3 New Additions to the boat this year.

I’m always looking for an advantage to improve my fishing. Granted, it can be expensive, but well worth it in the long run. Replaced the gen1 360 with a Mega 360. A few years ago, gave up the glass and went back to a skinny water boat. G3 1648 with a 25 hp motor vs big motors and glass. Switching over to Lithium batteries for trolling motor and single battery for electronics. Keeping a small wet cell for motor. Using Iconic Litiums as they have a outstanding phone app to monitor your battery usage. http://www.drew-tek.com/parts/product-category/lithium/
Here is another good lithium battery however. LiFePO4 Batteries 12V Affordable Lithium Battery | Energized Outdoors | Amped Outdoors . 3rd, I installed and am using a Silent Stalker on the front to quiet the slap of the waves down. Silent Stalker . I shaved 225 lbs of weight off the rig using lithiums while increasing my electrical output as lithium’s will give me 100% power with no decrease as you use them like wetcellls do. Will keep you updated as I fish this spring as to how it all works out.

What AH batteries did you buy

I use a 12 v. Power Drive V2 MK with ipilot and have 2 series 31 batteries. Going to replace with starting out 1 Iconic 100 amp lithium as all the forum discussions on bbc forum, the bass guys are using 2-50 amp for 24 volt TM’s ands 3-50 amp batteries for their 36 v. Trolling motors and having plenty of battery left after fishing 10-12 hr days. One guy is posting he is fishing 16 hr days practicing and fishing and not running out. But, I do a lot of longlining and want to see if 1 battery is ample and if not, will add another in parallel. Lithium batteries are like your drill batteries. They don’t run down slowly, they just die when depleted and your current draw is constantly the same volts unlike your wet cells or agms. And your wet cells pretty much loose voltage when you use more than 50% of its copasity. For the motor, just using a small car starting battery for boat electronics and starting 25 hp Yamaha Motor, and for electronics a 50 amp Iconics, as my helix 10 MDI G3n draws 1.2 amps/hr, my 9 MSI g2n draws 1.0 amp/hr, the 7 MDI g3n for 2 d and charts will draw 0.8 amps/hr, the Mega 360 will draw 0.5 amps/hr, and the network draws less than 0.2 amps/hr all for a total draw per hour of 3.7 amps per hour divide into 50 amps gives you 13.5 hrs of usage. If you have battery chargers that have a AGM charging setting it will work for charging fully lithium batteries as I do have a 2 bank plus I did pickup one of these from amazon.com for the 50 amp. https://www.amazon.com/NOCO-GENIUS10...NsaWNrPXRydWU= . All your other chargers will not Fully charge a lithium as your chargers need to charge at above at least 13.5 amps and no more than 14.6 amps. One interesting thing I have asked 3 different makers of lithium batteries and and they all gave me the same answer is with lithiums in using them in parallel hooked up, they do not have to be the same size and will work perfectly in parallel so if run out of power in a full day of fishing, longlining jigs or cranks, I can add a 50 amp to the 100. Weight wise, the 50’s weigh 14.4 lbs, the 100’s are 28lbs and my 31 wet cells are 75 lbs each in replacing 3. Drop the6 gal gas tank to 3 gal as I seldom ever burn 1 to 2 gal. I can always throw the 6 in if going to run a lot and the weight savings is approx 225lbs with some of the other items removed as well as increased storage in downsizing the size of these batteries. One more important fact is Iconic batteries have a phone app, that is blue toothed to the batteries, it will show time to charge and these batteries charge 2 times faster than wet cells, shows power consumption and time left to use power as you use it, shows volts your drawing as well as charging and is in real time. Wet cells can also loose 30% of their power per month just sitting when not used vs 1 to 3% monthly loss for a lithium when in storage. 5 yr warantee on them with a min. Life cycle of 10:yrs. 2000 to 5000 cycles in charging life and if you only need to put a 50 or 60% charge on them a cycle doesn’t count till you have done a 100% total charge time so how many times a year do you charge a battery? I’m lightening my load, not ever messing with adding water any more, not worrying when I am going to have to replace them again. And don’t care if I knocked one over with it being lithium. Yes they cost more, but the technology is here now for Marine batteries and the prices are coming down.

Thanks for the information

Phone app.

Attachment 365769 Attachment 365770

I’m with ya on the downsizing from the bigger boat. I also went with a skinny water boat boat and a 25 hp. I went a different way though and eliminated most everything that could go wrong. My outboard is pull start and I have one battery that only powers the trolling motor, helix 7 and a few led markers. Also have all the fuses right under the battery hatch so in the event of an issue it’s easily dealt with. I let the electric anchor mates go with the other boat and switched to manual anchor mates. I purposely built a boat that was as problem free as possible. Back to the basics. I did have flotation pods welded on to help with performance and to keep my outboard up as much as possible for river fishing. I love my new boat and don’t miss the big boat at all.


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Good info cevans, thanks for sharing.