4 year Lithium Review from an average fisherman

[Tim W]

I was on the fence about going w Lithium batteries for my Motor and Troller.. I just couldnt do it.

I have 3 interstate batteries for my Troller and an x2 power for my cranking battery.

I was worred about the Longevity of all these Lithium battery companies who offer 10+ year warranty.

Bulbs and batteries (the company who sell x 2 power) isn't going anywhere nor is Interstate. All batteries have been trouble free for years.

With that being said, I do run 2 additional AMPED outdoor Lithium batteries for my Livescope and and Lowrance. My live scope runs off a 20AH battery at 14 volts for hours and my 16 lowrance has a
48 AH at 15 volts for 2 days. Again, I dont depend on those to get back to the ramp nor are they very expensive.

Thats just my 2 cents. Im not gona fix whats not broken.

[yam911]

AGM battery I find is more finicky in some situtions then old style lead acid.

Once upon a time Yamaha poo poo'd anything other than flooded lead acid batteries. The kind with caps so that water can be added. Must have been a quirk about them that Yamaha did not like.

[Welaka]

I was told by Miller tech (Amish ran company) that the bms will be the biggest failure in years to come. They said they use larger than needed for longevity. Time will tell. This will be year 4 on my batteries.

[61Woody]

I was told by Miller tech (Amish ran company) that the bms will be the biggest failure in years to come. They said they use larger than needed for longevity. Time will tell. This will be year 4 on my batteries.

Good to know as I have two Millertech 75AH powering my TM. This will be the start of the 3rd season with them.

[Bandwagon]

Last summer, for no apparent reason on Lake Quachita one of the two decided to shut off. The trolling motor just powered down. I carry a volt meter, so quickly determined one had went to sleep. Odd. Both were charged 100% (according to the NOCO) that morning, and it was an average day about lunchtime. No circuit breaker trip. 10 mph wind. Not hot, it was March in Arkansas. Had to find some wire in the boat to jump one off the other (unhook the series connection, then rehook it) cause I needed to stow the ulterra and that manual stow procedure sucks butt. It was an inconvienence and we headed back to the marina slip and hooked into power. The battery jumped back above 75% in less than 30 minutes and all seemed ok.

My Ranger came with the same batteries "tracker branded" and i have replaced 2/3 of them with the exact same circumstances. I bought the boat new in 2021 and just did a warranty exchange today.

[Crestliner16]

I run fla batteries, heavy? Yeah! But I have a chain hoist in my garage so I'm not lifting them up and out, unless it's absolutely necessary. I have a Miller tech 12v for electronics only.
My neighbor bought two Lithium batteries from one of the big brands and had some problems with the bms and the company sent two more same problem. He got a refund and bought a chain hoist! Both of us have a plain old aluminum boat and the bms just can't take the heat. My neighbor thought about building an insulated box,but it would just be in the way.

[PMantle]

It will be 3 years for me this June. There's no way for me to adequately express how happy I have been with lithium TM batteries. Zero issues and can run for at least 4 trips between charges. Equally happy with my crank, but it hasn't been as long as i used the stock AGM for a couple summers.

[mtatua]

OK, I have to apologize for not following up. I thought I would get email notifications if anyone replied to the post, and maybe that's an option on this board I don't have turned on, but I never got any emails that anyone replied, so I thought no one was interested.

I do have an update, and it's actually quite embarrassing to say the least.

First, I did initially contact BassPro and after some back and forth with my local store manager, they were going to take the battery(s) back and PRORATE a return. However, I could not locate my receipt so I'm not sure how that would have went. I do believe my batteries have a 5 year warranty, not a 10, but could be mistaken on that. That's bad on my part, I should know that for sure.

OK, here's how this whole deal turned out. There was actually nothing wrong with the batteries. They were simply not getting fully charged by the onboard charger. But, it took me a while to figure that out. My Tracker Targa has the charger mounted under the driver console. The batteries are under the back deck on passenger side. And there is NO ROOM to move the charger closer. Charging leads run down the side of the boat, across the back deck, and to the batteries. The original charger was a GUEST 8 amp (2X4 amp) charger. Tracker ran 14 gauge wire to the back. The boat also came with Interstate 27's and that original system seemed to work fine for me for 3-4 years and then the GUEST charger just quit working. I then upgraded to the Lithiums and a NOCO Gen 3X10. I KNEW the NOCO manual said to not increase the charging lead lengths (come with 6 foot leads I think), but I hooked it right up to the 14 gauge leads that Tracker installed.

Here's where it gets interesting and hopefully someone can learn something from all this: The NOCO charger APPEARED to work great. I'd plug in after fishing and in short order it'd show at least 3 LEDs indicating 75% or better charged (my cranking batt is on 3rd bank and has different wiring). If left plugged in long enough it would show 1 solid green LED indicating 100% charged. I would then go to lake and sometimes one or both would cut out.

Last summer I purchased an Amped Outdoors bluetooth monitor. This device eventually helped me figure this out. After my Kansas trip where the battery(s) cut out, I pulled them out of boat, took them home and charged with a NOCO Genius (the home version) 10 amp charger and capacity tested them and they would test full capacity, both individually and when hooked in series.

Anyway, after charging at home and writing this initial post, I took the boat (with the lithium batteries charged at home and my lead acids removed) to the Missouri River on South Dakota border. I know, pretty risky going on the river. But I really couldn't believe they were bad. Anyway, they worked flawlessly and after a full day on river showed 72% remaining on the amped outdoors app. I was really confused at this point.

When I returned to storage and plugged the onboard NOCO back in, the app only showed the charger sending 1.5 amps to the batteries and the next day the charger showed 100% LED on, but the Amped App only showed 13.3 volts per battery and 82% charged and no current to the battery. I went home and got my other NOCO and sat it right beside one of the batteries and it instantly starting shooting 10 amps to the battery. Of course it has very short charging leads.

It was at this point I realized it wasn't the battery(s). I then thought the onboard charger was bad, but then realized it would be weird for 2 banks of 3 to fail in the exact same way. That lead me to the wiring.

So I bought and rigged up 30+ feet of 10 gauge wire and bypassed the 14 gauge wire and the onboard NOCO immediately started sending 10 amps and fully charging the batteries with a fully charged voltage of 14.35 volts per battery.

So, long story short I feel stupid Tracker and their poorly designed battery storage and cheap wiring caused me a lot of headache. In fairness, the wiring was probably adequate for the original setup. And that's how Tracker sells cheap boats, so I can complain, but it did allow me to buy a cheap boat. But, I finally figured it out and now after 2 additional trips and monitoring the charging amps with that bluetooth app, I think it's all working as intended. Of course I pulled the 14 gauge wire and properly ran the correct length of 10 gauge.

The only thing left to be seen is if such long leads on the onboard charger will eventually damage it. You may think "why doesn't he move the charger closer to batteries?". Would love to but its such a poorly designed boat that on that 2013 model, there is very, very few options to move it closer, and it would require an enormous amount of work. The TM battery storage is the EXACT size of 2 group 27 batteries. Like, not a 1/2 inch to spare. I believe they changed up the battery location on the 2014's or shortly thereafter.

I'm not sure why it took a couple years for this to start happening. I work for railroad operations and my schedule changes by the day. So maybe I wasn't able to take long enough trips for the 1st couple years. I do know that after fishing, i'd plug in that onboard, see the lights indicate more than 75% charge and sometimes unplug the charger thinking I had more than enough power to fish for a few hours. So, slowly over time, I'd eventually drain the batteries without knowing it. So I probably rolled around with 50% or less charged batteries for a few years.

I'm also sure NOCO would NOT approve of how I have this thing rigged up, but we'll see how it goes.

Oh, and I've read the NOCO leads have sensors in them and cutting their leads before the inline fuse will mess up the charger. I did not do that. I just cut off the ring terminals and spliced to the 10 gauge. The total lead length now is probably around 18 feet.

Sorry it took me so long to update everyone.

[billnorman1]

Dumb question #1. Did you use a NOCO Lithium rated charger?

[bobcoy]

Thanks for responding! There will be some glad to hear the batteries are still OK. Maybe some will upgrade their wiring before problems show up. I don’t think you should leave your configuration the way it is. Your long and large wires may give the charger false readings and could cause some failure that might not be good for your boat or the place it is being stored.
JMO Bob

[mtatua]

Dumb question #1. Did you use a NOCO Lithium rated charger?

Yeah, both my NOCO onboard (3X10 amp) and home charger (1X10 amp) are the latest generation and use the lithium profile.

[mtatua]

Thanks for responding! There will be some glad to hear the batteries are still OK. Maybe some will upgrade their wiring before problems show up. I don’t think you should leave your configuration the way it is. Your long and large wires may give the charger false readings and could cause some failure that might not be good for your boat or the place it is being stored.
JMO Bob

I'm 50-50 on this setup working long term. For now it seems to be working fine with proper voltage for the fully charged batteries. Nothing is getting hot (or even slightly warm), neither the charger or the wires.

Each lead has an inline fuse, and its all installed, so I'm going to roll with it as is and if it kills the charger then I'll figure out some reconfiguration. Honestly with the way the boat is built, if the onboard under the console fails, I'll probably just go with non-onboard charger(s) that won't be mounted in the boat and can be close to the batteries.

Oh, the other solution would be buy smaller lithiums which would free up room in the battery compartment for the charger. I did think of that not long ago. And lithiums are getting smaller and smaller, so maybe in future that is the best solution. I don't want or have the money to pursue that yet tho.

[KandKKustomz]

With "quality" lithiums most issues can be traced to a rigging issue and charger issue etc not the actual batteries . We just had a customer that called us all pissy about his powerhouse going dead on him on his 3rd trip out comes to find out he was only charging thru the run and gun the little he ran his outboard, his setup was installed incorrectly by some rigging shop that had no clue what they were doing . So his batteries arrived at a 50% SOC and never got charged to 100% ever. They eventually clicked off the bms when he ran them down half way thru his third trip out. ( pretty amazing I might ad) . The batteries are only good if they are being charged and charged correctly. This is why a "quality" brand with a bluetooth app that is monitored directly from the BMS ( and is used) is so important. When asked what his app said he replied 'what app" obvious his installer didnt let him know about it. we did when he purchased them however must have forgot as they were installed 2 months after receiving. Something to be said for asking questions or finding a quality competent rigging shop. bottom line is if lithium is used installed and charged correctly they really are great in so many ways.

[Woody b]

Mtatua is there any room above the batteries? I've got plenty of room but used to have my charger mounted on the lid above the batteries.

[mtatua]

Mtatua is there any room above the batteries? I've got plenty of room but used to have my charger mounted on the lid above the batteries.

Unfortunately no. The compartment really is the size of 2 group 27s. If I have more problems, I’ll pursue group 24s or maybe even some 50ah. The 80s I have are pretty much overkill for what I need.

[BigFishSteve]

Thanks for the follow up. Good info to know.

[mtatua]

One more update: out yesterday north Kansas for roughly 7 hours bass fishing. Stiff wind, finished at 77% remaining, onboard shot 10 amps to each bank brought them back to 100% (per the charger LEDs and the Bluetooth app) at 14.45 volts per battery.

When we came off water app showed we had 61.6 ah left out of 80. That’s in a 20-25 mph wind in an 18.5 foot Targa that is like a kite. Just data to consider when thinking about 50ah vs 100ah. I could have doubled my fishing day and still not killed 50s.

[Rangerdeepv]

That is a nice piece of detective work on your part and Thank You for posting.

[TexomaDan]

Here is my take on this thread. Lithiums work great unless you have an issue (whether you cause it or not). Then, you have to run down the issue with various testing…..

I just want simple with no problems.

[mtatua]

Here is my take on this thread. Lithiums work great unless you have an issue (whether you cause it or not). Then, you have to run down the issue with various testing…..

I just want simple with no problems.

Indeed, simple with no problems is the best outcome. I guess the lesson is when you start changing the original setup, you may create your own problems. And some boats (as with anything) are better thought out than others (duh). And I certainly changed the factory setup, so I own some, if not all, of my issues.

Main takeaways:
1. The original charger was a 2X4. 2 banks, 4 amps per bank. 14 gauge leads of about 15 feet to the batteries. Interstate group 27 deep cycles. This seemed to work for numerous years until the charger died. Perhaps there was excessive resistance that killed the charger. Will never know.

2. I did NOT consult with NOCO when I installed my GenPro 3X10 (or 10X3 whatever) and lithiums. I recall seeing somewhere in the manual to not extend the leads. I should have paid more attention to that. I just hooked up to those long leads already installed.

3. The NOCO fooled me for quite some time because it ACTED normally and gave no indication it wasn't charging all the way. I should have checked voltages with volt meter sooner, that would have revealed the problem. It wasn't until I got the Amped Outdoors bluetooth device and watched the app that I figured it out.