Milwaukee battery for flasher

Joe Scegura wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>brewerybuilder wrote:</div>
OK, stupid question…which one is positive and witch is neutral? Or does it not matter in a connection like this.

The wire that is putting out 12 positive volts is the one I would hook up to red wire. Use a multimeter. If you don’t have a multimeter you should get one. I use mine very frequently.

Thanks Joe
I do have a multi meter but wasn’t sure how to figure it out in this situation. I read elsewhere that when connecting the multi meter to the pigtail, if you get 12v you have it connected correctly and therefore know which is positive. If you get -12v it is backwards and also know which is positive.

I bought a new Helix 7 last ice season. One of the determining factors was the ability to use my M18 batteries to power it, the manual states the operation voltage is 10-20V. I was told by Humminbird tech that the unit has it’s own protection and will not turn on if voltage is too high. This is accurate, since my unit will not start up with a fully charged M18 battery during open water season – I have to run it for about 90 seconds on the M18 drill to discharge it very slightly and then the Helix will start up properly and show a warning at the top of the screen that input voltage is high (tech told me this would happen), just hit the exit button and warning goes away. In hard water conditions, the unit started up with a fully charged M18 battery every time, I assume the cold reduced the voltage to under the 20V threshold. I did find that the knockoff M18 batteries do not have protection circuitry in them, so they will discharge to the point of no return if you drop them down below around 11.0 Volts. The Milwaukee M18 batteries have protection built in that will shut them down prior to reaching over-discharge. The Helix has a built in voltage minimum warning that I now have set at 11.5 volts so I get a warning and chance to change batteries before damage could take place on the Chinese batteries. The tech also recommended a 3 amp in-line fuse installed on the positive side of the power cable lead. The M18 battery fits beautifully in the battery compartment of a pro pack shuttle too. I used female spade connectors on the ends of the power cable, and male spade connectors on the battery adapter. This way, the ends can still be used to connect to a traditional battery if necessary.
Now I just need to find a good sale price on an 8″ Lite-Flite, and I can save a ton of weight and run everything for an entire day with just a couple M18 batteries.

Thanks Mojo for the informative post.
Could you please provide details about the connection from the batteries to the graph ? What do I need to get to do the same ?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MNY3YD4 + https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y1NLJBX
12v out jack to male plug, to any flavor of connector you want between plug and sonar power plug

I’ll post my write-up in two posts so I can add pics. First post will be head unit wiring setup, second post will be the adapter.
Firstly, you’ll want to add the in-line fuse to the positive side of the power cable from the Helix head unit. Mine was from Amazon and was 12 ga wire with a watertight housing for the fuse, be sure to install a 3 amp fuse. The spade connectors at the ends of your cables will need to be for 14 ga wire in order for the spade to be the right size to fit a typical battery, so you’ll add a section of black 14 ga wire to the negative power cable from the head unit, cut it to the same length as the positive cable with the in line fuse added (you want the wires to be the same length). I used heat shrink butt connectors with solder in them to make connections (love them, they have the solder, heat shrink tube and adhesive in them, so all you do is twist wires, slide the butt connector over the connection and heat with a heat gun – watertight, soldered connection in about 20 seconds) I also added color coordinated heat shrink tubing over these connectors for extra protection/strength and for aesthetics – keep red red, and black black.
I used female spade connectors for the ends and did my best to waterproof them, including heat shrink tubing and packed dielectric grease all around them. Here’s some pics of the power cable setup:

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This is the adapter I purchased https://www.amazon.com/Battery-adapter-Milwaukee-power-connector/dp/B07TYGLSPZ
On this end you just need to crimp on some 14 ga male spade connectors (it actually comes with 12 ga wire, so it takes patience to thread 12 ga wire into 14 ga connectors but I found that if I used 12 ga connectors it opens up the female end which then doesn’t fit tight enough if I slide it onto a standard battery, so I used all 14 ga connectors. Then add color coordinated heat shrink wrap to seal them up and add some strength (I used multiple sizes of shrink wrap tubes in layers because I never trust crimp-only connections).
I hope this helped, after reading it, I think I made it sound more difficult than it is.
Here’s more pics:

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Thanks
That clarifies the issue . I was looking at my battery yesterday and noticed that I could fit a male spade connector into the terminals. Essentially what you have with the adapter.

What do you guys see for run time using these set ups? Will a 5ah battery last all day running a FLX28?

Amped batteries says the FLX28 pulls about 0.25A. Let’s throw in a margin of error and call it 0.3A. That’s 16 hrs of run time on a 5Ah battery.

5.0ah battery will last a full day, a 3.0ah will go 6 hours for me when I have my screen set to dark mode.

I figured I would get while the getting was good, so I got 2 adapters for my Makita 18v batteries. About $30 for 2 and free shipping. Plus they were available! Didn’t want to wait until ice season. My Helix 7 and 788ci take 10-20 vdc. They powered up and I cut a ton of weight. All I did was add the spade connectors. Thanks to other contributors.
By the way I use a Makita hammer drill with my Nils 6” auger.

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