I am about to wire up a new bowfishing set up with dual ProDrives. I have 12 50Watt Seelites. Right now, I have 6 fixtures on 2 separate 12 volt circuits... One per motor. Each circuit has the cranking battery, and one extra battery. The motors put out plenty of juice to maintain both batteries. I never have to charge the light batteries.

Here is the question... I would like to incorporate a 24volt trolling motor somehow. I could combine all 12 lights into a single 24volt circuit, and put my 2 light batteries in series. This would allow me to use a 24v trolling motor. Is there a way that I can use my 2 separate motors to charge the 2 separate cranking batteries AND the 2 batteries in series for lights/trolling motor?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You can keep everything 12volt, jump two of the batteries and use 24volt only for the trolling motor if you want.

Jump from negative from one battery to positive of the other. As long as you take the positive and negative off of the same battery, it will be 12 volt. Take the positive off of one and the negative off of the other and you'll have 24 volts.

Yep

Most LEDs are 12-36 operating volts you could run the fishing lights off 24v to get more battery life. There's a company called yandina that makes a 24v combiner that allows you to charge 24v systems off a 12v system. But you running duals so it would be just fine to charge each batt off each motor. Just done run them dead fishing or you'll be paddlin. What I would do is have a 12v cranking battery for your motors and put the combiner on there to charge your trolling/light batts and put a master switch between the 2 systems so you could always have juice for starting if you did run the 24v system down

Running at 24 volts won't extend the battery life.

In series, the voltage doubles, current stays the same. In parallel current doubles, voltage stays the same. It's six one way, half dozen the other. Assuming the same two batteries are used in each scenario, there should be no difference in the end result.

The way will said to do it would be the simplest route and there should be no real difference between the options. Continue to charge at 12v, don't have to redo all the wiring for the lights, etc. Just hook the TM up to the two batteries that are already there, run a jumper from one to the other, n from one to TM, p from the other to TM, done...

Brain fart on my end. 24v draws half the amps but with 2 batt I doubles so amp draw is the same. I swear I'm not as think as you dumb I am

Yep. You either get double voltage or double capacity. Don't get both.

If he were running an entirely new setup, I would say run it at 24, just because I'd prefer to run at the highest allowable voltage. Lower current =less heat= ability to use smaller wire............but being that his setup is already rigged and everything, to simply add a 24v tm to the mix, it doesn't make a ton of sense to rework everything. Keep it simple, rock on.

I didn't really explain myself too well, it is a brand new system. I want to hook all 12 fixtures up on a single 24v circuit, and put a trolling motor on there as well.

All I needed to know is if I could have my 2 separate motors charging both the cranking batteries and the 2 light batteries in series for 24 volts. Seems like I can, from what ya'll are saying.

I did purchase some isolators, to make sure that my light/troller batteries don't draw down the cranking batteries.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You will charge in parallel. I have more questions. Will add to this in a little while.

If you are already set on doing it the way you said in your last post. That picture would be the way you'll wire everything up. One motor charges two batteries each, then the bowfishing batteries would be isolated from your starting batteries as long as the key is off. I would use heavy duty solenoids over isolators as I've had some issues with isolators in the past, but if you've already purchased something, so be it.

If you already have the two banks of lights rigged with wiring run, the easiest way to run a tm would likely be the way will wrote it up. Just run your TM wiring to the back, hit ground on one battery, positive on the other, and put a jumper in between to series them up. If you are planning to utilize your existing wiring, and that's the reason you want to run everything on 24v, you will have to reconfigure the way the wiring for the lights is done. It is not as simple as just wiring those two circuits in series. You will need to parallel the light banks, then hit the 24v neg and 24v pos to do that. If you need help with that we'll need a little more info about your setup. Also need to make sure the wiring is sufficient for the extra load.

Bottom line, there's many ways to skin this cat. The direct answer to your question is YES.