How many batteries

[True]

Just wondering if 1 battery is enough to run a bilge pump,livewell pump, areator, radio,nav. lights and 1 or 2 spot lights for 6 to 8 hours of fishing? My boat motor is a manual start.

Thanks True

[Northlander]

Not all at the same time of course. On a average day I would think you would be fine.

[Sandmannd]

I agree with Northlander, depending on what you are using at the time you should be fine. You have them all running non-stop and it's going to drain fairly quickly.

[marine_man]

I would think so as well...

marine_man

[fasternu]

hopefully you never have to use the bilge pump, the livewell pump will be sporadic, and the radio could always be turned off after a while, so you should be fine.

[TonkaBass]

yeah I would probably try and go without the radio if you could. Those can really drain a battery.

[opsirc]

I know a person who added one of those solar pannels to his boat, kept the battery charged enough, it lasted thru a three day trip.

[broken_line]

it souhld be fine.. the trolling motors are the only thing that really kills your batts...

[wplatehunter]

You shoud be ok. Depending on what depth finder you have it will read the volts left on the battery, so you can watch it.

[gregg52]

solar panels in a boat interesting tell me more

start a new tread maybe

[WaveWacker]

I think it goes along with the battery topic so here goes. It's simple. It's a Solar panel ~16" x 5" or so that you mount/lay in your boat and it aligator clamps to your battery posts. That's really it.

[gspman]

If you have an older motor the electronics in it may not have enough oomph to charge the battery quickly so over time your battery may slowly drain if you are using all that stuff.

I had an old Evinrude that did that and if you didn't take a long cruise at the end of the day the battery wouldn't get fully charged.

[Tom7227]

I bought a 15 watt solar panel at Northern last year. It's on sale right now for $130. I put a couple pieces of conduit on the ends to widen out the thing and then laid it on top of the lift canpoy and tied it down. I never had to lug the batteries back to the house the entire season. I switched the charger from the starter battery to the trolling motor battery once in a while. It worked great and I would recommend it to anyone who didn't want to lug batteries back and forth. I used my boat at least once a week but was light on the trolling motor. That battery was 5+ years old and I expected it wouldn't last the season but it did.

BTW I have lake access so the rig never gets off the water. There's no electric where it is docked. Finally the charger on the motor hasn't seemed to work for quite a while and even if it did I seldom run the boat long enough to have it really charge off the motor.

[gregg52]

hmmmm i was just lookin at on of those trollmasterts for my kicker i'm not sure if you run that of ur cranking battery or your trolling motor mines 24v so i guess it would hafta run off the crankin battery

this solar deal would be a good deal for that huh ??????

[Set n Hooks]

You should be fine, we got 2 batteries but ones for the trolling motor cuz that really sucks up your batt. life.