I bought an Old Town Power Paddle for my canoe. It is a 30lb thrust trolling motor. I am looking for a good deep cycle marine battery and charger. What should I buy?
Optima
Anyone have experience with Optima Brand?
I’m looking at an Optima Marine Battery Model D34M.
Optima
While I paddle my canoe, I have three Optima’s that I use for my Popup camper and for trolling on my boat. They are great.
I loaned the camper out and the DC refrigerator was left on for several weeks.
The batteries should have been junk. They recharged and live today.
price range
varies drastically. The optimas are quite expensive, but have a high safety/quality design. Look for amp hour capacity. On my sailboat I use several wet cell, relatively inexpensive deep cycle and they last forever it seems. Look at the size differences too. A group 27 battery generally has a lot more capacity than a group 24, yet isn’t too awfully much bigger. Recharge thoroughly and slowly and your battery should last a real long time.
avoid total discharge
a friend who was a boat mechanic told me that even with the deep cycle batteries, total discharge tends to shorten their life. If you only run them down to around half their capacity, and slowly recharge, they last a lot longer. Also, how much vibration they endure affects them. A battery in the bow of a power boat does worse than in the stern. He liked the gel batteries and Optima.
Wet Cells last longer
if you want the battery to last the longest get a true deep cycle wet cell battery. I think trojan makes the best and they are half the price of an optima and will cycle more than twice the number of charges.
Douglas batteries also make some good deep cycle wet cell batteries.
If you top up the wet cell batteries once a year with distilled water and you don’t over charge them, they’ll last for years. I have one in great shape after over 7 years.