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Starting battery vs starting/deepcycle for Pro V 150 HP

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Nucad

Regular Contributor
Need to buy a new battery for my ski boat. It used to have a deep cycle, which I am told was wrong for it and hard on the charging system. AM I best to stick with the starting battery only? or do the combination ones offer any benefit? I have a Lowrance GPS and depth finder on the boat as well as a stereo.

Tia
 
Starting batteries (cranking) are designed to discharge a large amount of energy for a short period, which is why these batteries are ideal for starting engines. Deep cycle batteries are designed to discharge a small amount of energy over a long period. It's a matter of choice of which and how many accessory loads you tie to a battery. Be that as it may, I choose to use what I'll call logic when deciding which accessory to tie to which battery. I personally do not load any accessory to my cranking battery. If you were to tie an accessory that you use with the engine off (stereo, depth finder, etc.) and you use too much "juice" while the engine is off, you won't have enough juice to start the engine.

In essence, if you have battery powered accessories on your vessel then 2 batteries should be the minimum number of batteries you keep on board...1 cranking battery and 1 deep cycle battery. How about if you have a 24v trolling motor on your vessel...this would indicate the need of 3 batteries...1 crank and 2 deep cycle.
 
Thanks for your reply.My accessories are turned off when the motor is off, so hopefully my alternator puts out enough juice for both battery charging and running the lowrance. Thinking of ditching the stereo anyway.
 
What does the OEM service manual recommend? Neither the gps or sterio use that much power anyways. If you decide to go with a maint free or deep cycle battery do your engine a favor and add a high amp draw appliance you can run while the engine is running to use up the excess power produced at high RPM. A refrigerated ice chest is always a nice addition to a boat. Add a volt meter you can monitor the charging system if not present. Anything over 15 volts must be addresses. Adding appliances is the best solution not taking them away.
 
Bought the boat used last summer, so I do not have any manuals . (will look online ). Currently the boat has a short somewhere, so plan on redoing a lot of the wiring (which is a mess) and relocating a starter battery up front. I bought a Volt meter that I will also install. Hoping to keep things as light as possible on the boat as everything on it is quite light and it drives like a sports car (MC Barefoot 200)
 
Not sure why you want the battery up in the bow it will get shook around alot more especially on a plaining hull. If you do you need to up the cable size substancially depending on length?
 
Moving weight up front and running a half tank of fuel or less will hopefully further reduce the wake at speeds I am comfortable running. It has an amazing wake at higher speeds (For barefooting) but more than I'd like sub 30 MPH. If you have any tips on this issue, that would be much appreciated. I noticed that a local water ski school also running the Yamaha Pro V on Barefoot 200s has their motor mounted two settings higher on the transom than mine (currently at the lowest setting)
Thanks.
 
Nucad said:
Thanks for your reply.My accessories are turned off when the motor is off, so hopefully my alternator puts out enough juice for both battery charging and running the lowrance. Thinking of ditching the stereo anyway.
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I'm assuming you turn key ON/engine off when using stereo or other accessories? If so, be aware that you don't have accessories ON for an extended period of time with engine off. Every amp that was used to power accessories with engine off are amps no longer available to crank engine.

I agree with Kim ^^^. Moving battery the length of vessel away from the engine makes things more complicated. If the battery is currently located at the rear of the vessel and you moved it forward towards/under console...good idea. If the battery is currently located under/near console and you move it forward to bow...bad idea. The headache of running bigger and longer cables makes shifting the battery forward not worth the effort or result.
 
Battery is currently at the rear of the boat with the fuel tank and oil tank. I was thinking of moving it under the console.
 
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