Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Guys: I have one battery right now and get nervous running the battery all day when the Radio is on. Can you all suggest an economical method for getting use out of the Radio all day and not worrying about starting up on the way home? Thanks.

If you don't want an extra battery then go to wally world or autozone and buy a battery booster. Keep it at full charge and if battery goes down use it like jumper cables. Mine was $39.00 at autozone

I dont mind buying a new battery but need to know what to do also buy to share these loads

As long as you're cruising and running the boat / motor there is little or no need for a second battery. But if your spending a lot of time at anchor or on a sandbar with any accessories or the radio running an additional battery is a very good investment. Maybe by reviewing some of these threads search.php?keywords=batteries&terms=all ... mit=Search you'll find an idea or suggestion that appeals to you for your boating electrical needs.

Just buy a second battery and switch. It's very simple to hook up dual batts:

^ That's the setup I have.

You can also use a VSR which switches and isolates the batteries automatically.
http://www.ezacdc.com/Scripts/prodView. ... roduct=106

I just make sure i fire up the motor and idle it for say 10 mins once or twice during the day while partying to keep mine charged.
So far, so good!

I also have one of the wallyworld battery boosters just incase...

lakerunner wrote:If you don't want an extra battery then go to wally world or autozone and buy a battery booster. Keep it at full charge and if battery goes down use it like jumper cables. Mine was $39.00 at autozone

lr's got it. a lot easier and lot cheaper than installing and maintaining a second battery. lighter, too.

WaltF wrote:I just make sure i fire up the motor and idle it for say 10 mins once or twice during the day while partying to keep mine charged.
So far, so good!

I also have one of the wallyworld battery boosters just incase...

waltf's got it, too.


how big is your amp? i run 700w (total for 4 channels) rms (not peak) for hours all the time on one battery. i start the boat about every 2 or 3 hours (if i remember). i carry a battery booster but have never used it (knock on wood).

i trailer the boat--when back home, i keep the boat battery on a battery maintainer, and when the battery booster gets around half charge, i plug it in.

keep it simple...

TX0303 wrote:You can also use a VSR which switches and isolates the batteries automatically.
http://www.ezacdc.com/Scripts/prodView. ... roduct=106

I just installed one of these along with a second battery for the house on my boat this weekend. Peace of mind for sure, now I won't ever have to think about conserving a battery for the start up for the trip back to the dock ever again. It's a very nice system and super easy to install.

It's also now got me thinking about a little upgrade to my stereo system...

Actually, upon looking at the link, I actually bought this whole complete system from ezacdc

http://www.ezacdc.com/Scripts/prodView. ... roduct=155

It contained everything i needed (plus some stuff I ended up not using) except the battery box and battery.

You can also use a solar charger, if you are only doing light duty. It charges through your 12V lighter. I use one that came with my VW, seems to work.

yyj200 wrote:You can also use a solar charger, if you are only doing light duty. It charges through your 12V lighter. I use one that came with my VW, seems to work.

I bought one of the VW units on eBay, they work nicely. I use them to keep my dinghy battery charged during Canal Days.

I'm gonna go one step further with this question, hopefully it's related enough.

Now that I have a dual battery switch with the ability turn the whole boat off with a flip of it...I'd like to start doing just that when leaving the boat unattended. My only concern is I hate lossing the presets in my stereo head unit each time it's disconnected.

I'm thinking of finding the always on (usually yellow) wire on the back of my head unit and extending it to my house battery's positive post so that it'll always stay hot even if I turn the switch and disconnect the rest of the boat from the batteries.

Does anyone see any problem with doing this?

LSVLance wrote:I'm gonna go one step further with this question, hopefully it's related enough.

Now that I have a dual battery switch with the ability turn the whole boat off with a flip of it...I'd like to start doing just that when leaving the boat unattended. My only concern is I hate lossing the presets in my stereo head unit each time it's disconnected.

I'm thinking of finding the always on (usually yellow) wire on the back of my head unit and extending it to my house battery's positive post so that it'll always stay hot even if I turn the switch and disconnect the rest of the boat from the batteries.

Does anyone see any problem with doing this?

That is exactly what I did. I added an inline fuse just for piece of mind

Most modern stereos don't rely on power to keep presets. Rather, they use burn technology that allows the stereo to go without power completely and still keep all programming. You may want to check this out on you stereo before you go thought the trouble. I shut my batteries down completely after every use and never lose my stations.