Battery charging from main engine

[Fish mojo]

Is there a system to charge your 2 12V batteries for the electric trolling motor with your main engine alternator? Thanks.

[ttt]

bump

[fuzzman]

Yes, I've had this system for 5 years now and it has performed well. Charging Systems International- Pro X-tra II. If you go to Cabela's webite under "marine", then on-board chargers you'll find it. I go to a boat-in resort in Canada that runs off a generator, and the camp power goes off about midnight everynight, so my cord and on-board charger couldn't keep up. Since I've had the Pro X-tra II I've never plugged in after a long day on the water. We do enough boating around with the main motor that my trolling motor batteries stay charged all the time. Works well for me. I love it. Good luck.

[Badger 05]

I have this integrated into my Dual Pro Charger (same company that makes the Pro Xtra II). Works great. Charges the trolling batts at the output of my alternator. It doesn't take long for those batts to get back to a usable state when you run WOT across the lake.

Fishing is: One jerk waiting for another jerk at the end of his line.

[REW]

Yes there are different systems, but in general are simply not worth the effort and time to install.

The reason that I say this, is that you typically simply don't run the big engine for long enough periods of time to do much for a battery recharge on a trolling motor.

Remember, if you have fully discharged trolling motor batteries, you need about 10 hours at a 10 amp rate, to fully charge them up. Many outboard motors have "extra" current available in the 5-10 amp range. Thus you need to be running over the water for 5-10 hours to get much juice put back in your trolling motor batteries after heavy use in the wind with your trolling motor.

The average fisherman, typically runs his big motor at a 1/2 or more throttle setting (necessary to get a decent charge out of the alternator) for periods of less than 30 minutes on an outward or return run.

Thus, it simply makes more sense to have a nice plug in type battery charger availalable, and charge the batteries overnight, or during an afternoon siesta if you are wont to that type of activity.

Take care
REW

[Badger 05]

You're right it won't fully charge the batteries but most large motors these days have at least a 40 amp charging system. I think the Optis and some yammies have a 60 amp charging system. The way the trolling motor charger works isn't like the Lazarus systme of the old days. It allows the alternator to get the cranking batt to a full charge and then switches the alternator output over to the trolling batteries.

I wanted to test it out on my new rig so I drained my trolling batteries as much as I could and then made a couple of long runs just to see how much charge was returned to the trolling batteries. It got them back to a usable state (1/4 charge on the battery guage which may or may not be an accurate reading) and I was able to get some more use out of the trolling motor batteries.

The thing I really like about this charging system is that my trolling batteries stay at a full charge almost all of the time. It is pretty rare that I will fully discharge my trolling batts in one fishing spot. Each time you move from one area to another you are putting a charge to the batts. If you buy it integrated with the charger it only adds about $80.00 well worth it in my opinion.

And yes you do still need an AC charger for your batteries.

Fishing is: One jerk waiting for another jerk at the end of his line.