Help a new guy rig a MX1825

Welcome to the Skeeter forum Rob ! What neck of the woods are you from ?

I will let the members jump in here, but a quick response regarding charger question. What is std from Skeeter is not necessarily std to the stocking dealers. We at SBC will always stock a 3 or 4 bank charger so the start battery is on the charging system. This is very important for simply battery maintence and longevity. Especially up here where several of us use our boats 12 mos / year, even in the winter temps.

While you have very good questions, there really isn’t a blanket answer for all of your questions.

VTS, seldom is it more cost effective long term to use big motor VTS vs a kicker. You may be the exception? I will say, our Musky guys have liked that option IE Mike Keyes. Walleye set ups, not your best option in my opinion. The cost of the vts is close to half the cost of the kicker motor. Factor fuel and additional hrs on your big motor, most folks opt towards the kicker and also peace of mind emergency back up motor.

Alternator, No issue on the std 150 output unless you have a very unusual set up.

Hope some of this helps you & happy shopping !

Hi Dean, Southern Ohio, In fact you guys sent me a preliminary quote last week on the MX1825. Just trying to educate myself as much as possible on how I should configure it. There is a lot to learn with all this new Technology.

Dean thanks for your reply. You make good points on the Kicker Motor. I hadn’t thought about it as an emergency backup which is important to me because my wife will be with me on most trips. Guess I’ll be adding the kicker.

I’ll also be opting for the 3 bank battery charger, good to know that’s what SBC stocks.

I’m leaning towards the New Minn Kota Ultrex Link (coming out this December) mainly because it’ll be easier to mount a (future buy) Humminbird 360 to it in the future. I even heard a rumor they are designing a 360 Ultrex mount. Also the Ultrex will give me the cable response when I fish for bass down south.

I run a Helix 10si at the console, it fits very well on a RAM mount. I don’t troll enough to justify a kicker’s added weight & cost and if one is truly scared to put hours on a main for trolling you could just use your bow trolling motor steered with a i-pilot remote, especially for the low speeds you’re looking for.

The F150 motor actually has about 165-170 hp, so it’s more than enough for the MX1825, get a lower pitched prop if getting out of the hole is more important than 1-2 mph, this was key for me…

Rob Phelps wrote:

Hi Dean, Southern Ohio, In fact you guys sent me a preliminary quote last week on the MX1825. Just trying to educate myself as much as possible on how I should configure it. There is a lot to learn with all this new Technology.

I couldn’t agree more Rob on the new technology aspects ! This is a great forum of real life MX users that can share their experiences, good and bad ! You are not alone with your interest in the new Ultrex coming, we have several to deliver once they get here! The fun part of all of this is, how many different ways the MX gets used and where! Fun stuff & happy to help if we can !

Rob Can i ask how many people you usually fish with?

Regarding the DC charger. I’m a fan but for a particular use case only. Yes to your decision for the onboard charger to have enough banks for every battery installed.

Do you have the ability to charge each and every night after fishing? Will you have long or high rpm runs during your day of fishing or not? Is your trolling motor going to get pushed very hard in a day, waves/current/pulling spinners for 10 hours)?

I’m picking up my new to me boat this weekend and working on the same question. I can charge each night, don’t have long runs, and on our lake very unlikely to really push that 24v system. Meaning that it doesn’t make sense to put it on.

My other use case is remote in Canada. No option to plug in at night, long runs, and on the tm 10+ hours/day. For this reason I’ll be adding an MK 2 DC. It’s no miracle but every little bit of charging helps for the right use case.

I’ll probably be fishing by myself most of the time, My wife & I the rest of the time and on rare occasions 3 to 4 people in the boat max.