<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tswoboda wrote:</div>
Just my opinion… Buy a 24v 50ah LiFePO4 battery with matching onboard charger for $800 and forget about trolling batteries for the next 10 years.You can buy an awful lot of crummy old tech batteries for that but yeah they are nice.
Yeah yeah yeah just don’t tell my wife OK 
Edit wrong thread !
Do a little youtube university on the cheaper 100ah lithiums and go that way. The upgrade from lead acid to lithium is gonna be 10x what cheap lithium to expensive lithium is.
Update. I got a chance to work on the issue today. I disconnected each wire and relabeled them as I did so. I also cleaned up all connections real good along with the battery post. There WAS a jumper wire leading from the pos. On one batter to the neg. On the other. Once both batteries were showing fully charged on the onboard charger I check each of them with the voltage meter. One read 12.6 and the other 12.7 so I think both batteries are still fairly good. At least from the research I did. I guess if the onboard charger keeps working for both banks in fine for the time. Took the cranking battery awhile to show fully charged on the manual charger. After it showed full the voltage on that one only read 12.1 so I think I may need to replace that one fairly soon. Not sure what made the onboard charger go back to working correctly. If I was going to guess I’d guess it will not keep working correctly for long. Just keeping my fingers crossed for now.
Yeah yeah yeah just don’t tell my wife OK
tell her what? 
You need to do a load test to see if your batteries are bad. Checking voltage don’t tell you much. You need to apply a large drain and monitor voltage for drop. Testers are about $30 and usually free to use at an automotive parts store.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tswoboda wrote:</div>
Yeah yeah yeah just don’t tell my wife OKtell her what?
exactly 
You need to do a load test to see if your batteries are bad. Checking voltage don’t tell you much. You need to apply a large drain and monitor voltage for drop. Testers are about $30 and usually free to use at an automotive parts store.
How do you apply a large Drain to the batteries? What voltage drop would tell you if the batteries are bad or going bad? Once again a electric idiot
Having a load test done is the way to go but after your batteries are fully charge unplug the charger and let the batteries rest over night. Then check the voltage if they are 12.6-12.8 they are good if they are less it means there is something wrong with the battery.
All answers in manual for a load tester.
The tester applies the load. There’s a gauge you read to determine if drop is appropriate for your battery type and size. Fairly elementary. I’m sure there its a simple video afloat
Most load testers are digital now. Set it for deep cycle battery and press start. If you take it to an auto parts store for testing makes sure they use the deep cycle or RV setting. Most of them are only used to testing auto starting batteries.
I’m old school. Still prefer my dial caliper and analog gauges.
I’m normally more comfortable with analog gauges, but a few battery company reps have told me the old carbon pile load testers are great for starting batteries but not the right test for deep cycle batteries.
Took advice and purchased both a multi meter and a load tester. Both were rather inexpensive at around 20.00 each at harbor freight. After fully charging the trolling motor batteries and cranking battery. I did some testing. Here is the info. After fully charged the trolling motor batteries were : left side = 12.54 volts. Load tested at the low end of good. 12 hrs later the voltage read 12.34. Right side = 12.67 volts. Load test also at the lower end of good. 12 hrs later voltage read 12.47.
The Starting battery = 12.91 volts. Load test was on the really low end of good. 12 hrs later the voltage was 12.55.
If it was just fishing locally I would just use them the remainder of the season and possibly look at replacing them in the spring. But I have a Canada trip coming up in early Sept. and will be most likely putting a lot more hours on the trolling motor each day for a week of fishing. That is the last place I would want to have batter issues.
What are your thought on what I should do ????
If I’m going to replace them I’d want to do it rather soon to make sure there is no issues with the new ones.
Side note. The onboard charger is back to working good / normal.
If I’m going to replace them I’d want to do it rather soon to make sure there is no issues with the new ones.
I’d replace them soon so you can give them a test run before your next trip. I’d rather run into a problem locally than run into one in a remote part of Canada.
If your charger can handle an AGM battery, you might consider upgrading to those. They will cost more than a standard lead acid battery, but they will last a lot longer too. Most chargers are compatible with standard lead acid or AGM, but not lithium.
Ha this is like the exact same scenario I have . Mine load test out fine but on the lower end of fine as well according to the harbor freight load tester . I know for a fact though they don’t have the zip they used to . I’m going to limp mine along but I think they need replaced by fall time .
Replace em.
Your noticing it during usage and the tester confirmed degradation.
I have given batteries in that state to others to use for years… their use is minimal.
I’m a heavy user… so when they reach lower end of good… they no good to me anymore
I would get around 400-500 uses in 2-3 years and that’s all she wrote. Plenty good if you do the math at value per hour or even per day of use.
Just a Update. Looks like I pushed the Cranking battery a little to long. Went out on Wed. evening. Backed the boat in and went to start it, Yep – Nothing. Battery was to low to turn the motor over. Quickly grabbed the Jumper cables and got it started. Figured I’d run around the lake a little and get enough charge on it to get me through the evening. No luck, the next time I tried to start it, it turned over one and then dead. Ended up having to jump start it every time I wanted to move spots. To add insult to injury, dropped the trolling motor at the 1st stop and the Trolling motor would nit turn left or right. The power and speed control worked just fine. Thought it was the foot pedal so switched to the back up one. Same thing . Tried the hand remote – Same thing. It ended up just being one of those evenings where everything seemed to go wrong. Now I have 3 battery’s that need to be replaced and a trolling motor issue to deal with.
Man that is an avalanche of issues all at once. Hope you can get it figured out before your trip next month.
Man that is an avalanche of issues all at once. Hope you can get it figured out before your trip next month.
Put a new Terrova on today. Also got a new cranking battery and one new deep cycle. Scheels only had one of the deep cycle ones I wanted. They are getting more tomorrow or Tuesday. Looking forward to getting out there and testing it out. The extra power is going to be nice and really looking forward to the spot lock. Now just need to hope the onboard charger works ok with the new batteries. If not then that will be the best item to deal with. You know what they say a boat stands for. BOAT = Bring Out Another Thousand. Or in this case several.
New update on my batter issues. After replacing both trolling motor batteries and the cranking batter last Aug. things seemed good until yesterday. Went out and decided to hook up both the trolling motor batteries to the onboard charger and the cranking one to my manual charger. Trolling batteries all good. Just took a hr or so and both green lights and good to go. The cranking battery charger gave me a F03 error code almost right away. Looked at the sticker and said it was a dead cell. Went to turn on the graph to see what the volts read and it would not even power the graph. It was totally dead and would not accept a charge. Off to scheels to replace it as the purchase date was 8/6/23. Got a new one in and it took a hr or so to fully charge. I thought there was something wrong with the other one all along. It always seemed to take way longer than it should to charge. Even after being fully charged I could wait a day and put the charger back on it and it would often take several hrs or more to fully charge. I just thought I had something drawing power that I was unaware of. ? For you battery experts. If a 150 hp outboard is putting out the correct charge output it should. How often should a person need to charge his cranking battery if running the outboard a fair amount. The only thing connected to the cranking batter is the big motor, the 2 old school graphs, and once in awhile a live well. It seem to me that it should only take a battery charger a short time to read fully charged after each use. I can charge on 2,10, or 15 amps and usually try and go with the 2 amp. Looking forward to seeing how fast the new one charges after a normal daily use. Just not sure what a not Al charge time should be.
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