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Do any of you use a volt meter or voltage gauge for your trolling motor battery. Which ones work best? My gas motor has not worked in years and I just use the trolling motor battery. I'm down to 1 battery right now and I want to make sure I dont run it out on the other side of the lake. Im to old to work the paddle.
I'm not sure that a volt meter will give you the information that you want. A stone dead battery may read 11.5 volts. Minn Kota makes a battery level meter that seems to be reliable. I'm not sure what it measures (maybe amps?), but they seem to reliably measure available battery. You may want to post your question on the electronics section, they're are a lot of great guys there from all over the good ol' U.S. of A. that know all there is to know about batteries and such.
You can get a simple digital volunteer that will tell you the voltage. A fully charged battery reads 12.7 volts. You can Google a chart that tells in increments the level of charge. 12.0 volts is pretty much a dead battery, even though you can get lower readings. Those meters that show percentage of charge or color levels are just converting the voltage to another means of determining the level of charge. Looking at a chart I see they say 12.4 volts is 75% and 12.2 is 25% charged.