n00b Question

[Palico]

Ok, I've got an extremely n00b Question. Recently bought my first boat, although I've drove bass boats before I've never had to maintaince them as I didn't own one. My boat has two batteries. One main crank and a deep cell. I know the deep cell runs the radio and troling motor. I figured out it ran the radio because I accidently left it on in the yard while test and later when testing the trolling motor out discover they don't work with out electrictly!

Anyway, do I need to recharge the batteries after every outing? Or does outboard motors have a alternater type of recharger like a car engine does? I've seen boats with some kinda of switch for this but mine does not appear to have one.

Excuse the silly question, but figured it's better to asked than to have to be towed back or worse yet paddle back!

[ProcraftMike]

There are no silly questions here, just people willing to ask questions and learn.

Most boats are set-up to charge the main starting battery only when the outboard is running. The deep cycle battery that you have for the trolling motor and radio will most likely have to be charged with a battery charger after each outing. Most boats have the trolling motor only on the deep cycle battery. You may want to look at moving the radio to the cranking battery. You may end up getting some interference in the radio when the trolling motor is running.

It may be a good time to look at a 2 bank battery charger that you can install in the boat and plug in when you get home. The 2 bank charger will charge your main battery too, in case it is not fully charged, because of a bunch of short runs.

[Palico]

Thanks!

The previous owner had the radio installed. I don't really care about it since I will use the boat mainly for fishing, and part of the reason I like to fish is just to have an excuse to get away from it all anyway. One of my kids had turned it on and not turned it all the way off when we were cleaning the boat after I pulled it back home after I purchased it. Since the batteries are not really easy to get in and out I think I'll look into the onboard charging solution. Any idea about how much these cost and how hard they are to install or whether a pro should install it? I have a good bit of experice at cars but know little about boats.

[PJCodner]

On board chargers are easy to install. Finding a place to mount them is the hardest part. A two bank charger will have two leads coming off of it. One lead will have two wires + and - that you clamp under one of your batteries and the other lead will be for the other battery. Watch the polarity and you will be ok. Then the charger just plugs into an extension cord for power.

You may still want to look into powering up the radio off the cranking battery and not the trolling battery. I would guess that the connections are made under the console and they tied into the wires going to the trolling battery.

[ProcraftMike]

Very easy to install. Just follow the directions. The big thing is to put the charger in a spot where it can get some air circulation to stay cool. I actually have mine attached to the bottom of the back deck lid. I just open up the lid when I charge the batteries.