I am blessed with an enormous amount of water within 30 minutes drive time for me. All are small lakes/ponds. The largest is 1000 acres and has no hp or speed limits. One is 180 acres and has a 10 hp limit. The rest (literally dozens and dozens of bodies of water) are just a few acres in size to about 70 or 80 acres. These small lakes/ponds are ALL electric motor and oar/paddle only. So I've always had a small jon boat setup for electric propulsion only plus my larger aluminum deep vee with an outboard for the 1000 acre lake. This small jon has always been a 1436 until last summer when I bought a 1542. While I was rigging the boat over the winter I decided to use different batteries this time around.
I've always used a single group 29/31 to power a 50 to 55 # thrust transom mount and a 40 to 55 # thrust bow mount. I typically would use a minimum of 25% to as much as 60 or more % of the batteries capacity. Using more than 50% of the capacity is very hard on batteries. It shortens the usable life of the battery greatly. Also at the end of the day, I would find myself using a higher speed setting on the motor just to maintain the same speed trolling. There have been many, many occasions where I struggled to get back to the dock because the battery had been drained down that far.
Now a simple solution would be to buy 2 group 29/31 batteries and wire them up in parallel. However I decided to buy 2 golf cart batteries and wire them up in series. Both are identical 6 volt Interstate Extreme Cycle GC2-ECL-UTL batteries. Golf cart batteries are typically still true deep cycles unlike most of the 29/31's, which are 'dual use' batteries now. So by buying the golf cart batteries I now have proper deep cycles, higher amp hours, higher reserve capacity minutes, and slightly less weight. Here are the facts-
Interstate Extreme Cycle GC2-ECL-UTL
62# times 2 equals 124#
total of 225 amp hours
total of 447 reserve minutes
AutoZone 29DP-DL (typical battery of this type)
63.3# times 2 equals 126.6#
total of 212 amp hours
total of 420 reserve minutes
Now in actual use the few times I have taken the boat out this spring so far, I have been draining the batteries down anywhere from only 10% to 25% of capacity. And better yet, no loss of performance at the end of the day. This is with a new Motorguide R-3 55# digital variable speed transom mount and a Motorguide Xi-3 45# digital variable speed bow mount.
The subject of golf cart batts instead of 12 volt batts comes up every now and then on this forum and others on the 'net and the idea is usually dismissed because no one ever really tries this. Well I have now and so far I think it's a terrific idea for smaller electric only boats. Larger electric only boats that have the weight capacity for more batts and need higher amounts of thrust would likely benefit from a 36 volt system or one of the 48 volt RayElectric's. But I think it's a great idea for the 1232 through 1542 jons. Just my thoughts on the matter.
I've always used a single group 29/31 to power a 50 to 55 # thrust transom mount and a 40 to 55 # thrust bow mount. I typically would use a minimum of 25% to as much as 60 or more % of the batteries capacity. Using more than 50% of the capacity is very hard on batteries. It shortens the usable life of the battery greatly. Also at the end of the day, I would find myself using a higher speed setting on the motor just to maintain the same speed trolling. There have been many, many occasions where I struggled to get back to the dock because the battery had been drained down that far.
Now a simple solution would be to buy 2 group 29/31 batteries and wire them up in parallel. However I decided to buy 2 golf cart batteries and wire them up in series. Both are identical 6 volt Interstate Extreme Cycle GC2-ECL-UTL batteries. Golf cart batteries are typically still true deep cycles unlike most of the 29/31's, which are 'dual use' batteries now. So by buying the golf cart batteries I now have proper deep cycles, higher amp hours, higher reserve capacity minutes, and slightly less weight. Here are the facts-
Interstate Extreme Cycle GC2-ECL-UTL
62# times 2 equals 124#
total of 225 amp hours
total of 447 reserve minutes
AutoZone 29DP-DL (typical battery of this type)
63.3# times 2 equals 126.6#
total of 212 amp hours
total of 420 reserve minutes
Now in actual use the few times I have taken the boat out this spring so far, I have been draining the batteries down anywhere from only 10% to 25% of capacity. And better yet, no loss of performance at the end of the day. This is with a new Motorguide R-3 55# digital variable speed transom mount and a Motorguide Xi-3 45# digital variable speed bow mount.
The subject of golf cart batts instead of 12 volt batts comes up every now and then on this forum and others on the 'net and the idea is usually dismissed because no one ever really tries this. Well I have now and so far I think it's a terrific idea for smaller electric only boats. Larger electric only boats that have the weight capacity for more batts and need higher amounts of thrust would likely benefit from a 36 volt system or one of the 48 volt RayElectric's. But I think it's a great idea for the 1232 through 1542 jons. Just my thoughts on the matter.
