Starting battery

Here is what I do. I have two batteries in my boat, one for starting and one for my accessories. Every couple years I buy a new deep cycle for my electric and move the old one back for the motor. It works fine for me like that. Deep cycles work fine for starting a motor in my experience, I should note that I dont fish with the boat in sub freezing temps.

I would think that for smaller motors that are easier to turn over a deep cycle or combo battery would be fine.  I know for my optimax, a deep cycle will not work.  So you need to be carefull.   Optimax motors need at minimum 1000 MCA's, so that means you don't have too many batteries to choose from. 

Here is an example of what I consider a great setup.

4 bank on board batter charger.

Bank 1 charges dedicated marine cranking battery
Bank 2 charges dedicated deep cycle battery for electronics, pumps and accesories
Banks 3 & 4 charge two deep cycle trolling batteries.


An hour is not good at all, I literally ran 2 livewell pumps and my depth finder for 8 hours straight and still had enough juice left to crank the motor at the end of the day. 

beedogs,

Running the risk of sounding like a knowitall with an opinion on everything , let me just say that I have run deep cells as a starting battery and experienced no early battery failures.  As a matter of fact, I am fairly sure I am now on my second year with a deep cycle as a starting battery.

I think the key thing here is that deep cell batteries were designed for being able to fully discharge and then be fully recharged many times without damage although the 1st generation of deep cycles also required a trickle charger (2 amp) to prevent burning them up.  Conversely, repetitive full discharging of a "starting" battery had a tendency to significantly shorten their life cycle and I am unsure as to what the basic design difference is/was in their physical cell structure that allows this.  There are batteries out there now that are advertised as both starting and deep cycle suggesting they are intended for both purposes.  Ditto that on the on-board chargers.  They still sell 2 amp on-board chargers, but the norm is now 10 amp for shorter recharge times.

It seems a little odd to me that you were able to drain your starting battery so quickly with the use you described.  Sounds like that battery was either really small, or at the end of its life anyway since even when I did run starting batteries I got much longer use for livewell and radio. 

p.s.  And remember, Permo is running something around a 200 HP motor.  Your 90 will take a lot less.  My experience is with a 75 Mariner and a 115 Yammie.  Neither of which require 1000 MCA.  That's a powerful battery that exceeds most new cars and pickups!

What type of electronics do you run? Do you have GPS? GPS is tough on batteries especially if your running all other electronics...however it should last more then an hour.

Did you check the water in your battery? I just had this problem I thought my on board charger was shot, nope just no water in the battery unfortuneatly I ran it too long and fried the plates..had to get new battery.

Even a starting battery should last four to five hours with all electronis on...just make sure you fully charge it after every trip. But your case sounds more like a bad battery

Sounds like a bad bat or at minimum a dry battery.  It should be no problem to run pumps and electronics for most if not all day and still have enough juice to start the main motor.  The draw from electronics and pumps is minimal at best (when I was having battery problems my electronics and pumps ran when my juice was in the mid 9 area), but I did not have enough juice to use the trim or start my motor.

I always carry a set of cables long enough to reach from my electric motor battery the front of the boat back to the starter battery in the rear. Its worth the $15 investment, trust me!

Lycanthrope Said:
I always carry a set of cables long enough to reach from my electric motor battery the front of the boat back to the starter battery in the rear. Its worth the $15 investment, trust me!

Fully agree!  They take up virtually no room and are worth their weight in gold if you need them just once,

I don't know what other boat manufactures do but many of the Warriors have built in "jump".  A little cord and whalla, charging everything when on the go.  Also allows the use of the deep cycles for emergency cranking if needed (I think anyway).  My boat doesn't have that option.  Guess it wasn't available 14 years ago...

If anyone is interested in cheap batteries I got mine at a warehouse near UPS in Bismarck.  The batteries are factory 2nd's but I got a starter battery and 2 deep cells for my trolling motor for around $100.  Going on my 3rd season with them and no problems yet.