do know ( or at least think I know) to this point is :
My battery choice should be a deep cycle battery that is other than a cranking battery...
So my question is which battery do or would you use to power this trolling motor...I do not fish any real large water ( have a 15' jon style boat ) ...but think the motor would be in use at least 6 hrs if that is possible....

Thank you in advance for any help

Moss

[TONGA]

yea you do want a deep cycle battery ,,,other than that I can tell you that you tend to get what you pay for!,,,while you are shopping you may want to look into a decent charger!

[jpollman]

I've got a Minn Kota 38 lb trolling motor that I run with a combination Deep cycle/Crank battery that I bought at K-Mart I think. It does the job fine and I can use it for several trips before it has to be recharged. I use it on a small local lake but when I do, it gets a workout because I fish the heavy slop. This thing just plows right through it and keeps on going. I think you'd get 6 hours EASILY out of a battery with that motor.

Just my .02

[suppa roosta]

I've been running Trolling Thunder for the past 3 1/2 years and love it.

I would go through a 27 series D.C. in as little as 2 years even while religously maitaining them. After about a year and a half their cycle interval would degrade non-expotainiously rendering them useless for anything over 2 hours even under light load.

With the T.T.'s I'm still averaging 8-12 hrs. per cycle running a 55 lb. thrust Minn Kota.

Sure they're a bit pricy, but when I head out for a day of jigging, or dragging some bottom bouncers, my arm is more likely to give out before the T.T. does...

[scottyhoover]

I have an endura 50lb transom mount and this is what I get out of her.....

When I want to troll solely on electric power, I generally use setting 3-4 out of 5 and with just myself in my 14ft boat I can get 4 hours with no loss in speed, then it goes downhill quickly. Add another guy and it wears down quicker. Also my 14ft is a little heavier than your average.

If you are going to use it in an on/off fashion 1 deep cycle will do you just fine but if you plan on trolling around for a few straight hours you probably want 2 deep cycles.

[MGV]

I run a deep cycle on mine. I also use a deep cycle/cranking battery for the regular motor this also Keeps better while running all the electroncis.

[Eastern Yooper]

I run a Minnkota 50 PD, powered by a dual-purpose Everstart Extreme.

Used on an 18' rig, getting 6 hours was no problem.

Battery lasts 3 years on average, around $70 from Wal-Mart. Standard equipment on Ranger boats, I might add.

[Beave]

Batteries Plus in GR sells good deep-cycle batteries very reasonably priced.

Unless you're going to use the battery for trolling AND starting, get a deep cycle.

Using the analogy of electricity as water, here's the difference in the two batteries:

Starting battery:
Imagine you have a 50gallon tank with a 4" pipe on the bottom. If you open up the relief valve you can drain the tank down at a rate of 25gallons per minute. The tank is set up to discharge a large amount of water very quickly.

Deep-cycle battery:
Now you have a 100gallon tank, but the pipe is only 1" in diameter. If you open the valve up all the way you'll only get 5gallons per minute of water flow, but you have a lot more water. This tank is designed to provide a high volume of water over a prolonged period of time.

To continue the water analogy, the starter on a large boat motor needs a lot of water in a very short period of time. To get the starting motor to turn over requires a whole lot of current, so you want the big pipe. The trolling motor, however, doesn't require a whole lot of water at any one time, it just needs a steady supply. In that case you obviously want the larger capacity, so the bigger "tank" (deep cycle) is better.

Just so you know, the "amp hours" a battery is rated to is the tank size in my analogy. Deep cycle batteries are sold based on amp hours. You'll pay more, and the battery will get bigger and heavier, the more amp hours it's rated to.

The "combination" batteries that EY and Jpollman talked about are kind of a hybrid between the two battery types. They're good for both starting AND long life. Usually you're going to spend a bit more to get the same amp-hours though. I haven't looked at them much but seem to remember that a 70 amp-hour Exide (stowaway) combo battery was the same price as a 105 amp-hour deep cycle battery when I was shopping.

One more thing, people kill more batteries prematurely with bad charging practices. Letting them sit dead, overcharging, not running them for a long time, storing them outside in the cold over winter, etc. The best thing you can do for your battery is to buy a smart charger that trickle charges as needed. You can get 4-5 years of life easily out of a deep cycle battery if you maintain it properly.