Vex batteries

[slammer]

Can you connect these batteries in series for longer use or not? Sort of a power pack that would last longer. Going through the ice gear and the thought came up today. I was mainly thinking of this for the aqua vu as it seems to use the most power.

[hovermn]

I'm sure you meant Parallel where Pos goes to Pos and neg to neg, but yes, you can. For optimum performance, you'll want two new, exact same batteries. Charge one, then the other seperately. Hook them up and run them down like normal. From there, you can charge them while wired together with your charger. Just know it'll take a LONG time to charge them with the 1 amp charger.

If you try charging two different types or aged batteries while hooked together, one of your batteries will take a charge, and they other either won't, or it won't fill. It could also over charge one battery.

The process above goes for deep cycle batteries as well. You always want like batteries at equal age when hooking them together.

To take this a step further, and going a little off topic, you'll get a longer run time with 2 6v batteries hooked up in series to make 12v

[BartmanMN]

just get a higher Amp hour battery rather than trying to connect multiples.

[slammer]

Is there anything between a vex and marine deep cycle size wise? Motorcycle battery? Need a little more juice but dont want the full size 24 or 27 group. Trying to keep the weight down in the porty.

[hovermn]

There are batteries that look like vex batteries, only larger. Motorcycle batteries or similar sized batteries would work. Lawn tractor batteries are probably the mid range, though. Do a search for 12v battery and you'll come up with a myriad of size ranges.

[dairyman]

I run my locator off an ATV battery------works good

[carpshooterdeluxe]

i run my led lights, underwater camera, and a 12 volt accessory plug for cell phone chargers, etc. off of a fire alarm panel back up battery. I think its roughly 25 AH. Nice thing about these batteries are the fact that even though their footprint is larger, they still have the male spade terminals so any number of 12 volt ice fishing items can be powered off them without using jumpers and alligator clips.

[Mainehazmt]

Just bring a jumper pack! most have cigarette lighter plugs you wont usually kill one in a day but also great to have to boost anothers car/ truck or your own lol run your lights radio too!

[Da Biggin]

i run my led lights, underwater camera, and a 12 volt accessory plug for cell phone chargers, etc. off of a fire alarm panel back up battery. I think its roughly 25 AH. Nice thing about these batteries are the fact that even though their footprint is larger, they still have the male spade terminals so any number of 12 volt ice fishing items can be powered off them without using jumpers and alligator clips.

This is exactly what I am going to do... Been looking at a few online and was blown away by the $100+ price tags. Say, how much did you pay for yours and where did you get it?

Either way I figure its a great investment in not having to worry about power while on the ice.

[carpshooterdeluxe]

The two brands to look at are power sonic and universal battery. Type in "power sonic 18 ah" or "universal battery 24 ah", etc. on google shopping, and take a look at all the vendors that sell them dirt cheap. I get most of my batteries free though from a fire alarm contractor we work with. They have to swap out the panel back up batteries every 6 months on certain panels to meet code. These batteries are healthy usually. If you really search the web long enough, you can find the vexilar sized 7 ah batteries for under 10 bucks, and sometimes even snag free shipping.