Trolling Motor Battery HELP

[zimmy]

I have a '04 Tracker with a 43lb MotorGuide 12volt trolling motor. I have 3 batteries- 1 for the motor, 1 for the lights, etc and 1 hooked to the trolling motor. This is the way it was rigged when i bought it used a year back. I was told there is a way to rig both my non-motor batteries in a way that it wont burn up the trolling motor (being a 12volt) but i can run off both. Reason i'm asking is that on windy days its dies on me early in the afternoon. I have filled the water and they are only a year old (put new ones in when i bought it).
Any help would be appreciated.

[dsonthelake84]

Did you buy deep cycle batteries? I have a 43lb thrust trolling motor and just bought my battery and I can run it 3 trips. I have a 17.5 ft nitro. If your trolling battery isn't a 24 volt i dont think you can set it up that way. My buddy tried and it burnt is trolling motor up.

[zimmy]

Yes, they are deep cycle. Doesnt seem like somethings right. I get about 6 hours out the 1 battery for the trolling motor but maybe thats normal?

[GeoFisher]

Did you buy deep cycle batteries? I have a 43lb thrust trolling motor and just bought my battery and I can run it 3 trips. I have a 17.5 ft nitro. If your trolling battery isn't a 24 volt i dont think you can set it up that way. My buddy tried and it burnt is trolling motor up.

Wire the batteries Parallel...........

Positive to positive, negative to negative............This will give you DOUBLE the amps available at the same voltage............

I did this for YEARS with my 95 Tracker with 2 12 volt batteries, and a 12 volt 43lb motor.

Later,

Geo

[hairball]

Connect the two positives together and the two negatives together and then attach your trolling motor leads to the appropriate terminals on either battery. This is known as parallel wiring and your voltage will remain at 12 but your available amperage will double.

[zimmy]

ok...thanks for all the help and thats what i'll do. should make a difference.
thanks for the info guys.

[DYNATRAK]

don't mean to hijack the post, but i have 1 trolling and 1 starting battery. i have trolling motor and my two fish finders hooked to one battery and nothing cept the boat on the starting battery. but i was reading somewhere that i can move the electronics to the starting battery and it won't run it down and then just keep the trolling motor on the one battery. what do you guys think?

[HiDefFisherman]

don't mean to hijack the post, but i have 1 trolling and 1 starting battery. i have trolling motor and my two fish finders hooked to one battery and nothing cept the boat on the starting battery. but i was reading somewhere that i can move the electronics to the starting battery and it won't run it down and then just keep the trolling motor on the one battery. what do you guys think?

Hey Dyna...

Every bass boat that I have had has used the starting battery to power all electronics in the boat, and the trolling motor has been the only thing attached to my TM batteries. Not sure how big your motor is, but it may be a good idea to make sure to charge your cranking battery between uses, just like you TM battery.

Good luck

HD

[hairball]

That configuration should work fine unless you leave both sonar units on all day without running the big motor. That could run the battery down to where it doesn't have the amperage left to crank the big motor. An alternative would be to carry a set of jumper cables with you to boost whichever battery ran down first - just connect positives together and negatives together. You could also leave them wired parallel as I just described, and they should both wear down at about the same rate. The only question in my mind about that configuration would be how the alternator on the big motor would charge them both at the same time. I would assume that each one would just receive half the amperage and there would be no problem but you might want to check with a mechanic to make sure that doesn't put too much of a load on the alternator.