I recently upgraded my trolling motor to lithium batteries. I’m running 2 12v 100ah units for it and I also run my power poles off those batteries, 1 power pole per battery. Would it be recommended to run my livescope unit and black box off of those batteries as well? Say maybe the unit to 1 battery and the black box to the other? Or should I stay with a standalone battery for the livescope system?

I’d never run any sonar type units off the same battery as a trolling motor. Motors can cause interference that shows up on the screen. Also, if your batteries start getting low on charge, often down to just 12 volts, the motor will still run but the depth finder will just shut off. What about hooking your livescope to your starting battery?

If you want to try hooking your electronics to a trolling motor battery you can try using ferrite beads to suppress the noise, it’s supposed to work.

I would not run my graphs off the trolling motor batteries. Nor would I run the shallow water anchors off them.

I assume you have an outboard on the boat and have a cranking/starting battery? Run the poles and graphs off that instead. Or add dedicated battery for pumps, graphs, lights, poles, etc.

Ditto what everyone else has said. I only run the TM off my 100ah...everything else runs off the 35ah "house" battery.

In a straight answer to the OP: YES, you can. It's 12V DC. There are potential problems as pointed out.

I've never run FFS that way. I have a pond boat with a 24V TM. I run 2 - Helix 10 MSI's off one of the TM batteries. Of course, the outboard is a pull start. I do not have any interference on the Helix's.

Separate battery or crank battery recommended.

Thanks for the reply’s guys. I’ll look into a stand alone battery for my livescope unit. That’s how have it set up now, I’m just running a small 18ah battery that only lasts about 5-6 hrs and I’m constantly taking it in and out of the boat to charge. I’ll look into a 50ah for my graphs and just upgrade to a 4 bank charger instead of the 3 bank I have now

18 hours ago, gim said:

I would not run my graphs off the trolling motor batteries. Nor would I run the shallow water anchors off them.

Why would it not be advisable to run my shallow water anchors off the TM batteries?

@Anfrobodine - for a single head unit, black box, and transducer, a 50 AH lithium is good for a long day and still have a little reserve. If you're powering 2 head units and leaving it in the boat, you might as well just go straight to a 100 ah (or whatever size your TM batteries are). The cost difference at that point is minimal and having extra power is never a bad thing. It also means if you blow a TM battery you could swap it in an emergency.