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Im wanting to get a compact battery for my kayak, cabelas has 12v 8 amp hour batteries and a charger for $30. I'm wondering if anyone has tried these batteries with there fish finders. Note anything with vabelas name on it has a no questions asked lifetime warranty so that adds to me wanting one. Any feedback helps
It will probably last about 5hrs on a small FF; I use a 18ah battery for my FF and a 2amp charger.
Will not last that long and there chargers are hard to get a full charge with. I bought 2 and did not get much use out of either one before they went to the dump. I would buy a bigger one
I have one that I've been using for a few months with my Garmin Striker 4CV. It works fine for me. My trips are usually 4-7 hours and it hasn't died yet. I didn't get the one with the charger though, since I already had a better 12v charger.
I have a Humming bird 12V 7.2Ah from ACK (Austin Canoe and Kayak) It came with a great charger and it holds a charge all weekend.
I run a fish finder and 4 led strips for night fishing on the same battery. I have put it though many 3 day weekends over the past 4 years as well without pluging it in.
I have a 12V 7AMP battery that runs a Eagle 150C finder on my float tube. It holds up well to an outing on the strip mines and still has power enough to clean the gills with a Rapala 12V knife. As a matter of info I also have a little smaller 12V 3 1/2 Amp battery that will power my finder for an outing . I was told by a salesman that a color finder uses less power than an equal size in black and white. I honestly don't care but sure like my old Eagle finder.
I charge with a small shop auto charger on low setting.
I bought that same battery/charger combo from Cabela's a few years ago. I've run a Lowrance Hook4X depthfinder for 12 hours straight in my kayak with no problems. Even forgot to charge the battery one night and got 4-5 hours out of it the next day before the depthfinder shut off.
You might as well go ahead and either get a battery separately, or be ready to replace the charger sold with that battery right away. It doesn't have a shut off or charge indicator, so if you forget and leave the battery plugged up to the charger, the charger will burn out the battery. I went to Batteries Plus and got a Werker Battery charger that switches to trickle mode and it also has an indicator light to let me know when the battery is fully charged. That charger can't burn out the battery.
Jim
All great input! Thanks guys I did buy the battery only and I'm on the search for a charger now, harbor freight has a couple 3 amp automatic float chargers I'm looking into now. Any charger recommendations?