Battery Box for a Fish Finder

[Bowhunter57]

Us kayakers have to be the "mother of invention" sometimes. :smiley_blink: I use a soft sided lunch box that I purchased at Walmart, to carry my battery and fish finder screen. I purchased the battery at Walmart for my riding lawn mower and it gets recharged by the mower, in between mowing and fishing.

There's a hard plastic case that the battery fits inside of, perfectly. Where an ice pack would go, is where I store the fish finder screen. All of the wiring with the alligator clamps for the battery terminals stay inside the kayak with the transducer mounted in Duct Seal putty. Once I attach the alligator clamps to the battery, I partially zip the lid shut and slide it up by the transducer...out of the way.







All inside a nice carrying case. :smiley_bril:



Bowhunter57

 

[jagermeister]

Nice set up. I see you have what looks like a lawnmower battery. That seems like it'd be a pain to lug around in a kayak. There are much smaller 12v batteries available. I bought a new one for my underwater camera this winter for around 30 bucks. I believe is a 9 amp/hr. It runs a camera all day long so I'm sure it'd handle a fishfinder just the same. Just a thought...

 

[Bowhunter57]

jagermeister,
It weighs around 12 to 14 lbs. and cost $25, but with a $12 core charge. It would be nice to have something lighter weight.

Where did you get your battery?

Bowhunter57

 

[Johnch]

Talk to a Electral contractors , ask them to save you some batterys
When I worked for one , we replaced 2 things that had smaller 12 volt batterys
1 was the old Exit signs ( some were 6 others were 12 volt ) the other was battery/120 volt emergcy lights

At the time I didn't have a use for the 12 volt batterys so I gave them away
I found the 6 volt batterys worked perfictly in the MoJo duck decoys

I bet if you went to a electric whole saler , they would have new ones in stock


John

 

[Bowhunter57]

I'll have to check into that, as I'd like to have a lighter weight battery. There's a Battery Warehouse, here in Lima, so I'll have to check them out.

Thanks, Bowhunter57

 

[jagermeister]

I get my batteries from Crown Battery in Fremont. Its where they're manufactured so you get a decent price. Although you can often times find them online even cheaper. They are the same size as the batteries in emergency lights like John said... However the batteries in those lights are usually a low amp/hr rating so they don't quite last as long under a load.

Another thought, you could wire two 6v deer feeder batteries in series to get 12 volts.