Batteries here are shipped to the retailer or shop full and ready to go. Most are sealed with no means to get into them at all these days. The caps are glued down on many, others have one time type clips that break if tampered with.
If an outboard is having trouble starting off of a healthy deep cycle battery there's usually something wrong with the starter or motor. Outboards all have tiny starters. To save weight in my aluminum boat I started using a garden tractor battery as my starting battery, and a single lithium ion jumper pack for my electronics and lights. With everything now LED, it can run all week on one of those 12v jumper packs and the motor recovers and charges the small battery pretty fast.
Before I made the full swap, I took my old garden tractor battery, that at the time was three years old, and used it to crank my 115hp 1990 Evinrude over for several extended periods with the fuel disconnected. It would likely have cranked longer than the starter would have survived before killing even that battery. I now buy a new battery every two years, then cycle it into the mower for the last year or two and put a new on in the boat.
The Li-Ion jumper pack runs my fish finder, radio, anchor and bow lights, dash lights, and several spot lights for running at night. I've gone days without charging it on the first pack and never killed it, plus if needed, it could also be used to start the motor as well.
I saved about 130 lbs in the boat, gained some top speed and a bit of freeboard as well. The small battery has no issues running the T&T as well.
The boat has a 1985 70hp on it, the motor it came new with.
It came factory with three batteries, one group 24 marine starting battery, and two group 27 deep cycle batteries for the trolling motor. I tossed the trolling motor years ago, and run only the main engine and one smaller kicker, an older 4hp that I keep under the bow just in case. It lives where the batteries used to. I did run a transom trolling motor a few times off of another Li-Ion jumper pack, and it did fine, running all day on a local pond but it was only a Harbor Freight pack and a 28lb thrust motor but a trolling motor doesn't take much power either, especially a small one. On my smaller 14ft boat, I run two group 24 batteries and a 58lb thrust Minnkota transom mount motor and I can run for a whole weekend and not go below half charge running that boat solely on electric. One deep cycle would likely work but they last longer if I limit how severely I discharge them. No battery does well being completely depleted over and over, even a deep cycle, which handle it better don't live as long being wiped out over and over again. A starting battery likely won't survive it even once without damage.
If an outboard is having trouble starting off of a healthy deep cycle battery there's usually something wrong with the starter or motor. Outboards all have tiny starters. To save weight in my aluminum boat I started using a garden tractor battery as my starting battery, and a single lithium ion jumper pack for my electronics and lights. With everything now LED, it can run all week on one of those 12v jumper packs and the motor recovers and charges the small battery pretty fast.
Before I made the full swap, I took my old garden tractor battery, that at the time was three years old, and used it to crank my 115hp 1990 Evinrude over for several extended periods with the fuel disconnected. It would likely have cranked longer than the starter would have survived before killing even that battery. I now buy a new battery every two years, then cycle it into the mower for the last year or two and put a new on in the boat.
The Li-Ion jumper pack runs my fish finder, radio, anchor and bow lights, dash lights, and several spot lights for running at night. I've gone days without charging it on the first pack and never killed it, plus if needed, it could also be used to start the motor as well.
I saved about 130 lbs in the boat, gained some top speed and a bit of freeboard as well. The small battery has no issues running the T&T as well.
The boat has a 1985 70hp on it, the motor it came new with.
It came factory with three batteries, one group 24 marine starting battery, and two group 27 deep cycle batteries for the trolling motor. I tossed the trolling motor years ago, and run only the main engine and one smaller kicker, an older 4hp that I keep under the bow just in case. It lives where the batteries used to. I did run a transom trolling motor a few times off of another Li-Ion jumper pack, and it did fine, running all day on a local pond but it was only a Harbor Freight pack and a 28lb thrust motor but a trolling motor doesn't take much power either, especially a small one. On my smaller 14ft boat, I run two group 24 batteries and a 58lb thrust Minnkota transom mount motor and I can run for a whole weekend and not go below half charge running that boat solely on electric. One deep cycle would likely work but they last longer if I limit how severely I discharge them. No battery does well being completely depleted over and over, even a deep cycle, which handle it better don't live as long being wiped out over and over again. A starting battery likely won't survive it even once without damage.
