A Couple Questions =)

[northwoodslivin]

Good folks!

I have a question to ask. Please forgive my newbness when I ask because this is the first trolling motor I have ever owned

I picked up a Minn Kota tiller trolling motor, 30lbs thrust if you need to know. I also picked up a new fish finder "Lowrance X96"

My question is this.. I have a deep cycle battery. And what I was wondering is, can I hook both the trolling motor and the sonar up directly to the battery? It is to my understanding that I need to install an inline fuse for the trolling motor per instructions "is this really needed for my situation?"

I have a tiller model boat, so I plan on extending the feeds from the trolling motor so that the battery will be up front. Do I need to do anything special here? or can I directly connect both?

Second question.
Could I go to the store and buy one of those small solor panels and mount it up front on my boat to use as a charging system to recharge the battery? or would I be better off just taking the battery out each time and recharging the spent power?

Thanks!

 

[stylesabu]

Re: A Couple Questions =)

You can wire them both to the battery. But do fuse the trolling motor, as close to the battery as possible. that way if you short out the line or motor you won't have a melt down.deep cycle batteries can cause a fire.You will need a pretty big solar panel to charge battery. either install a charger on the boat and run an extension cord to the boat or pull it out every time it needs to be charged

 

[northwoodslivin]

Re: A Couple Questions =)

Thank you

 

[Silvertip]

Re: A Couple Questions =)

To use a solar panel to charge the trolling motor battery you would need one that is nearly the size of the boat. Those small panels have about a 5 watt output. That's not even enough power to light a small 12 volt light bulb so you would have to have the boat parked in direct sunlight for weeks to top off the battery.

 

[northwoodslivin]

Re: A Couple Questions =)

I figured that, was just an idea

Hmm, what do you mean deep cycle batteries can cause a fire, could you elaborate on that a bit for me vs a normal auto battery?

It was to my understanding that deep cycle batteries have thicker plates etc.