Need Trolling Motor Help

[Ghost]

I bought a Minn Kota Endura 30 this evening for Colorado XT pontoon/kickboat. The toon is 9' long & weighs 70 lbs & I'd say close to 100 lbs w/ gear & everthing on it.

So, The Endura 30 is 12 volts, how big of a batter do I need? How big of a battery charger do I need? Will a Walmart marine battery work? Also how heavy are these batteries?

Thanks!

[Ronira]

I bought a Minn Kota Endura 30 this evening for Colorado XT pontoon/kickboat. The toon is 9' long & weighs 70 lbs & I'd say close to 100 lbs w/ gear & everthing on it.

So, The Endura 30 is 12 volts, how big of a batter do I need? How big of a battery charger do I need? Will a Walmart marine battery work? Also how heavy are these batteries?

Thanks!
Hey Ghost, your gonna love having a trolling motor on your toon. The weight will freak you out at first but you'll adjust. The battery for your motor should just exceed the motors requirement. I have an Endura 36 for my toon and it requires 105 amp hr rating battery. I got a 115 amp hr battery and I cannot run it out of power in a days fishing. As for the charger I use a 10 amp deep cycle battery charger. It's called the Ship N Shore and it's made by Shumacher. I'm sure any Wall Mart deep cycle charger would be fine. A Wall Mart battery will do just fine, I've had mine for 2 1/2 years and it's still working. Now the weight thing can be an issue. If you want to spend the money Optima makes a super duper deep cycle battery that weighs less and performs better. Quite a bit more money but worth it to save the weight. Just be sure to never store your battery without putting a full charge on it. I read somewhere that it's the #1 reason for deep cycle battery failure. So I charge mine up as soon as I get home from my trip before I put it away. You will probably want to move your frame forward on your toon to help the balance. I don't know exactly what my battery weighs but I would guess at around 50 lbs. Your gonna be suprised at how fast you can go but you'll also notice directional stability is lacking and it takes practice to manuever well. You can strap your oars to your frame with the blades vertical in the water and improve the tracking a ton. Z Tunakiller has some photos posted up here somewhere of a great way to do that. Hope this helps and good luck with your toon. Ron

[Fastfish]

Since having been a marine technician for 16yrs now batteries have always been a issue for me as well as charging systems the most elaborate system ever done by me was a 5 battery 2 charger system done this way for the same reason as any of us to be on the water all day.

Battery size will purely be a matter of how long you wanna stay on the water with motorized power you picked a gr8 electric motor in MY opinion there is none better(had one on my last boat it was a 80lb thrust Muxxum) the only problem with Wal-Mart batteries that I have experienced is they seem to gas off excessively leaving a mess both from charging and from use paying a little more for a higher quality marine battery MY favorite AC Delco I had them in my last boat.

As far as chargers go almost anything well do if you keep a eye on it so as to not boil it off too much more expensive chargers usually mean that there fully automatic or waterproof or both the chargers I've always bought come from Charging Systems International http://www.dualpro.com/ 1 of my chargers its a portable dualpro has been in service almost continuous use now for 13years as one of my shop tools charging batteries for me at work I buy these because of needing to be able to chage quickly and not worry about boiling off my batteries as they are a automatic charger.

Your biggest concerns should be battery size/weight as more weight is more time on the water it truly is that simple so how do you wanna carriy around with you.

If it was me rigging that boat I'd put at minimum a group27 marine battery in there.

Fastfish/Geoff

[Poxy Boggards]

Hey Ghost, your gonna love having a trolling motor on your toon. The weight will freak you out at first but you'll adjust. The battery for your motor should just exceed the motors requirement. I have an Endura 36 for my toon and it requires 105 amp hr rating battery. I got a 115 amp hr battery and I cannot run it out of power in a days fishing. As for the charger I use a 10 amp deep cycle battery charger. It's called the Ship N Shore and it's made by Shumacher. I'm sure any Wall Mart deep cycle charger would be fine. A Wall Mart battery will do just fine, I've had mine for 2 1/2 years and it's still working. Now the weight thing can be an issue. If you want to spend the money Optima makes a super duper deep cycle battery that weighs less and performs better. Quite a bit more money but worth it to save the weight. Just be sure to never store your battery without putting a full charge on it. I read somewhere that it's the #1 reason for deep cycle battery failure. So I charge mine up as soon as I get home from my trip before I put it away. You will probably want to move your frame forward on your toon to help the balance. I don't know exactly what my battery weighs but I would guess at around 50 lbs. Your gonna be suprised at how fast you can go but you'll also notice directional stability is lacking and it takes practice to manuever well. You can strap your oars to your frame with the blades vertical in the water and improve the tracking a ton. Z Tunakiller has some photos posted up here somewhere of a great way to do that. Hope this helps and good luck with your toon. Ron



Question Ronira,


Are you using the motor all day, or motoring to a location and stopping. I am going to go looking for a Battery this weekend, but I want it to last all day, and I want to be able to troll for a good portion of the day.

I've got a Minn Kota Classic 29. I called Minn Kota, and they state that the Battery should be a group 27 that puts out 105 AH.

The question I have is will a Walmart special at say 115 AH run continuosly all day and not die on me? Also, how much should I be prepared to spend on a Walmart Battery and charger?

[Ronira]

Question Ronira,


Are you using the motor all day, or motoring to a location and stopping. I am going to go looking for a Battery this weekend, but I want it to last all day, and I want to be able to troll for a good portion of the day.

I've got a Minn Kota Classic 29. I called Minn Kota, and they state that the Battery should be a group 27 that puts out 105 AH.

The question I have is will a Walmart special at say 115 AH run continuosly all day and not die on me? Also, how much should I be prepared to spend on a Walmart Battery and charger?
Hey Poxy Boggards here's the deal. I can run my toon plus drag two other toons at trolling speed pretty much all day and still have some juice left when I pack it it up. If I ran all day at trolling speed and didn't drag another boat it would go all day easy. I paid around $60.00 for my battery and I don't recall how much for the charger. It wasn't that much though. You can check the Wall Mart website for prices. It was well worth what I paid as I've used it for over two years and it's still working well. Just don't store it without a charge and your good to go.

[Poxy Boggards]

I just tried to find Batteries on the Walmart Website, and they don't have any listed that I can find. Might be an in store item only. Onto the Sears website.


Wes