Ice fishing tip - Backup Battery Power

[SteveD]

With 5+ inches of good ice on the St Croix it is time to go ice fishing. I made a quick evening ice trip down to Bayport to shake out my equipment and take advantage of a nice day to fish. Early ice means walking and my new Frabill Hideout portable worked great and is a nice sled for hauling the rest of my equipment. My electronics are working fine except for the batteries. I run a Marcum VS500 underwater camera and a Vexilar FL8 Flasher. They both work fine and even though there are new and better models out there I cannot justify the expense of updating when these both still do a good job. My trouble always seems to be batteries – the camera battery was dead as were my 2 old 7AH 12V backup batteries. The Vexilar battery worked OK for a couple of hours but it seemed to drain pretty fast. I was planning a trip to Fleet Farm to pick up a couple of standard 7AH 12V batteries and decided to rethink my whole battery situation and see if I could come up with a better approach.

With all my summer nighttime catfishing I’ve come to rely on a portable battery pack as a source of power for lights and other accessories on my boat. I’ve been using a Black and Decker Start It Jump Starter that is a 300 Amp battery with a built-in standard 12volt DC outlet. In the summer I use it to operate a 150 Watt power inverter that provides me AC power for my lighting options on the boat. Since I already have the Jump Starter available I decided rather than buying new smaller 12V batteries instead I would make a power supply cord to run my camera using the DC outlet from my jump starter. I also want to be able to use that power supply cord to run my Vexilar as back-up power should my Vexilar battery run out.

I pulled out my camera and vexilar and checked to see how they plugged into the existing battery connections. Both of them connected using a female disconnect terminal but they weren’t the same size. The camera used a 16-14 AWG connection and the Vexilar used a 22-16 AWG connection. I could use the power supply to run both units but I just needed two different wiring connections. I only plan on using the power supply cord for the Vexilar as an emergency back-up if needed – its kind of hard to hole hop hauling around an external power supply but if I was fishing out of my portable shelter the power supply cord would be a nice alternative power source.

Basically all I needed to do was to make a male terminal disconnect on the end of an electrical wire that comes off the jump Starter and that should supply the power needed to run either unit. I stopped at the local Ace Hardware and picked up 6 feet of red and 6 feet of black 16 amp electrical wire. I bought a pack of 16-14 AWG insulated Terminal Disconnects for the camera and a pack of 22-16 AWG insulated Terminal disconnects for the Vexilar. Then I made a quick trip to the local Radio Shack and bought a Car Power Plug 12 VDC with a 10 Amp fuse.

I decided to make a 6 foot power supply cord that would provide me the flexibility to place my power supply out of the way just about anywhere in my portable ice shelter. I started by taping the two cords together about every four inches or so to make it easy to handle and store. Then I attached the Car Power Plug to the ends of the two electrical wires (red cord in the + connection and black cord in the – connection). Then I attached a male insulated 16-14 AWG Terminal Disconnect to the other ends of the electrical wires. I inserted the red power supply male disconnect into the red female disconnect of the camera and the black male to the black female of the camera and then plugged in the Car Power Plug to the Jump Starter DC power outlet. I set the camera up and hit the “ON” button and presto we had power and picture. Looks like I solved my power question for the camera.

To make a back-up power supply for my Vexilar all I did was make a pig-tail harness that runs from the new power supply cord to my Vexilar. I took two 6 inch pieces of 16 amp electrical wire (one 6” piece of red wire for the + connection and one 6” piece of black wire for the – connection). I attached a 16-14 AWG female insulated Terminal disconnect to each end of the 6” pieces, one on the red wire and one on the black wire. On the other end of the 6” pieces you attach a male 22-16 AWG insulated Terminal Disconnect. Now to hook up the power supply cord to the Vexilar just plug the power cord larger 16-14 AWG male disconnect into the pig-tail’s larger 16-14 AWG female disconnect (red wire to red wire and black wire to black wire). Then all you have to do to complete the connection is plug the end of the pig-tail connections to the Vexilar – red wire to red wire and black wire to black wire.

A word of caution. If any of those connections should make wire to wire contact you could blow the fuse to the Car Power Plug. I make sure to hook everything up and ensure I don’t have any wire to wire contact before I plug in the Car Power Plug to the Jump Starter. I went so far as to insulate my connections. On the end of the black wires where I have Terminal Disconnects I slid a piece of unshrunk shrink connector over the wire before I crimped down the disconnect. When I connect the male to female disconnects I then slide that piece of shrink connector over the disconnects so that no wire to wire connections between the red and black wires will happen. I hope all that doesn’t confuse you – but it may save you a blown fuse.

I don’t know if this whole thing is more trouble than it is worth but I wanted to try something different after burning through a couple of 7AH 12V batteries each year and seeming to run out of power right when the fishing is getting good. I’ll let you know how this works out after I’ve tried it for a while. My camera is sure a lot lighter without the 12V battery sitting in the battery compartment. For those of you that don’t do a lot of hole hoping this might be a good power alternative to the small 12V batteries.

Good Fishing!!

[CaptSpike]

Curious how long the "jump" starter pack will last if it gets drawn down repeatedly? typically only deep draw batteries will survive repeated draw downs.

Let us know how it holds out over time.

Spike

[jigginjim]

I wonder if it may put out too much amps for the cam & locator. I would lopk at a small deep cycle battery.

[SteveD]

Curious how long the "jump" starter pack will last if it gets drawn down repeatedly? typically only deep draw batteries will survive repeated draw downs.

Let us know how it holds out over time.

Spike

I used the Jump Starter all summer catfishing - 4 to 5 nights a week to power my lights. I'm not sure how many times I've recharged it but it is a bunch and it is still going strong.

[DTro]

Great tip.

I tried to find out how much storage in terms of amp/hours that thing carries, but I couldn't find anything.

I imagine you could do a test pretty easily, but like you say, no issues yet, so no worries.

[Gordie]

I used the Jump Starter all summer catfishing - 4 to 5 nights a week to power my lights. I'm not sure how many times I've recharged it but it is a bunch and it is still going strong.

How many hours do you think the Jump starter lased on your light Steve.

I think that this is a great idea

[SteveD]

Hi Gordy - I'm not sure how long the Jump Starter would last. I would run my boat cat lights off of it but I would be turning them off and on and I would do that for days on end. You can test the Jump Starter's battery level with the touch of a button. When it showed one light level I would just charge it back up. During sturgeon season I would run the lights continuously and that was often for up to 6 hours + and I never ran out of power. I was running the new low watt bulbs (about 23 watts or so). I was running a power inverter in the outlet plug and just used AC clamp on trouble lights with the low watt bulbs. You can do that now in your fish house too when you want lights for night fishing. That Jump Starter is nice for giving you power options. Once we start driving on the ice I just throw it in the back of the truck and leave it there, charging it up when needed. It is nice to have in case you ever need to jump start a vehicle too. I think I paid around $40 bucks for it - money well spent.

[Dave]

I wonder if it may put out too much amps for the cam & locator. I would lopk at a small deep cycle battery.

A camera and locator dictate how many amps are drawn, not the power source.

[Gordie]

Hi Steve

I think that you just helped me make my decision for my back up power and new battery options for next cat season.

thanks for the great tip Steve. As always keep them coming.

we will have to get together for some fishing this winter if your ever wanting to go to the chain let me know

[SteveD]

Hi Steve

I think that you just helped me make my decision for my back up power and new battery options for next cat season.

thanks for the great tip Steve. As always keep them coming.

we will have to get together for some fishing this winter if your ever wanting to go to the chain let me know

Gordy - I hope to see you on Jan 2nd with the Geeks. We need to talk Darren into starting the 2010 Channel Cat KOTC leader board starting January 1st. I'm hoping to find some of those jumbo winter time St Croix channels and want to get on the KOTC board early.

[DTro]

oh brother

[Gordie]

Yea Dtro he dont need any help in that area

[Ride_Red]

I made my own power box, with 3 vexilar type 12 volt 9.5 amp hour batteries hooked paralel. I made a box to hold the three batteries, put in two 12 volt cig, outlets, wired in a small inverter for 2 ac outlets, I can charge the cell phone, run my aqua vu all day and night long, I have taken it camping in the summer ran small a small tv/dvd player off it, it was the best thing I ever made. With ac and dc outlets on it I can run anything or even charge things from it. I have everything fused and have been running it for a couple years know. If I could figure out how to post pics I would.