Lithium Battery

Before getting ready for a recent trip in the BWCA last week I had to buy a 12-volt battery for a portable fish finder set up I had to go in the canoe. Cabelas did not have any lead acid batteries so I finally folded and got a tracker lithium 6ah I think this was the smallest and cheapest and $100. I use a Helix 5 and am wondering if anyone has experience using a 6ah of any battery brand and if that size is to small? I am wondering how it would do with a Helix 7?

6ah is pretty small. I have a dakota lithium but its a 10ah. I think you will not get good runtime using that for the Helix.

I run a Helix 7 on an 18AH Dakota Lithium and I don’t think I even come close to using 1/3 of it in an 8 hour day of fishing… Reality for you might be somewhere in between 6 and 18 AH..

The helix 7 draws .85 of an amp. With a 6ah your looking at 8 hrs roughly.

Just turn it on at home and see how long it runs, check as often as you can. My guess is you can run 10ish hours on medium brightness. Turning the brightness to 10 will kill the run time drastically. You’ll see a roughly 20% decrease in run time with the 7 compared to the 5.

I am not sure on the size of one I bought for my Helix 7 ice fishing. I was told by the battery guy to keep it off of the ice and it will last forever. I have gotten 3 days of fishing out of it that way but if you let it sit on the ice in the shuttle it will be used up in less than a day.

To me it’s pretty simple. Do the math and get a battery that will allow maximum current draw for a somewhat longer than you usually stay out fishing. Why limit yourself?

Do people really quit fishing when their electronics die ?

big_g wrote:

Do people really quit fishing when their electronics die ?

Where did anyone say that?