Which Battery To Power Your GPS/Sonar Units??

[S.D. Ice Angular]

Which battery do you power your GPS/Sonar units from?

Mine has always been powered off the "Big Engine" starting battery.

The trolling motor was the only thing hooked to my 2 battery 12 Volt parallel system.

However, lately my “Big Engine” battery has left me stranded, (4) times in fact this year.

I have had the battery tested several times and it has always checked out at more than adequate.

This normally has happened when I am on the Trolling Battery for more than an hour or so.

I run (3) GPS/Sonar units off and the live wells which cycle from time to time off the “Big Engine” battery.

Is this too much amp draw??

Should I move my GPS/Sonar units to my Deep Cycle batteries??

What do you guys think??

Thanks

[GFNER]

I'd check to see if your motor is properly charging your battery or have someone else recheck your battery. I,m running two gps units,two graphs, a stereo, a VHF radio, lights, and my livewell on a 3yr. old Trojan and it hasn't let me down yet. The only thing I run off my trolling batteries is my trolling motor. P.S. hows the bite been on Benton (got friends in Tyler)

[Deitz Dittrich]

I too would check your big motor.. The problem sounds like it could lie within the Rectifier.. its what charges your battery when on I believe.

HOw big is your big motor? What size starter battery are you using?.. Maybe you need a larger one? IE size 27?

[Eric Wettschreck]

I'd be looking into a rectifier on the big motor. It sounds like it's not properly charging your cranking battery.

GPS/sonar have such a small amp draw it should literally take days of constant running to drain the smallest battery.

[Surface Tension]

3 gps/sonar not so bad on draw but the livewell can drain the battery down.

Is the battery dedicated to the outboard a deep cycle? If not get the livewell off it as it drains too much for a starting battery interned use. Those long draws will shorten its life.

In addition to that are you charging that battery after a day of use? You can't expect the outboard to charge the battery if your using that many things especially the livewell and even if it could it is not an ideal thing to do.

An easy way to check if your outboard is charging is by turning on one sonar with engine off. Go into the menu and enable voltage readout. Note the voltage. Now start the outboard(in the water or with muffs on), you should see the voltage increase.

[S.D. Ice Angular]

Surface Tension,

I have never been to that menu, I have a Lowrance HDS-5 and an older LMS-337. What menu is it under?

I will have to look when I get home tonight. I assume it should be in the 13.5 Volt range???

My “Big Engine” is Yamaha 115 4 Stroke.

The battery was a marine cranking battery 850 CCA.

This morning I took the battery into the dealer where I bought the boat. I set it up on the counter and the guy said “Uh Oh!! I know what you want” then just took it in back and grabbed a New Excide 1000 CCA marine cranking battery. Then he said “That should get you going”. That was really it I did not think it would be under warranty so I did not really ask any questions.

I just said “Is there any paper work” He replied “NOPE”.

So, I guess I will see how the weekend goes.

GFNER, Benton has been pretty good this year. Not necessarily for me though. Who do you know in Tyler”?

[Surface Tension]

Yep starting battery and you don't want your livewell on it.

It could be that you don't have the digital voltage readout with your sounder. It would be in one of the sub menus.

[harvey lee]

I run one battery for the motor, one for the trolling motor and one for the assc.

[PerchJerker]

I have never been to that menu, I have a Lowrance HDS-5 and an older LMS-337. What menu is it under?

On your 337 it is an option under Overlay Data. On your HDS you need to be on the Pages screen, press the menu button, and select Overlay Data. Once you're in the overlay data section you can add info to display on your screen, and you have a few options to format and move the data.

I am ALWAYS displaying voltage on at least 1 of my displays.

[Hoffer]

I do what Harvey Lee says.

I run one battery for all accessories and the battery that is hooked to the engine is the only thing on that - before that I had a few instances where my livewell ran the battery down for the engine - and I had to limp in on the trolling motor. I have gone 5 full days with a charged battery running the sonar, radio, livewell (not all day on the livewell - just a little) and it never went below 11.4 volts. These were 14 hour days running the sonar. It may be a pain to buy yet another battery - but in the long run its nice to have all the accessories running off one battery.