T_Dot

sorry you lost me there... care to explain a little more? what do you mean i wont gain much more speed? on which motor were you refering too? what do you mean i might need a whole new power supply? thanks

i have priced the 100+# motors, and i dont mind spending the money. after all i started looking at 2 55#s, and from everyones input, it just wont do the job. currently the boat is a car topper, and i can move it from any vehicle, and to all my friends vehicles too. i would like to keep it that way until i can find a suitable truck / suv with a trailer package. then i might upgrade to a bigger boat and everything else. this is my first boat, and i can pretty much handle it myself. anything bigger might be too much for me right now. most of the bodies of water we fish are TM only lakes. plus the smell of gas makes me sick, and can ruin a day of fishing for me. i looked up getting an outboard, but that also means getting a gas tank, getting a storing fuel... which all in all is another added expense i dont want to take on. i mean all the lakes we often fish are pretty small, and i managed to use 1 30# trust on them, and it worked fine. though i find its rather sluggish for the new and bigger boat. thanks for the tip, thats the type of motor i might pickup

do you think household spray foam from a hardware store be any good for this application?

Your math is correct. The amount of amps you will need to charge a battery that is 50% charged depends on the size of the battery and how fast you want to charge it. For example: a 105 AH battery 50% charged needs 52.5 AH put into it to it to be fully charged. So to charge it in an hour you will need to put 52.5 amps into it. A 7 amps it will take 7.5 hours to charge it. If you can put 10 amps into it you can charge it in 5.25 hours. Do you get the relationship of battery power? Batteries are rated in AMP Hours Or AH. That is the amount of power they can hold. The two most common ones are 75AH or 105AH. If you draw a 10 amp load from a 105 AH battery it will provide approx 10.5 hours of power. If you draw 5 amps from it, it will provide 21 hours of power. these number are approximate and can change with the amount of current. Now to charge the battery it is the same but backwards. If you draw 10 amp from that 105 amp hour battery for 5 hours you used 50 amp hours. the battery is about 50% charged. If you use a 10 amp charger it will take 5 hours to charge it to full. If you have a 5 amp charger it will take twice as long, or 10 hours. You did not mention in your original post how big your electric motor is. Lets assume it is 30 Pounds of thrust. A general rule of thumb is 1 amp of power draw per pound of thrust. So, If you run your motor for 30 minutes to your favorite spot. you just used 15 AH from your battery. That solar panel puts out one amp so it would take 15 hours to recharge that battery after just a 1/2 hour run. Now, add lights and electronics you will see how futile it will be to use solar panels to charge the battery or batteries. Hope this helps yup i understand, im pretty good with math, i just dont know all the short form words when it comes to batteries. now that you have mentioned what they mean, i understand everything better. currently i have 2 30# trust TMs. i will be upgrading to a 36 volt TM system. thanks again on the flip side of things, is there a down side when you charge and use your batteries at the same time?

i have a jon boat, and with the ribs there will be alot of unused space. further more, if i customize it, there will be more dead space around the ribs. does any have any recommendations on spray foam to aid in safety floatation? thanks EDIT:

http://geo.craigslist.org/iso/us/va click the nearest city

yea i reread you post, and found most of my answers there. the only reason why i would want to keep it down to three batteries, is due to the weight capacity of the boat. also a lighter boat would help things move a little easier on the water. i would only be running both trolling motors when i run from spot to spot

thanks for the tips i might pickup 3 - 4 panels

where can i find some of these larger solar panels? thanks

sorry for the confusion... i should have rephrased it. what i meant to say, is that i would like have somewhat of a charge going on while im out on the water, rather than going home with barely any juice. on that note, how much would it charge my battery on a 6 - 8 hour trip. mind you, it will still charge my batteries while i leave my boat docked.

thanks for the tips im trying to keep the generator as my last option.

so if the math is right, i would need about 7 of these to produce about 7 amps of current. how many amps would i roughly need to charge a battery that is 50%? thanks

how long did this process take? what mistakes did you make, and what would you do differently? thanks

oh i didnt know that. now i know sounds like everything i carry minus the gass and the engine. do you think its possible to run dual 109#s off of only 3 batteries? do you carry the same amount of gear as stated above, or do you downsize when you only use TMs? oh i didnt know that. now i know sounds like everything i carry minus the gass and the engine. how do these setups compare? which is faster or better for you? how many batteries do you use for this setup? do you carry the same amount of gear as stated above, or do you downsize when you only use TMs? thanks for all the tips

great thanks for the quick math lesson on how to calc running times. this will help me select a good motor for my trips. on average, i fish about 8 hours. on occasion i fish parts of the day, and throughout the night

SOLARFLAT 15: - 15 watts maximum output - Amorphous solar cells for low light - Great for charging 12 volt batteries LINK: - http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.TextId?hvarTextId=73589&hvarTarget=search&cmCat=SearchResults i have a alumacraft 1436 jon boat, and will be carrying 3+ batteries since i will be upgrading to a larger trolling motor. i will also need to power a fish finder and some lights if i want to fish at night. now if i take a long trip, and fish day and night... how fast or slow will this charge my batteries while i run? with all the weight and people i dont think i can carry anymore batteries. though i like the idea of charging a few batteries while im out there in the sun. this will also aid if i go out to remote locations where there are no power outlets. please advise thanks EDIT: to avoid further confusion... i always charge my batteries before going on an outting. what i basically want the panels to do is to provide some power and recharge my batteries while im out on the water. the question is, how much would these things charge my batteries on a 6 - 8 hour trip? what do you all think about these: LINK: - http://www.brunton.com/product.php?id=256

google on how to modify a jon boat. you can do simliar things to your boat. or look up jon bass boats

how long does this setup last you in one day? this is exactly the type of setup im looking for. how much gear and people do you usually take? what is the best thing you found about this exact system? if you were to change something about this system what would it be and why? hmm... interesting. how much faster do you think it is? do you think it is twice as fast? could it be that the waves and the wind conditions were different that day? thanks

roughly how long do you think this type of system would last me? usually our days of fishing are very calm and has little to no wind. this is due to the bodies of water we fish. usually the size of lakes we fish are 500 acres or less. how much do 24 volt batteries cost, and how long do they usually last you on a single charge? would that system be enough to navigate a 3000 acres body of water? that is the larges body we fish, and it is only fished once every 2 months. thanks

the reason why i might possibly stay with the 12 volt motors is due the fact that i already have 2 12 volt batteries. i like having a backup battery on board my boat. with a 24 volt system, i would have to pickup new batteries. though i could put them together to make a 24 volt battery

SETUP: - 1436 Alumacraft - 150 lbs To those who run dual or more trolling motors, what setups did you go with any why? Im looking to go with a dual or more setup pretty soon, so I would like to see what other setups I can possible go with. I would need to power my boat, with 2 or more people and their gear. We often always run in small bodies of water, with 1 or 2 trips to a bigger body of water. I recently tried my setup with 2 30 lbs trust minn kota motors. I found it to be a big improvement. I now would like a little more juice. The 2 30 lbs was big enough to power my setup through the biggest body of water I often go to. With a little more juice I think it would be efficient enough that I can comb that body of water with ease. Any tips or advice?

thats driving in reverse but with a higher rpm. driving in reverse is not efficient as driving forward. spin the thing around, plug in the wires the right way, and see how much faster and better you can control the boat.

great job! where did you get the handles from? thanks

where is this located in lowes? and how much does it run? i need a few of these thanks

besides the motor and battery setup between these 2 boats, what else was different? # of people? boat weight? ... etc? thanks