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Minn Kota holding charge?

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:39 pm
by The Quadfather
:-({|= Since the Minn Kota is a freshwater motor, I'll post my question here.
I have the 55# thrust version. I am running one of the Trojan deep cylce motors ( 115 amps/hour)
Minn K. asked for 100 amp/hour

When I use my 6 amp 12 volt marine charger over a 12 hour period, I go out on the lake and the "battery check"
meter reads, fully charged. After even like 10 minutes it will say like.. "Good" A little later I will either get a reading of Fully charged again, OR it may go down to only "Fair Charge" It basicly goes all over the place, and scares the bejeebees out of me, and then when I tuck it in at night it just pisses me off and says it is good.

Do you all find this meter thing accurate? I mean why shouldn't it be? Do you agree with my battery choice and charger choice? Thanks for your thoughts.

RE:Minn Kota holding charge?

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:46 pm
by bigastrout
Is the battery check meter part of the trolling motor?

RE:Minn Kota holding charge?

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:48 pm
by Lou
Ok, I saw this happening when I first bought a battery testing case for my battery. It says in the specs to wait 30-60secs after the motor is off to test the battery, as that will skew the results. So I'd suggest trying that before using your battery meter. If you already are doing that, then this questions is probably for the battery savy readers.

-Lou

RE:Minn Kota holding charge?

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:50 pm
by A9
Yea its part of the motor...I wouldn't rely on those....Just bring some oars along with you and your good to go...If you run the motor really hard for like 5 minutes, like speed 3 and up, it will probably go down to fair, and I guess it just wobbles around...

RE:Minn Kota holding charge?

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:13 pm
by hewesfisher
Hey Quad - Does your marine battery charger produce a constant 6 amps or does it start at 6 and then drop to a trickle charge? Reason I ask is you shouldn't run a set high amp charge on deep cycle batteries, they prefer a long low amp charge rate vs shorter high amp one. My battery charger adjusts to the load and as the battery reaches a higher state of charge it drops the amperage accordingly, eventually going to a trickle charge mode once the battery is at full charge.

As for the battery state indicator on your trolling motor, the one I had on my old Minn Kota was useless too. When I was running on battery only, I always had a second one for backup. ;-)