i bought a new to me side console recently and have had it out actually fishing twice. there is a fuse panel underneath the console that powers the livewell, aerator, lights, bilge pump and fish finder. this is connected to the starting battery. in those 2 trips the only thing i have powered up is the finder, a helix 7, for about 3 hours each time. sunday after those 3 hours the starting battery was drained enough to not even turn the motor over. luckily there is a spare starting battery onboard.
the existing battery was a 2016 which didn't seem that old, but i bought a new group 27 battery to hopefully solve that problem anyway. but in thinking about it, i wondered what the pros and cons are of powering everything but the motor off of the deep cycle battery instead. any advice, good or bad? my previous center console was powered the same way and never had any problems. thanks.