One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

[ShawnQ]

Ok guys, should I be using one or two batteries? I have no trolling motor, but I do have a depth finder and lights.<br /><br />I do most of my fishing after dark, so I need the lights a lot, as well as the backlight on the depthfinder. I am always worried about drifting with the lights on, and then going to start the engine after the drift and having a battery that's drained...so I'm thinking I should get two batteries. Worst case, I'll have low power to my lights and depth finder, but at least my engine will crank.<br /><br />So, should I have a seperate accessories and cranking battery? Can you recommend a battery that is good for being used once every 2 weeks or so, and once every 3 in the winter? They wont ever have a lot of downtime on them due to the fact that I'm on the water almost every week.<br /><br />Lastly, can you recommend an onboard charger to keep them where they need to be?<br /><br />Thanks!<br />Shawn

 

[ShawnQ]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

Forgot to add, I do plan to get a trolling motor in the future, so I should probably go ahead and get a 3 bank charger.<br /><br />Could you recommend a good battery for the trolling motor?<br /><br />Thanks!<br />Shawn

 

[rickdb1boat]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

shawn, I would get a good deep cycle battery to carry with you, as you plan on getting a trolling motor anyway in the future. I always carry a fully charged spare deep cycle battery with me. Ya never know...

 

[ShawnQ]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

I definitely plan to invest in another battery.<br /><br />Any recommendation on what type? Should I spend the money on an Optima Gel Cell, or is there other batteries that are just as cost effective?<br /><br />Thanks!<br />Shawn

 

[Luna Sea]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

Wal-Mart has a good deep cycle/starting battery. You could buy two of them for the price of a gel-cel.

 

[18rabbit]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

I am not a fan of gel cells at all. If batter maintenance is part of your boat up-keep routine, you will be fine with a wet cell and the extra cost of an Optima would be a waste of money. Luna Sea has a good idea. Fwiw, Costco sells a 105 A/Hr marine deep cycle somewhere around $55. 85 A/Hr marine starting battery is about $8 or $9 less.<br /><br />I don’t see anything in your original query that suggests the need for three battery banks of a 3-bank charger.

 

[Drowned Rat]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

Wallyworld sells very cheap deep cycle batts. Their 205 amp hour battery is about $70 and comes with a 18 month free replacement warantee, and they stand by it. Hard to beat.

 

[ShawnQ]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

Thank you all for the replies. I'll look into the walmart batteries.<br /><br />18rabbit,<br /><br />As for the 3 bank: If I have 3 batteries, I need 3 banks, right? I plan to have 1 for a trolling motor, 1 for lights/gps/depth finder/vhf, and one for cranking. Wouldn't I need a 3 bank?<br /><br />If I'm full of it, please tell me. But, I thought that each bank was for a battery, 3banks=3 batteries.<br /><br />Thanks again!<br />Shawn

 

[18rabbit]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

Banks are for differences in battery types and/or voltage requirements. It is almost always a good idea to isolate the starting battery for reasons I’m sure you are aware of.<br /><br />If you are running a starting battery and a deep cycle battery, they should each have their own bank.<br /><br />If you are wired for 12v applications and 24v applications, each should have their own bank. There is currently another discussion about this scenario in another thread here.<br /><br />For you, 12v starting battery in one bank. The trolling motor and all other electronics go on a second 12v bank. The second bank can have two (or more) deep cyclers wired in parallel for increased available A/Hr capacity. This avails you of two 12v battery banks that can be charged with a single, two-bank, 12v charger.<br /><br />If you want to use a 12v starting motor and a 24v trolling motor, start by take a look at the current thread “24 Volt to 12 Volt Conversion” that is on this forum.<br /><br />One more quick thought…deep cycle batteries do not like to dump a lot of amps in a short period of time, like a starting battery does. If you anticipate a big amp demand for your deep cycle applications, you need to bump up the available A/Hrs. A rule of thump for deep cycles, not that we care is 5% discharge/hr, not to exceed 50% total amp discharge between cycles. Following this, you can plan a 10-hr, deep cycle power source at a minimum.

 

[BrianTindall]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

If your budget allows, buy a 3 bank charger, 2 two bank battery switches and a 3 bank isolator. Now, here's a nice little setup: using the 2 bank selector switches and a 3 bank battery isolator, make bank 1 the engine cranking battery. Bank 2 will be the accessories battery (deep cycle). Bank 3 for the trolling motor (12 volt?). Take the alternator output to the isolator and then to each bank, this prevents cross draining the batteries. Now, connect the engine pos. battery cable to the output of selector switch number one, connect the cranking battery to "Bat 1" position and the accessory battery to "Bat 2" position. Now the fun part, connect the accessory feed line to the output of selector switch number 2. Connect the deep cycle battery to "Bat 1" postion and the cranking battery to "Bat 2" postion. Use a seperate battery ON/OFF switch for the trolling motor. Normal running: both selector switches in the Battery "1" postion, engine runs on cranking battery and accessories run on deep cycle battery. While the engine is running ALL batteries are charged. If one or the other batteries goes dead, just change the appropriate switch and off you go! This provides a backup and you're not trying to jump or reconnect the batteries in the dark. The charger hook up should be self explanatory.

 

[ZmOz]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

If you're worried about running your batteries dead, I would suggest buying one of those portable jump starters. They work rather well...I allways have one with me in my boat and my truck.

 

[airman]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

I've got a TrueCharge (now Xantrex) charger and it's great. 18rabbit's right - use one battery bank for the trolling motor and the lights and one for starting. Make sure that all the batteries are the same type: flooded, AGM or Gel. Otherwise you have to use two separate chargers. I'm all for the flooded batteries, too.

 

[Boatist]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

ShawnQ<br />I think you got a lot of good info here. Just want to add that Gel-Cell MUST be charged at a different VOLTAGE than your Lead acid. So if you do decide to get one and want to charge it off your engine then you will have to rig a seperate voltage regulator to control the charge voltage for the gel-cell.

 

[ThomWV]

Re: One battery or two? Recommend a Charger

Just a quick note. Those True Charge battery chargers that Airman mentioned are the very best made. Their model 20+ is a 3-output charger that can be used with any type of battery (it has a selector that changes the charging profile depending on what type of batter you have). They are smart chargers with independent legs as well. Oh, and for not much money at all you can buy a battery temperature sensor that plugs right into the charger as well as an indicator panel that will show the current state of charge for each battery bank. Both of these options are inexpensive and plug right into the charger for ease of wireing. The chargers are available every day of the week on E-Bay, being sold by Boater's World I believe, for $234. The smaller 10 amp version, which is also a great charger, sells for about half of that but is only a 2-bank charger.<br /><br />Thom