Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | Sure you can do that.
The advantage is one less battery saving weight, room and $$$.
The disadvantages are the power for your trolling motor is reduced by the amount consumed by the locator so runtime is not what it could be, and you are now putting the "noise" from the trolling motor directly into the power supply of the locator. Depending on the amount of noise as you run the motor, you will most likely see your locator screen go from normal to being filled with garbage to where you can't see anything except maybe the bottom. The noise on the locator will not allow you to interpret what's underneath you to the same extent possible without it, and it may eventually harm the locator. You can get around the noise by putting a good filter on the power line from the battery, but this costs $$$.
If you fish small lakes and can recharge every night, and have an old beater locator with no funds to upgrade I wouldn't worry too much about it. Tap off the 12V and be happy with what you've got. If you are planning on fishing hard and may need to go for days without a recharge then I'd definitely get a separate battery for the locator. If you have a relatively new locator with great capabilities I'd give it a chance to perform at it's best by giving it a separate battery. The call is yours, do what makes sense for your situation. Separate batteries are the way to go if you can afford it and have the room. If not, you improvise, adapt, and overcome.
As far as the on-board charger, for three batteries you will need three banks. Each bank is electrically isolated from each other and provides 12VDC. Each battery will have it's own set of wires from the charger and no, you do not need to disconnect the 24VDC set to charge them. I have a two bank charger, running one set of leads to each battery on the 24V trolling motor. When I need to charge the starting battery, I just use a clip on charger in the garage. About once a month to be safe, I charge that battery, but the alternator on the big motor keeps it full while using the boat regularly. Sounds like you will have plenty of power available with those batteries you described. Use one dedicated to starting and running electronics and auxiliary devices through fuses, and save two for just the 24V trolling motor.
Edited by Almost-B-Good 11/26/2009 7:31 AM
|
