Thread: 12 or 24 volts needed

Yes, you can wire the trolling motor batteries in series, to have a longer lasting 12V output ...

No No No. 2 batteries in series will give you 24VDC. (neg to pos)
2 batteries in parallel will double your amperage at 12VDC. (neg to neg and pos to pos). CP hasn't had his coffee yet this morning. LOL

Originally Posted by IBNFSHN

Yes, you can wire the trolling motor batteries in series, to have a longer lasting 12V output ...

No No No. 2 batteries in series will give you 24VDC. (neg to pos)
2 batteries in parallel will double your amperage at 12VDC. (neg to neg and pos to pos). CP hasn't had his coffee yet this morning. LOL

I meant parallel .. not series --- my bad. (my previous boat, and my partners boat, both run off of ONE single battery ... don't have much experience with multiple battery setups. Think I was quoting Katbird, when I said "series" ... should have done a bit more research )

I don't drink coffee ... but, I hadn't started on my morning can of Diet Pepsi :p ... so I must have been a little off my game (good of an excuse as any .... LOL!!)

... cp

thanks guys
Ithink that I will just leave it at 24 volts for trolling and 12 volts starting. I noticed my trolling motor which is an old johnson stays on 12 volts but it will run on either. I have a 2 bank onboard charger for my trolling batteries that stay pluged up but like you say the starting battery may be going bad or the altenator is bad. I found a bad fuse and replaced it but it shoots everytime I replace it so now I have the dash panel off and I hate to work on something that someone else has rigged. there are wires hanging and cut wires and connection blocks on every wire. I'm going to just trace down every wire and get rid of whats not needed. I noticed the areator auto timing switch was eat up with rust so i'll remove it and bypass it. I have a 120 johnson 4 cyl. on the boat and I noticed the tach was set at 6 and it has 2,3,4,6 on the settings. seems like mercury is set on what stator you are running like if you have a 12 pole stator then set it to 6 on the tach but I don't know about johnson. I know I have some strange readings on my tach. I bought a 1999 mercury optimax 200 hp to put on my ranger and it is still in the shipping crate. I did'nt know that it was going to be a monster and I was afraid to put it on my boat. I hope to sell it if I can it only has 215 hours and looks brand new. well since its getting cold weather I should have plenty time to get mine rewired and thanks for the info. I fish at rhodhiss and lake hickory and if we don't see a lot of rain soon they say rhodhiss has just 3 more months of drinking water. heck I won't need a boat just a net for dipping. :D

Originally Posted by IBNFSHN

Yes, you can wire the trolling motor batteries in series, to have a longer lasting 12V output ...

No No No. 2 batteries in series will give you 24VDC. (neg to pos)
2 batteries in parallel will double your amperage at 12VDC. (neg to neg and pos to pos). CP hasn't had his coffee yet this morning. LOL

I'm glad you cleared that up, yes two batteries in series produces 24v from positive to negative, you can also hook up a series/parallel circuit, if you want to run 24v trolling motor wire the batteries in series, you can add a parallel 12v circuit by just tapping off one batterys positive and negative for your interior lights, spots, etc. its done all the time, and perfectly safe if you install fusses in each circuit.