Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

[jtexas]

If you were camping in a location without electricity, aside from having to fillet your fish with a manual knife and crush ice for margueritas with a hammer, do you think you could charge your trolling motor battery using your car and a set of jumper cables? The outboard will keep the cranking batt charged no problem, but I hate to think I can only use the trolling motor for the first day or two. I'll try it at home first, but has anyone done this experiment & want to share the results?<br /><br />thanks,

 

[bubbakat]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

it takes a long time to charge a battery from jumper cables. The regulator is reading what your battery in the car has got in it so don't really see how it can charge it full up. I got me a power converter and I take my charger along and plug it to it and charge away

 

[jtexas]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

bubba, you mean you plug the charger into an outlet plugged into the cigarette lighter? that works better than jumper cables?<br /><br />never would have thought it. Thanks!

 

[JB]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

Your car can charge your troller battery just fine via jumper cables, JTX, but it will take a while and burn up a bunch of gas.<br /><br />Why not let your outboard do it for you, or just switch to a big dual purpose battery or battery pair in parallel that is charged by the outboard??

 

[jtexas]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

JB, I know there's enough info on two-battery setups in the forum, but my old '79 70hp 'rude has just the stock alternator (either 6 or 9 amps) and I'd hate to think I was charging the T/M at the expense of being able to crank the motor to get home. Am I being paranoid or just cautious? seriously, what's your opinion? I've never run the T/M down completely although on really windy days it gets so low it takes maybe 3 hrs to charge on 15 amps.<br /><br />Now if you know how to use the o/b to make margueritas then we're in business! What if we used triple sec in place of TCW3? <br /><br />thanks!<br />jtw

 

[Boatist]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

JTexas<br />Jumper cables will work fine but as JB said will take a while. When you hook up the cables do it with your engine off and make sure you do not reverse the polarity. Then start the engine and turn every thing off. Heavy guage jumpers cables (2 or 4 guage) will charge the battery much faster than light guage cabels (6, 8, or 10 guage).<br /><br />I have not done this on a trolling motor battery but have done it for years on a trailer while up deer hunting and it works very good.<br /><br />Keep in mind if you discharge a starting battery to less than 80 percent it will do damage. If you discharge a deep cycle below 50 percent it will do damage.<br /><br />I agree not a good idea to charge with with your outboard as would run it a max amps all the time and can burn it up. If you had a newer outboard with a 30 amp belt driven alternator then I would reccomend charging with the Outboard.

 

[jtexas]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

Thanks for the advice. Bubbakat, is it faster with a charger plugged into an inverter? <br /><br />Here's an idea - what if I use the inverter & charger with the engine off, then, in the morning use the boat to jump-start the car? Now I'm over-analyzing. Marine deep-cycles at Wallymart are less than $40, maybe I should just get enough to last the whole trip.<br /><br />A while back I found instructions on the web for building a gasoline-powered battery charger using old lawn equipment and an automotive alternator but that seems kind of worky.<br /><br />I could just get a campsite with electricity but sometimes that means pitching the tent in the middle of RV-land and me and the wife & kids just prefer the peace and solitude of tent city.

 

[ndemge]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

Jtexas....<br /><br />If you have this battery problem quite often during the year, I'd avoid using your car as a overkill battery charger, as at idle, alternators don't do a lot of charging. It may take 5 hours to charge a 50% discharged deep cycle battery with that method.<br /><br />Solar Option:<br />Solar panal on the boat if troller is not in use alll day. 150Watt Panel will put out about 10 Amps DC with Good sun. At a cost of about $500 and you need a large place to put it about 2'x4'<br /><br />AC Generator Options<br />Honda EU1000 INCREDIBLY Quiet Generator. 1000 Watts, $700 or so. Plug a good battery charger into it and let er rip.<br /><br />Regular contractor Generator, LOUD 1000 watt, about $200, but don't you DARE camp next to me with this!<br /><br />Home Made DC Generator:<br />1 Used alternator from Junk yard $25<br />Probably best to get a good ole chevy 1 wire alternator with built in regulator<br />5-8 HP lawnmower engine $50 ish<br />2 Pullies and a Belt $10 <br />Scrap of Plywood<br /><br />Loud, don't camp next to me<br /><br />If you have a place to run any of the generators and not anoy people around you, I'd go the cheap $200 generator route and just charge every night with a good 100 amp 3 stage charger.<br /><br />My $.02

 

[ndemge]

Re: Charging Trolling Batt w/ car

Oh, another thought.....<br /><br />Is there marina you can keep your boat at night? $10 a night here will give you a covered slip with electric