When spring rolls around up here in Ohio, I can’t wait to get the cover off my bass boat. I’m giddy like a school girl peeling open my first Christmas Present of the season. Throughout the years boating has made me a better fisherman and opened endless opportunities out on the water.
The Deep Cycle Marine Battery is the achilles heel of every fishing boat. Without a “newish” battery that’s properly maintained you might end up stuck fishing from the shore. So how do you actually charge a battery and maintain it throughout the fishing season?
How To Tell if Your Deep Cycle Battery Is Bad?
If you’re reading this article there’s a good chance your battery isn’t working the way it should. Unless you’re a mechanic you probably don’t know how to properly check a battery.
Without the right tools you can waste endless hours tinkering around with a bad battery. To avoid this just go out and get Battery Load Tester like this one that’s designed to work with Deep Cycle Marine Batteries.
Don’t Use a Volt Meter: Volt meters can’t put out enough charge to accurately test a marine battery. You’ll end up wasting your time trying to extend the life of batteries that need to be replaced.
How Do You Use a Load Tester on a Deep Cycle Battery?
Using a load tester on your battery is actually really easy. Simply hook it up to the positive and negative terminals of your battery and turn it on. Within a second it will tell you whether or not you need to replace the battery.
Manual load testers like the Schumaker model that I use are going to be easier than electronic versions. Newer isn’t always better.
How Do You Charge a Deep Cycle Marine Battery?
So you’ve tested your battery and know that it’s still good, or you’ve recently purchased it in the past couple years. How do you actually charge a deep cycle battery?
Deep cycle batteries aren’t like your typical car batteries so they should be treated differently. They’re designed to be discharged and recharged over and over again without damaging the battery.
Charging Your Boat Battery
There are two methods to charge your deep cycle battery. You can either leave it in the boat to charge or you can remove the battery from your boat and attach it to a portable charger. Personally I’m lazy so I just leave the battery in my boat and run a ridiculously long extension cord.
You can use a standard 6 or 12 volt car charger, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s going to work if you’re in a jam but it will eventually damage a deep cycle battery. Instead you should get charger specifically designed for boat batteries.
I use my old Schumaker Ship n Shore Battery Charger the newer model can be purchased here. The charger is really nice. It automatically detects your battery and chooses the proper charge cycle. You can even use it as a trickle charger to maintain your battery over the winter.
- Before you hook up your battery charger make sure the battery is disconnected from your boats electrical system.
- Clean and inspect your battery terminals checking for corrosion. You should definitely wear gloves because the corrosion can irritate your skin.
- Most deep cycled batteries are sealed units so you shouldn’t need to top them off.
- Make sure your charger is turned off or unplugged and hook your charger to the battery terminals.
- Connect the red clamp to the positive symbol marked with a + symbol.
- Connect the black clamp to the negative battery terminal marked with the – symbol.
- Plug your charger into the nearest receptacle and start charging. Any standard wall receptacle is strong enough to run a battery charger. Most modern chargers will automatically recognize the battery and start charging.
- Check the front of your battery charger and make sure you choose the appropriate battery settings. Just look at the top of your battery and match the appropriate voltage. Only use the 2 amp setting for trickle charging your batteries over the winter.
- There should be a light somewhere on your charger to indicate that it’s charging and notify you when fully charged.
- When fully charged unplug the battery charger from the wall and remove the clamps from the terminal. Remember to hook the battery back in to your boats electrical system.
Can You Use a Car Charger?
As I mentioned above a car charger can be used in desperate times, but you should definitely buy a marine charger(Schumaker Ship N Shore). Marine chargers have a lot more power increasing the charge speed. Car chargers will most likely handle a single one off charge, but it’s not going to be able to sense when the battery is finished charging possibly destroying the battery.
Another disadvantage is you aren’t going to be able to trickle charge the battery. Car chargers just don’t have enough power to properly do the job.
Using Your Boat to Charge The Battery
Whether or not you can charge your battery on the water will depend on what type of boat you have. Most bass boats and full size boats can handle additional batteries. Obviously you aren’t going to be able to charge a battery with your 13 ft jon boat.
To hook up your battery just find the right charger that will hook into your boat’s electrical system. If this is the route you want to go your local boat shop should be able to point you in the right direction. Installation is easy and can definitely be done by the average DIY’er.
Speeding Up Your Charge Time
Sometimes you just don’t have enough time to get a full charge on your battery. You can speed up your charge time by boosting the charge up to 20amps. I wouldn’t recommend always charging your battery this way, because it will damage it, but it may get you out of a jam.
You can also consider just charging your battery up to 90% charge. Taking the charger off at 90% should cut your charge time in half.
Trickle Charging a Deep Cycle Battery
Trickle charging your battery between use will extend the life of your battery. Most modern boat chargers will have a trickle charge setting, but you’re better off to buy an actual trickle charger like this Black and Decker Trickle Charger. The black and decker charger is completely waterproof and it can even be plugged into the cigarette lighter on your boat.
Why Use a Trickle Charger
When you put a boat in storage you should always hook it up to a trickle charger. Allowing a battery to fully discharge between use damages the batteries. Overtime they’ll lose peak capacity and continue to get worse.