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I bought a Humminbird Piranha X10 fish finder at Big W this week. In my eagerness to get it up & running I have discovered a battery source that may work for others.
It is simply a 12v battery off a cordless drill (in this case a ryobi). I used it on the FF today for 4 hours (2 hours intermittently & 2 hour non stop (I wanted to see if I could run it down) & it still had power left at the end of the session. I turned it on at home (in simulator mode) and it has been running for over 4 hours.
Set up is pretty easy.
1. I bought a pack of spade connectors from Dick Smith & crimped the battery wire from the FF to the connectors, this provided a perfect connection as the spades were the same width as the battery terminals (see note 3)
2. Then I ran electrical tape around the battery to secure the connection, this also makes it easy to take the connectors off the battery for recharging.
3. My wife got my an air tight lunch box which I drilled a small hole in & fed the leads through (feed the leads through the lid of the lunch box first before crimping the connectors (learnt this the hard way). This way the drill hole can be smaller & feeding the leads through is easier. (You only need this step if you are using the lunch box idea)
4. Again using electrical tape, tape over the hole in the lunch box lid. You could use silicon but the setup was a temporary measure.
5. Place the battery in a dry bag. I got one from an adventure store in Wollongong for $8.00. For extra protection I also wrapped a plastic bag around the dry bag. No water what so ever go in the box & I paddled through some heavy chop at the front of the river.
Not sure how this would work for bigger units which are dual beam / GPS included but for single beam basis FF it worked well for me.
As an aside I also tested the idea on a Bosch drill 9.6v battery & this worked as well, I chose the Ryobi battery becuase it is smaller
The mount & battery set up are temporary as I have bought a Ram mount to put the FF finder on & intend to install a hatch to house the battery. But for river work the temp setup is fine.
But I will definitely be sticking with the cordless drill battery for power. It is lighter than a sealed lead acid battery, less fiddly than a series of 1.2v AA & for me was a cheap option as a I a spare battery and the charger already.
Cheers
Jeffo
It is simply a 12v battery off a cordless drill (in this case a ryobi). I used it on the FF today for 4 hours (2 hours intermittently & 2 hour non stop (I wanted to see if I could run it down) & it still had power left at the end of the session. I turned it on at home (in simulator mode) and it has been running for over 4 hours.
Set up is pretty easy.
1. I bought a pack of spade connectors from Dick Smith & crimped the battery wire from the FF to the connectors, this provided a perfect connection as the spades were the same width as the battery terminals (see note 3)
2. Then I ran electrical tape around the battery to secure the connection, this also makes it easy to take the connectors off the battery for recharging.
3. My wife got my an air tight lunch box which I drilled a small hole in & fed the leads through (feed the leads through the lid of the lunch box first before crimping the connectors (learnt this the hard way). This way the drill hole can be smaller & feeding the leads through is easier. (You only need this step if you are using the lunch box idea)
4. Again using electrical tape, tape over the hole in the lunch box lid. You could use silicon but the setup was a temporary measure.
5. Place the battery in a dry bag. I got one from an adventure store in Wollongong for $8.00. For extra protection I also wrapped a plastic bag around the dry bag. No water what so ever go in the box & I paddled through some heavy chop at the front of the river.
Not sure how this would work for bigger units which are dual beam / GPS included but for single beam basis FF it worked well for me.
As an aside I also tested the idea on a Bosch drill 9.6v battery & this worked as well, I chose the Ryobi battery becuase it is smaller
The mount & battery set up are temporary as I have bought a Ram mount to put the FF finder on & intend to install a hatch to house the battery. But for river work the temp setup is fine.
But I will definitely be sticking with the cordless drill battery for power. It is lighter than a sealed lead acid battery, less fiddly than a series of 1.2v AA & for me was a cheap option as a I a spare battery and the charger already.
Cheers
Jeffo
