Is a charging system worth it?
- Thread starter Goblin
- Start date
fishin solo
Crew Member
never heard of a kicker at idle to troll... pretty ballsy if you don't have a kicker with charging unit running a boat on a single battery...your asking for trouble imo
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Captain PartyMarty
Crew Member
I agree that one battery is risky. I run two battery's with a battery management system and have never had an issue.
Bait&Sea
Active Member
The charging system is worth the extra cost when running a boat all day with electronics/riggers ect. You can get kickers with charging systems that don't have electric start to keep cost down. If buying used look under the flywheel for a stator and it should be easy to set up a charging system if its not done already
17 ft sea ranger
Active Member
Not sure what the electric start has to do with the charging system. My pull start yamaha charges my battery very well.
fishin solo
Crew Member
Electric start = charging system standard when purchasing kicker
TheBigGuy
Well-Known Member
You can buy a "charging kit" to retro fit most kickers. I bought the merc charge kit to upgrade the kicker that came on my boat when I bought it. I can't remember the exact cost, around $100-150 I think. Never ended up installing it, I returned it and bought a Yami HT 9.9 with elect start and tilt instead.
Clint r
Well-Known Member
Yes. Definitely. I have a charging kit on my 6hp Yamaha no electric start and at idle puts out slightly more than 12v and around 13.7 at troll speed. I also run two batteries and have an isolater switch. And a 15watt solar panel on my roof. Paranoid maybe but since I built my system I've never had a flat battery. Interesting point: my solar panel hooked direct to my marine radio w/o a battery is enough to operate it.
dmurph
Well-Known Member
Get the charging system, skip the electric start and just go for the pull start kicker. The charging systems usually put out enough juice to keep a battery that's in good shape, topped up through out the day. Get the cheapest kicker that will do the job and get a second battery. If you splurge on electric start make sure you have the pull cord also, some motors don't come standard with it. One day with one battery you may not have enough juice to crank over the kicker
Rotten Ronnie
Member
General consensus on this thread seems to be get a kicker that charges but don't forget the second battery and I would definatley agree. If you have electric downriggers, gps, plotter, you might also have a vhf radio, a stereo, one or maybe two bilge pumps, a couple of window wipers, cuddy lights or even a live bait tank. Point being, there can be a huge draw of electricity on a modern boat, and trying to pull start a midsize outboard after my one battery died is something I would never want to have to resort to. I'm with dmurph, skip the electric start on the new kicker but get that second battery. You don't have to hardwire it in right away if cost is an issue, isolator switches, charging relays, bus bars and tinned wire all come at a cost, but $100 for a deep cycle battery is pretty cheap insurance. Running home on the kicker can take a long time at best and even hazardous at worst.
finaddict
Well-Known Member
Your new thread for 2nd battery set ups will go a lot further in terms of good opinions on this site if you also throw in a couple of pics of your boat transom and current set up. The wiring diagram is an easy search on Google images, but you will get some real good advice about where to mount batteries, dual battery switches and other electrical wiring and hardware if we can see the space you have available.
My 9.9 Yamaha kicker is wired to it's own battery along with the down riggers. The other battery is charged by the e-tec 150 and that battery runs everything else. If I drain one battery I can jump it to the other with jumper cables. The kicker has no problem keeping the battery charged. Simple, cheap and it works
FisherTim
Active Member
I'm not sure about you, and I have a charging kit on my Kicker, but I doubt you really need one. A Scotty Electric(Not HP) has a draw of 8 amps for a 15lb ball, retrieving at 200fpm. Assuming you run 2 downriggers at 200', and pull them up every 20 minutes over an 8 hour day, you're getting 24 pulls per downrigger, and for the sake of simplicity, lets say 50 downrigger minutes. That's only about 7 amp-hours. A Lowrance Elite 4 uses about .25 amp continuous, making for another 2 amp hours. The cheapest batteries have 30 amp hours, which means on a full day of trolling, your fishing equipment uses less than 1/3 of the battery capacity. If push comes to shove, I can always pull-start my Yamaha 100.
Bottom Line, you use so little power, It's not necessary. If you want the peace of mind, get a second battery, they're cheaper and you'll have all the cranking power you need.
(I assume that all boats running more than 2 downriggers or HP's will have multiple batteries)
Bottom Line, you use so little power, It's not necessary. If you want the peace of mind, get a second battery, they're cheaper and you'll have all the cranking power you need.
(I assume that all boats running more than 2 downriggers or HP's will have multiple batteries)
Fixit
Well-Known Member
For my boat I started with dual battery's I/o and a kicker that didnnt charge with the old 1 2 both off switch. - Main for 1, troll on 2 run back on both. Can tell you how many times I forgot to switch back and forth, starting on the deep cycle , draining the start battery etc...
now i have a t9.9 with charge, the blue seas add a battery kit. starting the main is always on the start battery (with abilty to combine) EVERYTHING ELSE is on the house battery. (ok... high water bilge is on the start battery, other one on the house) I can play the stereo with sub, downriggers, prawn puller, lights etc till the house battery is 100% dead, but when i turn the key the engine has a fully charged battery to crank it over
IMO a fishing boat should be set up like this.
even 1/3 discharge on a starting battery isnt good for it, theyre happier providing large current for short periods and dont like being heavily discharged. you'd want a deep cycle for that
now i have a t9.9 with charge, the blue seas add a battery kit. starting the main is always on the start battery (with abilty to combine) EVERYTHING ELSE is on the house battery. (ok... high water bilge is on the start battery, other one on the house) I can play the stereo with sub, downriggers, prawn puller, lights etc till the house battery is 100% dead, but when i turn the key the engine has a fully charged battery to crank it over
IMO a fishing boat should be set up like this.
even 1/3 discharge on a starting battery isnt good for it, theyre happier providing large current for short periods and dont like being heavily discharged. you'd want a deep cycle for that
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Birdsnest
Well-Known Member
Ive come back to my boat only to find the batteries dead. Pull start the kicker, boom, charging! usually take 20 to 30 mins to get enough charge to start the main. Then there is more charging. Its back up power as well. Sometimes I camp in my boat and I run the kicker for power for the spar(heater). Ya, Id say its pretty much a nesesity.
Monaro_man
Member
I have 2 group 27 deep cycle and a group 24 starting battery for backup. that runs the fridge, stereo, sounder cell phone charger, etc boat is a power pig. also solar panels are a must. Ive had one on every boat I've owned, get the biggest one u can fit on board. had 20watt on my old Lund now have a 125watt on my monaro.
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