Mounting transducer on transom wheel brackets

[Fenlander]

I’ve never had a voltmeter on the battery while in use but every three days or so on a two week holiday thought a charge in order. I don’t ever remember under 12v on the charger voltmeter at the start of charging. At times I have used the same 7ah for inflating two sibs and taken the battery under 12v.

[Croolis]

Hmm. My cheapo trickle charger is not getting it past 12.9, just charged it it for another 2 hours. I spose I could have damaged it running it down yesterday (was on 11.9v and plummeting when I shut it off), but 12.8v is what I see out of most batteries on my bike, and these are very similar batteries.

I see that the unit is sposed to pull 0.23amps without the transducer, I don't know what it pulls with it on (guess I could get my meter on it and see). I dunno how volts read when comparing against draining capacity. I'll ask engineer at work. This is the transducer, don't know if your units use the same one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Tran..._source=1&th=1

[User name]

Originally Posted by Croolis

The most annoying one was - before we left, I'd put some braid on one reel and filled it, then went to spool another from the same bit and found I ran out long before I filled the second. So I learned how to tie a "uni knot" and added fluoro to the braid to fill the reel. When out on the water, I found that the second I unclipped the fluoro to thread the rod and put a swivel on, the fluoro just unravelled itself from the reel all on its own, like there was a ghost unreeling it. Even after I got the rod setup, swivel and rig on, if the line wasn't under tension from the weight the line would just unreel itself. I got angry and just ripped it off and fished with an inadequate amount of braid instead (was just enough to get to the bottom most of the time). Really annoying stuff. I'm just going to stick to braid for now for main line.

These are all the little things you'll learn from. No point in stressing out about it, there are people who are fishing their whole lives and still doing stupid shit. At least you're seeing where you're going wrong.

Those feathers are fine for mackerel so that won't have been your problem. Do be careful of steaming up to a spot though, as the boat will frighten off fish below you. Maybe try to drift over the area where you expect them to be, but they do move around fairly rapid. You generally don't need to fish very deep for mackerel either. they'll be in the open so no need to fish right down on the bottom.

Originally Posted by Croolis

Hmm. My cheapo trickle charger is not getting it past 12.9, just charged it it for another 2 hours. I spose I could have damaged it running it down yesterday (was on 11.9v and plummeting when I shut it off), but 12.8v is what I see out of most batteries on my bike, and these are very similar batteries.

I see that the unit is sposed to pull 0.23amps without the transducer, I don't know what it pulls with it on (guess I could get my meter on it and see). I dunno how volts read when comparing against draining capacity. I'll ask engineer at work. This is the transducer, don't know if your units use the same one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-Tran..._source=1&th=1

12.9 is a good voltage if it's holding that while not charging. You won't have damaged the battery by draining it short-term. You could if it was left drained over the longer term though. Does your outboard have a charge circuit? That would be handy for keeping the battery topped up while you're motoring around.

[Croolis]

Originally Posted by User name

These are all the little things you'll learn from. No point in stressing out about it, there are people who are fishing their whole lives and still doing stupid shit. At least you're seeing where you're going wrong.

Those feathers are fine for mackerel so that won't have been your problem. Do be careful of steaming up to a spot though, as the boat will frighten off fish below you. Maybe try to drift over the area where you expect them to be, but they do move around fairly rapid. You generally don't need to fish very deep for mackerel either. they'll be in the open so no need to fish right down on the bottom.

Yeah, that's it, work out sensible drift strategy. I'll use teh fish finder to try and get depths, cheers.

Originally Posted by User name

12.9 is a good voltage if it's holding that while not charging. You won't have damaged the battery by draining it short-term. You could if it was left drained over the longer term though. Does your outboard have a charge circuit? That would be handy for keeping the battery topped up while you're motoring around.

Yeah I've abused plenty of motorbike batteries in my time, treated them way worse than what I did yesterday and still found them usable. It;s kind of curious, though, I'm seeing lots of people saying their Striker 4 units run forever on 7ah.

No charging with my outboard. I've got a bunch of smallish LiPos in the house that I used to use with quadcopters, but they've not been charged for years, probably garbage. Can't remember capacity, could be worth a look.

[Fenlander]

I'm not undermining your concerns but it's a straightforward situation. If you trust your charger is really taking the battery to 100% and you trust its voltage readings, yet the Garmin runs the fully charged battery down in less than a day out, then I'd just replace the battery.

[Pikey Dave]

Don’t get too hung up on trying to find fish with a fish finder (I know, I know) many underwater anomalies will show up “as fish”. Also the Fish ID feature is a gimmick unless it’s setup properly & you know what you’re looking at. Where Sounders come into their own is identifying the nature of the bottom & the depth. If you’re not careful you’ll spend more time staring at the instruments than fishing. You’ll catch bugger all unless the hooks are in the water.

[User name]

Originally Posted by Croolis

Yeah I've abused plenty of motorbike batteries in my time, treated them way worse than what I did yesterday and still found them usable. It;s kind of curious, though, I'm seeing lots of people saying their Striker 4 units run forever on 7ah.

No charging with my outboard. I've got a bunch of smallish LiPos in the house that I used to use with quadcopters, but they've not been charged for years, probably garbage. Can't remember capacity, could be worth a look.

A 7ah should last a lot longer than 2 or 3 hours indeed. What type of charger are you using? Does it auto cut-off? It may have just been in need of a full charge. I'd try it again and see how long it lasts.

I wouldn't bother with old LiPo's, personally. They very volatile, especially old and neglected ones and you wouldn't want to deal with that in an inflatable.

A good tip if you fancy a little project though, there are loads of 3D print models online for Parkside Lidl batteries (here's one example). I have a receiver with a built in buck converter to take the 18/20v down to 12V and it's all very neat. Capacity'wise, the 2Ah ones are about half that of your 7ah lead acid but they're much more compact, available everywhere and can charge much faster than you would a lead acid. I use them for powering my electric pump too (and loads of other things) and I never run out when using the 4ah version.

[Croolis]

Originally Posted by Fenlander

I'm not undermining your concerns but it's a straightforward situation. If you trust your charger is really taking the battery to 100% and you trust its voltage readings, yet the Garmin runs the fully charged battery down in less than a day out, then I'd just replace the battery.

Respectfully, it's not a straightforward situation when gathering information from the internet (and I'm not talking about your good self here ). Garmin quotes:

Electrical features
POWER INPUT 10 to 20 Vdc
TYPICAL CURRENT DRAW 0.23 A
MAX CURRENT DRAW 1.0 A
POWER CONSUMPTION 2.8

That's a 77% variance in draw, presumably from features and whether or not transducer plugged in, and I don't even know what the "2.8" is, doesn't give a unit. I also found a battery supplier's website stating my run time with a 7ah battery is 3 hours, whereas Steve's unit, which is not the same (neither is Fenlander's) it states 13 hours or something. And then again, I see plenty of folks talking about my unit running for much longer than mine, more like yours. But you're not fishing, are you? So I don't know what features you've got switched on yadda yadda yadda yadda

My trickle charger is a cheap 1.5a "green light comes on when charged". I've been measuring battery with a cheap multimeter bought from Maplins years ago. Tomorrow I'll bring the battery to work where they have a charger with a reconditioning mode and other features, and stick it on there, see what happens. Get an electronic engineer to see what he thinks.

Originally Posted by User name

A good tip if you fancy a little project though, there are loads of 3D print models online for Parkside Lidl batteries (here's one example). I have a receiver with a built in buck converter to take the 18/20v down to 12V and it's all very neat. Capacity'wise, the 2Ah ones are about half that of your 7ah lead acid but they're much more compact, available everywhere and can charge much faster than you would a lead acid. I use them for powering my electric pump too (and loads of other things) and I never run out when using the 4ah version.

My boat partner in crime loves a bit of 3D printing and is down with the engineers, I'll run it past him, cheers .

[Fenlander]

>> it's not a straightforward situation when gathering information from the internet

Fair enough. My unit was a 45dv so I was using GPS plotting and depth sounder all the while from launch to recovery but no... I was never drifting about fishing. I say was because I gave up all that malarkey for a similar size screen portable GPS with its own integral battery which lasts way over a long day out.

[User name]

Originally Posted by Croolis

My trickle charger is a cheap 1.5a "green light comes on when charged". I've been measuring battery with a cheap multimeter bought from Maplins years ago. Tomorrow I'll bring the battery to work where they have a charger with a reconditioning mode and other features, and stick it on there, see what happens. Get an electronic engineer to see what he thinks.

If it's holding steady at 12.8ish then a reconditioning cycle won't actually do anything for ya, but I suppose it'll eliminate your charger as a possible issue. This is a brilliant little charger for all sorts of batteries and you could even use it for your drones.

I'd set it up at home and leave it running to see how long it lasts now that you've been able to charge it. There should also be a date code on the battery, so that'll give you a good idea if it's been sitting gathering dust on a shelf somewhere for ages before you got it.

[Croolis]

Took battery to work. Engineer used a CTEK reconditioning charger on it, got it up to 13.5v. Couple days later now, unused, the charge is 13v, which I guess is to be expected. I'll get it home and give it some use, see if my charger will return it to over 13v.

I'd like to run the Garmin unit with the transducer in. Online says you shouldn't run the transducer out of water because heats up. Don't see any reason I couldn't run it in a bucket of water?

[Steve509926]

Hi Croolis, I used my chart plotter with the transducer for close on 4 hrs yesterday on Windermere.
Battery started off at 13v it's now 12.7v.
Hope that helps.

Re: Bucket if water - I don't see why not, I presume it's to help cool it so it doesn't overheat.

[User name]

Originally Posted by Croolis

Took battery to work. Engineer used a CTEK reconditioning charger on it, got it up to 13.5v. Couple days later now, unused, the charge is 13v, which I guess is to be expected. I'll get it home and give it some use, see if my charger will return it to over 13v.

I'd like to run the Garmin unit with the transducer in. Online says you shouldn't run the transducer out of water because heats up. Don't see any reason I couldn't run it in a bucket of water?

You won't even need as much as a bucket to keep it cool. Yours likely has overheat protection build in too (my Striker 7 does). Just a small container is fine.

On the battery voltages, are those while charging or at rest?
Your resting voltage of 13v is about 2.1v per cell (13.2v/2.2v per cell is peak). If it's holding that then it's likely a healthy battery. I'd invest in a half decent charger, but I'd do the home test anyway and see how long it lasts.

[willk]

OP - if you want to explore the Garmin on the hard, you can always switch the 'pings' off in one of the menus. Not much to see in a bucket of water

[User name]

Originally Posted by willk

OP - if you want to explore the Garmin on the hard, you can always switch the 'pings' off in one of the menus. Not much to see in a bucket of water

It'll use less power though, and won't give him as accurate idea of how it's going to last on the water.

[willk]

Originally Posted by User name

It'll use less power though, and won't give him as accurate idea of how it's going to last on the water.

Well yes, I missed the point entirely

That said, I think now that he's charged it, it will be fine. I remember getting batteries load tested - probably overkill for a 7Ah...

[Croolis]

Been on 2 hours. When I plugged it in, it was 13v. Instantly went to 12.9, then couple mins later 12.8. That's yer surface charge going away I guess. It's been on 12.8 ever since.

Exciting, isn't it?

[Steve509926]

You sure know how to live life

[Croolis]

7 hrs 22 mins

[Croolis]

Recharged battery on my own charger. Got up to 12.8v. Put back on fishfinder: down to 12v in 2 and half hours. Conclusion - my charger not up to scratch for this application (fine for charging motorcycle batteries!).

Solution: rather than buy a more expensive charger, I've bought a LiFePO4 7ah battery here:
https://batterymasters.co.uk/lithium...ht-0-9-kg.html

Comes with a "smart" charger, one of these:
https://batterymasters.co.uk/catalog.../category/477/

Who knows if that charger will be better or not. Different battery tech so a cheap charger on a LiFe is probably more effective than a cheapie on a lead acid, but what do I know. Frustrating thing is, I have an Imax B6 80w charger laying around somewhere but I can't find the damn thing. But this battery doesn't have a balancing cable input thing for balancing all the cells like my smaller LiPos do, but it does have some kind of built in balancing tech so I think the charger can be more dumb and the on board tech takes care of the balancing.

Other advantage of the LiFe battery is, has more useful capacity. Apparently only take it down to ~12.5v but the charge used to get to that point is more than what you'd get from lead acid. Allegedly.

I know I'm just rambling now but I thought I'd put all this in the thread just in case someone comes here for the information . I'm unlikely to receive battery before a possible fishing trip this weekend if my lad will stand it (I'm determined to go and catch something), but I'll be able to take a decently charged lead acid this time from work.