powering electronics

i bought a new to me side console recently and have had it out actually fishing twice. there is a fuse panel underneath the console that powers the livewell, aerator, lights, bilge pump and fish finder. this is connected to the starting battery. in those 2 trips the only thing i have powered up is the finder, a helix 7, for about 3 hours each time. sunday after those 3 hours the starting battery was drained enough to not even turn the motor over. luckily there is a spare starting battery onboard.

the existing battery was a 2016 which didn't seem that old, but i bought a new group 27 battery to hopefully solve that problem anyway. but in thinking about it, i wondered what the pros and cons are of powering everything but the motor off of the deep cycle battery instead. any advice, good or bad? my previous center console was powered the same way and never had any problems. thanks.

Sounds like a battery problem. I have 3 fish finders and other things running off my crank battery, with no problems.

Some times you have to but as a general rule the only thing that should be on the TM battery is the TM. Everytime you step on the TM's go button there is a surge on that circuit. Electronics do not like surges. Electronics don't work so well when you let the smoke out.

that's a good point bill. i hadn't thought about that. and that's what i thought trypman1, i've never had this problem with other boats.

was just curious, thanks for the replies.

I had a similar problem this summer. My "house battery" is the cranking battery. With three fish finders it went down after two hours. It tested good, so I put a dual duty battery in. No more problems. Six hours of running the sonars and still cranked up the big motor fine.

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I just added a battery dedicated to electronics .... but I don't think I would do that if I had 1 Helix 7 to power. The new battery will probably solve your issue. If there is room, a group 31 would be nice.

Seems like a lot of draw for a few electronics. I would do an amperage measurement to see what they are drawing.

I would think bad battery or possibly discharging across the top of the battery.

Electrolyte ( battery acid) spilled or boiled out from charging across the top of the battery will cause one to discharge in a few hours. You can take a volt meter and touch one post with a lead the other lead on the top of the battery in any spots you think has electrolyte on it and you will get a voltage reading.

Clean battery with baking soda and water. It will fizz up as it neutralizes the acid. Charge the battery and you will be good to go

I had a series 27 battery for my 42# 12v trolling motor ... my previous unit (Lowrance Elite 5DSI) was wired into the TM battery wiring. I had no problems with interference or dying battery when the TM was used intermittently while casting banks. It did (eventually) present a problem when I began Pushing jigs/cranks for several hours in a row ... the outcome, or signal that there was a problem, was when the unit would dim & eventually turn off on its own. That was initially remedied by replacing the series 27 battery with a series 29 battery. When the Elite 5DSI unit was replaced with my current Hook 7, which likely draws a little more juice than the E5DSI, I still have yet to experience any problems or dimming of the screen or unit going off on its own ... even though the Hook 7 is wired the same as the E5DSI was (in the TM wiring connection). My 90HP Merc will keep my series 24 starting battery fully charged from just normal running time (which in most instances is not more than 30mins run time in a full fishing day). My previous series 24 starting battery did get greatly discharged when I inadvertently left the console depth finder on for over 24hrs. It was several years old, though still working flawlessly, so I replaced it with a new one. The console depth finder has gone on the fritz since that replacement & has been disconnected.

I'm not sure what the problem is for "unc" ... but, one other place to look would be the fuse panel connections/leads for any broken/frayed wires, corrosion, loose connections, etc. or anything that could be causing added power draw.

My E5DSI supposedly has a 0.75a/h draw - the Hook 7 a 1.1a/h draw (a far cry from the almost 5a/h draw of a Livescope :yikes ) and the Helix 7 a 0.8a/h draw ... so I'm not convinced that the depth finder is the main factor in the battery going down so quickly.

i'm of the opinion that the starting battery is bad. i fully charged it up monday night and last night the charger said 62% when i turned it on just to see.

thanks again for all of the replies, i appreciate it.

Sounds like it is discharging either internally or externally

Bad cell, sorry