questions on a trolling motor for my toon

[Jedburton]

I am looking at picking up a troling motor for my toon. I have an 11ft pontoon boat and am looking at a 47lb thrust minkota for it. How fast would that get me on the toon and if anyonw knows, how many hours could I expect out of a charge on the battery,

jed
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[tubeN2]

Hey Jedburton. The amount of running time that you can get out of the battery will depend on:

1st the amount of amps that the motor draws.

2nd the capacity in amp/hours of the battery.

For something such as a toon, I would suggest a smaller grade marine battery. It will handle the deep cycling much better than a car battery could ever think of handling.

So............if you had a motor that would draw 7 amps as 12vdc, and you had a 7 amphour battery, you would be able to run the motor continuously for 1 hour.

Find out the exact amperage of the motor and figure on investing in a marine battery. It will add some weight to the toon but it will also add to some of the flexibility and ease of moving your craft to that special spot on the water without leaving you too pooped to fish.

Come on back if you have anymore information to share.
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[TubeDude]

[cool][blue][size 1]Hey Jed, do you want that big electric for fishing or to tow your wife on water skis?[/size][/blue]

[#0000ff][size 1]With an 11 foot craft, it will take a bit of power to move you upon the waters. And if you get hit by wind, you will appreciate every pound of thrust you can get.[/size][/#0000ff]

[#0000ff][size 1]T2 gave good advice. I would add that most of the motor manufacturers include recommendations for the size and type battery that will work best with their product. Some will also have tables for expected performance at specific levels of operation.[/size][/#0000ff]

[#0000ff][size 1]One of the major considerations, as suggested by T2, is the choice of battery. Be sure to get a good deep cycle marine battery. If you try to save by buying a lesser battery, you will buy two or three of those in the same time the better battery would still be going strong.[/size][/#0000ff]

[#0000ff][size 1]There is a wealth of info available online these days. If you go to the website for the manufacturer of the motor you are looking at, you can probably find all you need to know. You might also want to simply plug in the make and model of the motor in a search engine and see what is available there. Anymore, some of the websites on specific products are product reviews, with input from buyers of the products, or at least rating them as compared to other models. Let us know if you want any help along those lines, when you narrow down your choices.[/size][/#0000ff]
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[Coldfooter]

I float a tube and use a 5 speed 30lb Minn Kota and find it gives me plenty of push and pull against the wind and waves although a tube creates more drag in the water than a toon would. Of course I'm not effected neverly as badly by the wind because I present a much smaller profile on the water than a toon. I will add that while my 30lb is pulling me around in 5th speed I get about an hour+ of running time before the battery is about pooped out although I usually puddle about in 1st - 3rd speed witch gives me 3-4 good hours of running time from each battery. I do use auto batteries at this time but plan to up grade to a BIG deep cycle sooner or later.

Just my thoughts
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[mateo]

Hey Jed, I have a 7ft pontoon, and a 30 lb thrust Minnkota. I tried it out for the first time last weekend at strawberry, with 2 toons tied together. My wife and I covered a good chunk of water without the battery ever failing, but I swapped them after the first day, and recharged for 1/2 hour the second day, using the motorhome's alternator.

I went out by myself last night, and according to the gps, top speed for me is 3 mph. I'm using a 115 amp hour deep cycle battery that I got at walmart for $55.

I haven't checked the actual current draw of my motor, but I've read somewhere that it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 amps on "5". I don't usually leave it at that speed, but if I were to, then theoretically, I could go for almost 4 hours at full speed before my battery gave up the ghost. However, I think I also read that you shouldn't fully discharge the battery.

Google's a pretty decent source of pertinent information about this.
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[tubeN2]

You are right on "almost 4 hours". Just divide the amp/hour of the battery by the current draw of the motor to find out how long you can run continuously for that motor.

Also they don't recommend a full drain on the battery. They will handle the partial drains and still provide many hours of service after recharging appropriately.

Solar panels are also available for recharging. I use a small one on my float tube for the fish finder battery when I'm planning to be out all day. It has a 1 amp output which allows my 7ah SLA battery to stay connected while charging and using the fish finder.

For most other application, you need to disconnect the higher amp device and not use it while charging.
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[mateo]

A 1 amp output would work for a sla battery, but to recharge a deep cycle, that would take a little too long for me. I prefer the 60 amp output of the alternator. It just takes up a little more gas than I'd like. I may have to invest in a small generator one of these days.
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[hustler898]

Not sure if this is pertinant but with the higher thrust electric motors the recomendation is to have 2 batteries in tandom. I guess the pupose is to double your fishing time. I know a few hours won't do it for me.[]
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[TubeDude]

[cool][blue][size 1]Just to clarify a couple of things, Jed was looking at a Minn Kota PowerMax 47, advertised on the Utah for sale board. It came with two batteries and a charger. Total $250 obo. [/size][/blue]

[#0000ff][size 1]A bit of research showed that it would run off a good 12 volt and did not need two or more in series. In other words, it is not a high output, but will do a good job on a pontoon.[/size][/#0000ff]

[#0000ff][size 1]A lot of guys like to take a backup trolling motor out with them. They run the first down to low output and then switch to the fully charged one to get them back to the beach. As has been suggested, it is not a good practice to run the battery until it will not put out any power at all. It is also not good to take only one battery and to get stuck downwind from your launch spot just as a stout breeze comes up and your only battery goes down.[/size][/#0000ff]
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[Jedburton]

well I bought the motor and the two batteries for 150$ I figured that would be a pretty good deal and it was as much as I could talk my wife into spending so I will be trying out my new toy soon,

jed
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[daymere]

also the amount of wind you incounter will reduce the charge time of your battery.
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[tubeN2]

Oooops! I didn't try to imply that the 1 amp would be the sollution for all the needs. They do make the solar chargers with a 1, 5, 10 and 20amp output. None of them recommend running them under load. I can get away with it only because my fishfinder runs as 250 milliamps. That is only 1/4 of the charging capacity of the solar unit.

I do have to revert to the regular batteries to run my DVD player while on the water. But I only use the DVD while the fishing is slow.
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