What settings do you turn off or down (other than screen brightness) to extend the life of your batteries? I’ve noticed I don’t get a ton of battery life on mine so far. Also if you have a battery recommendation I’d take that as well.
black background
fresh 9ah-12ah battery….what are you using for a shuttle? that might decide what battery you can fit
Do you have any dewalt or Milwaukee batteries? Or build your own lithium ion pack. Or Dakota lithium iron.
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fresh 9ah-12ah battery….what are you using for a shuttle? that might decide what battery you can fit
Genz Box which doesn’t seem to have a lot of wiggle room for batteries.
I use a energized outdoors lifep04 10ah battery. Great run time and light.
What are you currently getting for battery life? What battery are you using? I’m considering getting the conversion pack for my Helix 7.
10ah is just under 1/2″ taller than a 9ah – which is the same physical size as a 7ah….you might as well run the 10ah in the Genz box. You can trim the genz box to fit a 12ah too…
As has been stated elsewhere in the forums turning down the screen brightness will increase battery life.
To do that push the power button, select brightness from the list and turn lower the brightness to what works for the situation.
If your using the unit for mapping, turning the sonar off between spots should save some juice.
can also use put into standby mode, which I’m pretty keeps everything (maybe not everything?) running in the background but turns off the screen
I keep my back light at 5/10 pretty much all the time unless im hopping around outside the shack on a sunny day. For half the season last year i was using the stock battery and was getting roughly 8hrs of use. Midway through the season i upgraded to a 12v 10ah duracell SLA and was getting close to 12hrs of runtime. Now i just purchased a Dakota lithium 12v 10ah for this season and I think that will be all the juice I ever need. I plugged it in and the battery readout on the bird said 1083987% battery life lol. Not sure if thats normal but I wont complain unless it breaks. The Helix 7 is the best fish finder for the money imo. But now I want to save my pennies for panoptix.
Took my battery out of the Genz Box today to recharge and happened to look at it more carefully and realized its only a 7ah!!! I swear I took it from the 9ah pile…..That would be most of my problem…… 
I’ve brought in over 50 of the Dakota lithium 10AH batteries. I’d say 90% were for helix owners. Several did battery drain tests, 30 hours with the backlight on 7, 22 hours on full seems to be consistent. Go lithium, either Dakota or energized.
I hope nobody minds if I piggyback on this post….
I have a Dakota Lithium 10ah on my Helix. After fishing for 6 hours the battery hasn’t budged off of 100%. Does that sound right or is it not reading accurately? I appreciate any feedback as I have a tournament coming up and dont want to have a dead battery out of nowhere.
I hope nobody minds if I piggyback on this post….
I have a Dakota Lithium 10ah on my Helix. After fishing for 6 hours the battery hasn’t budged off of 100%. Does that sound right or is it not reading accurately? I appreciate any feedback as I have a tournament coming up and dont want to have a dead battery out of nowhere.
There was a recent thread about it.
Don’t trust your gauge, it’s based off a standard lead battery.
Charge it every day if possible.
I hope nobody minds if I piggyback on this post….
I have a Dakota Lithium 10ah on my Helix. After fishing for 6 hours the battery hasn’t budged off of 100%. Does that sound right or is it not reading accurately? I appreciate any feedback as I have a tournament coming up and dont want to have a dead battery out of nowhere.
It’s lithium, they go from 100% to 0%. At least that is from my experience. I thought I read that your helix will always read 100% until it goes black. Should get 12 + hours on a lithium
I appreciate the feedback. I havent ran it out of battery yet so it hasn’t went black. I guess my only option to determine actual battery life is to find an external meter.
Turn your helix voltage readout on.
The black background helps a bit, but I prefer the white background. It helps to see the tiny A-scope marks, and that’s one of the nicer features on the Helix.
Dimming it as a bit helps too. I usually run it at 10 when hole hopping during the day, 5-7 in the shack during the day, and 1-3 at night.
I don’t know how anyone is getting 22 hours out of a battery as was previously posted. I was getting about 10-12 hours from a 10ah Energized when making little effort to conserve energy.
I now have a Amped 12ah that was given to me as a warranty replacement for my dead 10ah Energized. Same company, new name. I haven’t run it dead yet.
When a lithium battery runs out on a Helix, it happens in about 20-30 minutes. Once it hits 99%, it’s about time to wrap it up because the battery really probably is running at about 5%. Dim the screen as much as possible to stretch it out a little. You’ll fish 10 hours at 100%, and then it’ll start dropping pretty quick until the voltage is insufficient to run the graph. I don’t let the Helix black out, but that’s what it’ll do when the battery meter reads single digits. However, I have never seen it go from 100% to suddenly just dead.
I don’t see any reason why one wouldn’t try to charge after every trip. It’s my understanding that it’s a bad idea to completely exhaust a lithium battery.
If I were to suggest to Humminbird one feature for future Helix software upgrades, I would like to be able to turn off the GPS function when not in use. That would save a lot of juice.
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