Anyone running 50ah on 36V Trolling Motor?

[Unckle]

I finally put my 3) 50a Ionics in my boat and have fished 2 of my club tourney's with it, 6am-3pm with my Ultrex and have had 70% left each time, fun fished for a day after the first one with out charging them and still had 60% showing when i parked it at the house.

[JBIGUNS]

Sharing my experience in hopes it helps someone when purchasing batteries / charger.
I ran 3 Ionic 50AH batteries and a Powerpole charge for two seasons. Both Ionic and Powerpole are aware that the Charge does not get along with the 3 battery setup. It does not always balance the middle battery despite their efforts to resolve the issue through software updates. Due to this issue, I had the middle battery die on a few trips when the other batteries still had plenty of juice. I switched to a single 36V battery with no issues. If I had room to run a second 36V battery in parallel to get 100ah I would. If someone has $$ in the budget, I would get as many AH as possible. It’s nice to be able to take full advantage of your TM power without worrying about battery power. Those who say they are getting multiple days out of 50AH are not fishing hard on the TM. I regularly run my 50AH way down on long days on the water when I’m using 100% power on the TM to cover water.

[Murph McB]

I flirted with running out of Battery, especially on Pre-fish days. Upgraded to 100 AH. I would say it depends on your fishing style, size of boat, etc.

[Siebert Outdoors]

I bought 3 50ah Ionics from Drew last spring. Running a 721 Pro Xp with a ghost. So far longest day I've run them is about 7hrs on Lake St Clair. I got them down to about 79%. It would easily have gone 10+ hrs. If you are one of those guys that hammers down on the TM all day I dont know if the 50ah would be enough. For my fishing style they are more than enough.

[rudapa]

I just switched to a "pair" of Powerhouse Lithium 36V40AH. I'm frozen so haven't ran them yet, but the folks around here with the same have been happy. I rarely fish more than 11 hours and don't need multiple days of use. Time will tell for me. LOL

[Rangerdeepv]

This may be a question which gets a couple groans or 'wtf's'. Having had to 'jump' my main motor from the trolling motor via the throwover switch...........how can a 50ah handle the starting current needed for a large Opti?

[KandKKustomz]

I just switched to a "pair" of Powerhouse Lithium 36V40AH. I'm frozen so haven't ran them yet, but the folks around here with the same have been happy. I rarely fish more than 11 hours and don't need multiple days of use. Time will tell for me. LOL

[JBIGUNS]

This may be a question which gets a couple groans or 'wtf's'. Having had to 'jump' my main motor from the trolling motor via the throwover switch...........how can a 50ah handle the starting current needed for a large Opti?

Switch to a 125 AH Lithium crank (or 2) and don’t worry about that or get a lithium jump start to
keep in the boat.

[rudapa]

This may be a question which gets a couple groans or 'wtf's'. Having had to 'jump' my main motor from the trolling motor via the throwover switch...........how can a 50ah handle the starting current needed for a large Opti?

Noco and others make small affordable jump starters. https://a.co/d/3obfV9j

[haus9393]

This may be a question which gets a couple groans or 'wtf's'. Having had to 'jump' my main motor from the trolling motor via the throwover switch...........how can a 50ah handle the starting current needed for a large Opti?

The reason I have a relion 100ah HP which has a bms designed for cranking the motor in my trolling setup. Most 100ah can’t crank a motor but that relion HP model has the capabilities if I ever need to.

[520runner]

I’m hardcore. 12-16 hour days on the water. I’d say most of those days I only burn 50ah of power which isn’t bad for such a long day. But I’ll tell you what. When conditions aren’t on your side I’m sure glad I have 100ah. I honestly want 125ah because I’ve killed my 100ah probably 5-6 times and drained them down to 10-20% countless times over the past few years. It’s so easy when the wind is blowing all day and you want to try and fish into the wind to drain them fast. Sometimes I spot lock in like a 15-20mph wind and my ionic app will show only 6-7 hours of juice if I hold spot lock like that on a full charge and that’s which a Lowrance ghost which is supposed to be a very efficient trolling motor. Those group 27s are probably similar to like 60-70ah lithiums so if you are running those down 50% usually then you are averaging 35ah of use which doesn’t give you much extra room when you run 50ah batteries.

This is dead on. I have long prefish days and I am hard on batts. Most anglers will never see the bottom of 50AH lithiums but there are guys who can kill 100AH batts
You have to decide which one are you. Some companies are making 60 , 70 or 80 AH lithiums now as well. Always get more than you might need Good luck in you search

[DrewFlu33]

I'm running two 40 ah 36v in parallel. I've definitely never killed that setup, so I can only gauge how close I've gotten by how long my 10 amp charger runs. There was exactly one time where I think I would've killed a single 36v 40 ah, a day where I was fighting main river current on the Mississippi for 9-10 hours. The charger ran a little longer than 4 hours in that instance. To be fair, I've got these on what's basically an 18' boat (technically it's 19'3", but there's 15" of built-in setback), so it's not as tough for my trolling motor to move around as the bigger rigs. I've had the charger run for 3 hours many times, though, so it's not like I'm too far off of using up just 1.

The bigger reason I went with 2 in parallel is for the redundancy--if one battery goes bad, I'm not stuck. The insurance of knowing basically whatever I'd throw at it in a full day on the water is nice for peace of mind though!

[billnorman1]

I'm running two 40 ah 36v in parallel.......................................... ........The bigger reason I went with 2 in parallel is for the redundancy--if one battery goes bad, I'm not stuck. The insurance of knowing basically whatever I'd throw at it in a full day on the water is nice for peace of mind though!

That plus if you had 6 Lead/acid size 31 AGM's they would weigh 400 pounds.

[DrewFlu33]

That plus if you had 6 Lead/acid size 31 AGM's they would weigh 400 pounds.

True!

[rid 05 198]

I'm running two 40 ah 36v in parallel. I've definitely never killed that setup, so I can only gauge how close I've gotten by how long my 10 amp charger runs. There was exactly one time where I think I would've killed a single 36v 40 ah, a day where I was fighting main river current on the Mississippi for 9-10 hours. The charger ran a little longer than 4 hours in that instance. To be fair, I've got these on what's basically an 18' boat (technically it's 19'3", but there's 15" of built-in setback), so it's not as tough for my trolling motor to move around as the bigger rigs. I've had the charger run for 3 hours many times, though, so it's not like I'm too far off of using up just 1.

The bigger reason I went with 2 in parallel is for the redundancy--if one battery goes bad, I'm not stuck. The insurance of knowing basically whatever I'd throw at it in a full day on the water is nice for peace of mind though!

So, running two 40ah in parallel would be the same as running one 80ah battery?

[Impulse Lithium]

So, running two 40ah in parallel would be the same as running one 80ah battery?

Yes but you have 2 so some redundancy

check us out. Our 36v-40ah is in a group 31 size case so fits in all boats

[Dirtyeggroll]

Yes but you have 2 so some redundancy

check us out. Our 36v-40ah is in a group 31 size case so fits in all boats

What’s the largest AH battery that fits or is close the the Group 31 size

[JBIGUNS]

What’s the largest AH battery that fits or is close the the Group 31 size

Lithium Pros has the biggest I’ve seen. You definitely pay for it though.

https://lithiumpros.com/products/m31...olling-battery

[rudapa]

What’s the largest AH battery that fits or is close the the Group 31 size

If you haven't seen this - you can see how well a "pair" of Powerhouse Lithium 36V40AH fit in my Phoenix. https://youtube.com/shorts/QyyaYAq5_Wc?feature=share

[DrewFlu33]

My generic 36v 40 ah batteries are in a Group 31 form factor, FWIW. They fit exactly like two of the three group 31 lead acids they replaced.