BigBendFishing.Net

all very good info.

All the information I have read says to you want to use a charger with more than 2 amps, the problem isn't neccessary the amperage, but the time it takes to recharge. You do not want the battery charging too long, as that can cause damage to it over a period of time. I thank a 10 - 12 amp charger is fine. We use automatic chargers that start with a high amperage and slowly reduce amperage as it gets close to being fully charged. Also, always recharge your battery the day you get back from fishing, leaving a battery discharged will cause it to sulfonate, thus killing the battery over time. Also, when testing a battery it does need to be tested with load and not just voltage, a recently recharged battery can read 12 volts but not have any capacity.

I've always heard that you want to charge deep cycles as quickly as possible and as soon as possble after discharge. That's why most of the modern chargers have a fast charge and then a trickle charger. The fast charger runs at 10-15 amps charging the battery quickly. Then, when it is done charging, it switches to the trickle charge to constantly maintain full charge. This is what we've always done and we got 8 years out of our last AC Delco group 27 deep cycle. We bought another AC Delco group 27 to replace it and another group 30 shortly after, and then sold the boat with both new batteies in it. Now we need another group 27 for the new boat. Minn Kota publishes the max draw on your motor as being 50 amps. I would probably use a 45 amp slow blow fuse for it. We had a 50# thrust All-Terrain bow mount on our old boat and used a 40 amp slow blow for it without any problems.

Nathan

From all of my reading, its best to invest in one of the new battery chargers with computer sensors that determine the rate of charge. I bought one not long ago for about $80 and it seems to be the cats meow. Mine has settings for regular battery, deep cycle battery and spiral cell battery.