Bottomline Fishfinders Amp Draw

[EricCO]

Does anyone know how many amps a Bottomlind Tournament Leader pulls?

Does anyone know how many watts of peak to peak power it has?

I emailed Bottomline, but no response and the owners manual doesn't address it.

I have a 7.2 amp portable battery and would like to know how long my botttomline will have power.


Thanks

[EricCO]

As soon as I posted on here, Bottomline emailed me back.

They said that is pulls less than 1/2 an amp and the peak to peak power is only 280!

How long should this sonar last on a 7.2 amp battery?

[RANGER]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-16-01 AT 11:51AM (CST)[p]Eric,

There is something wrong with this picture!

1) In all of their literature, advertisements and my owners manual, displays 650 Watts RMS (normal operating range or drain) and 5200 peak-to-peak. I can't remember every seeing ANY manufacturer advertise an operating wattage that low (280 watts).

2) the formula to calculate this is: V(volts) * A(amperes) = Watts. Now, using my figures above 12 volts * times A (unknown) = 650 watts. Therefore 650 watts/divided by 12 volts = 54.16 amps!

Your going to really COOK that battery!

3) Even at 280 watts that is still 23.3 amps!!!!!

Somebody's jerking someone around!


Batteries are rated in amp-hours. So, if you have a 600 amp hour battery you can run it for 11 hours (600/54.16 amps). The only thing that can change this is if they do some kind of MAGIC inside the unit to lessen the drain from the battery similar to Minn-Kotas Power Miser. This I would not know about!

Please don't cry in your beer!


RANGER


"KEEP YOUR LINES WET, YOUR POWDER DRY and THE BEER COLD"


WAIT...........WAIT...............WAIT!


I'm editing because something came to mind - the Bottomline display unit may operate at 280 watts for all the display stuff and features BUT THAT TRANSDUCER HAS GOT TO KICK SOME BUTT to push radio waves through all of that water to gather the information to be displayed! Maybe they misunderstood the question.

An after thought.

[EricCO]

It is an old model of Bottomlines. I ran it last night for three hours with the backlight on and it didn't dent the battery after checking it with my Minn-Kota battery meter.

Here is the email from Bottomline:

The Tournament Leader pulls less than a 1/2 amp
Watts Peak to Peak is 280
----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Ewing
To: <customerservice@computrol.com>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 8:11 AM
Subject: Amps


> How much amps does my Bottomline Tournament Leader pull?
>
> How many watts of peak to peak power does it have?
>
> Thanks
>

[RANGER]

Eric,

See my edit in the previous post. The transducer has to pull an awful lot, it is afterall an underwater RADAR and they don't come cheap powerwise!

In "Boat U.S." they do a nice job of listing indispensable specs on the items in their Cat. and it says 650 Watts! BUT DRAWS ONLY .5 AMPS!!!!! "It is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer" that I must be FULL OF IT and I can throw my Electrical/Electronic Engineering career away. I can't do the math anymore!


RANGER


"KEEP YOUR LINES WET, YOUR POWDER DRY and THE BEER COLD"

[Hans]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-16-01 AT 12:12PM (CST)[p]Power out is only distantly related to power being consumed from the battery.

Just for easy math, lets assume that the transmit power of a sonar is 300 watts. Using ohms law, that figures out to amperage of 25A (at 12V).

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!

That 25A is only there for a miniscule period of time, perhaps 5 milliseconds, at a repitition rate of 2 times a second. Stated differently, that current is 'flowing' for 5ms, then is silent for 495ms while the sonar "listens", then 'flows' again for 5ms, etc., so is only 'needed' for 1% of the time. Averaged over time, it is not 25A, but only a quarter amp..

Of course, the sonar uses additional current to receive, to display, etc., but the current needed for 300W signal is not 25A, but only .25A.

The above is over-simplistic, but you get the idea.

Hans

[RANGER]

Hans,

Thank You! I was cursorarily flirting with that concept but did not know exactly how that would function in the unit! That would answer it!

Still, there has to be a constant draw for the display and functions but I guess it is low wattage.

You just saved my career!


RANGER


"KEEP YOUR LINES WET, YOUR POWDER DRY and THE BEER COLD"

[Tim FRick]

Another thing to think about is how cold of weather your going to use this in. The battery will discharge faster in colder conditions. Also don't leave your battery out over night in cold conditions. I use to take a motorcycle battery up to canada for my hummining bird wide one. Worked great the first year, all week long. It was in the 70-80's temperature range. Next year it was in the 40's all week. The battery last two days. The follwing year I bought 6 volt lantarn batteries and just ran them in series to equal 12 volts. This way I just bought a couple extra batteries. Work great! Then I decide to stop with this stuff and just buy a bottomline portable fish'in buddy. It took 3 "C" batteries and lasted all week when the temperaturs were 50 or above. Nice little unit!
Good Luck!!
Tim FRick

[RANGER]

Eric,

Sorry, I had my "Electrical" hat on instead of my "Electronic" one! As you see, there is a big, BIG difference. No excuses, I should have thought it through before responding, Hans did!!

Duh!!!!


RANGER


"KEEP YOUR LINES WET, YOUR POWDER DRY and THE BEER COLD"

[EricCO]

No sweat! I still don't understand anything that you or Hans said and am still wondering how long the battery will last when fully charged. I'm thinking if it is .5 amp/hour pulling from a 7.2 amp/hour battery then it should last at least 14 hours?

[Hans]

Yup, 14 hours (longer when it's warm, shorter when it's cold).

Hans

[EricCO]

Thanks Hans.

Personally, I think you were justified in posting the link, but this comes from someone that has been "ripped" by the golden coyote too!

"You are either being managed better, or you are being managed out" - A Very Wise Supervisor (1999)