You are spot on with the fact that internet forums are the worst place to get information on any specific product. Making the change to lithium for my offshore fishing Yamaha jet ski regardless of forum naysayers. I'm installing a battery monitor/shunt where I will be able to monitor exactly what is happening in real time...anyone can ask me and I will be able to provide facts instead of useless opinions.
Wow that's alot of info on the topic. I've wondered about the electrical charging system and lithium batteries. Good job on breaking it down in simple terms.
Hey Paul, because of your research and very informative video and the knowledge I have, I just ordered my replacement batteries from Iconic to do a full conversion of my lead acid batteries to the Iconic lithiums-both the cranking battery and my trolling and electronics batteries. I got Ionic Lithium 12V 125Ah | Dual Purpose Starter Battery 1100 CA + LiFePO4 Deep Cycle for the cranking battery and two of the Ionic Lithium 12V 100Ah | LiFePO4 Deep Cycle Battery + Bluetooth for my trolling motor and fish finder electronics. I have a 2018 Ranger RT188 with 90HP Merc 4 Stroke. I just recently upgraded the trolling motor to the garmin force (24Volt) and the Garmin Echomap Ultra 126SV x 2 for the fish finders at the steering console and bow of boat. Will connect the two 100Ah batteries in series to get my 24 volts. Should be a good setup for my boat. Will be glad to get rid of the weight and maintenance of floating lead acid batteries. Again, thanks for the review and great information.
I think you are going to be extremely happy with your purchase. This is fantastic! Congratulations! When I switched, I got a compatible charger by Noco. That has been great as well. I got the 3 bank 10amp. I hope your setup lasts a lifetime 😉
@@PaulsOutdoorAcademy Hey Paul, got the ionic batteries, the 125AH rated for cranking to start the boat and two 100AH 12 volt to be connected in series to power my boat. Ran into a snafu during battery installation. My existing lead acid batteries had the smaller terminals on the neg side (1/4) and the new ionic batteries are all 3/8" terminal posts. Problem is my negative wires in the boat are all 1/4" rings . Typically in USA the postive terminal is 3/8" and the negative is 1/4". So my negative wire rings don't fit the battery. Is there a neat and easy way/adapter that will make the 1/4" wire ring to fit the 3/8" threaded post without having to cut and install new 3/8" ring terminals on the boat wire negative terminals. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Scott
@ADKMuskyFoolonFly63 there was a set of adapters I really liked on Amazon. VGate is the brand. Look for VGate terminal adapter 3/8 and see if those will work. I ended up buying terminal crimpers and making my own wires because it seems like I do these little projects all the time hahahah 😎 I hope those adapters will work.
Well done. Gotta watch internet “Experts”. Have had 3 Ionic Lithium 125ah batteries for my trolling motor (2) and Honda 200hp engine for two years. Zero problems. I can now use the trolling motor more than twice as long as Li-Po4 batteries stay at full strength till just about drained. I primarily switched due to the weight. Lifting 65 lb. batteries out and into the boat and moving them around is going to get me hurt and I just will not risk something I can’t avoid. Only complaint is the issue of charging when below 32 degrees but I plan to use an oversized heating pad in the battery compartment to warm up the trolling motor batteries when cold. Be well.
I have put a DL+ 135AH cranking battery on my boat powered with a 2023 Yamaha VMAX SHO 90HP. When the battery gets fully charged, the battery BMS shut the pwr input to the battery, and then the engine alternator creates a voltage spike that actually shuts down my hummingbird graphs. I'm not too sure if my engine has a stator or an alternator, but when it happens, I can actually hear a click sound coming from the battery or the engine and my graphs shut down at the same time... not to sure. So, actually, I needed to put a lead acid cranking battery and my lithium battery for accessories only. It was a pain in the neck, but I sorted it out with a traditional battery. Thanks for the info provided.
Wow I hate to hear you had all that trouble. I will be completely honest I haven’t researched yamaha at all but I should just to educate myself! Thank you for your comments
Have you been able to find a solution? I'm looking at this exact battery for a small marine diesel sailboat application. This is my concern, I can't have a voltage spike at the alternator if the BMS shuts off because the battery is full.
Dakota is a great brand and I would contact them directly with your engine specs to find out what they suggest. The BMS is very smart and I wouldn’t think it would spike but they should know.
A lot of good information thank you. So I just bought a mercury 9.9 with electric start and I wanted to use a Lithium Battery but from what that paper said and you have said that is not possible because this motor has a stater. And the only reason I am asking is you said that your motor also has a stater so can I use a lithium battery or not? I will still ask a mechanic, but I thought I would ask. Thank you again.
If you ever get clarification from someone please let the channel know in the event someone else has that motor 😎
15 дней назад
Thx for the video, there’s definitely lots of conflicting info out there. The 2 Mercury lead acid batteries that came with my 200 HP OB are just not cutting it for running 4 graphs, 2 live scopes, the boat stuff, and starting the motor. If I run on the trolling motor (36 V lithium setup) for 3 or more hours without starting the motor all the electronics drain the lead acid batteries down to low 11 V and I’ve had to use a Noco booster to start the motor more than once. Can I replace the 2 Mercury leads with 1 higher output lithium cranking or should I use 2 lithiums?
I hear so many people are running a single 12-volt Lithium for starting and all the electronics. I am running a single 125 amp Ionic for two humminbird units and as a cranking battery and I think I am going to move my LiveScope to the 125 as well. It has been a blessing so far. There are some really high amperage Lithiums but my goodness they are expensive.
Thanks for the great video and for showing us the information directly from Mercury! The internet has a lot of OPINIONS and a lot not based on fact. Question! I have the same motor from 2018 did you notice on the Mecrusy website under specs and intelligent power management it says the motor has an alternator but at the bottom of specs is say 35 amp / 441 watt with water-cooled voltage regulator? I wonder if that's on the new motors?
OK. I looked on the website and I think as long as you are talking about the 2018 ProXS, it is just like the 2019, but the serial number could be used to verify. I am looking at the part diagrams to figure out what is what, and that is helpful. I compared the 150 to the 115 and the 150 has an actual belt-driven alternator, and the 115 does not. It instead has some cool looking stator/rotor below the flywheel. So, I think they are using the word "alternator" in a generic fashion. The voltage regulator does appear to be water cooled. The part on the diagram also shows a GASKET behind the regulator. :)
That's a lot of good information, IF the reader has a 4 stroke Mercury. I, and most likely many others, would assume that LiFePo4 batteries cannot be used with large 2 stroke Mercury engines even if they have high output alternators.
I wouldn't make assumptions. I would look for the specs of what your motor produces and see if it meets the requirements. The lithium companies do a good job of publishing all of their specs. You don't necessarily have to have a giant alternator to use lithium. In fact, from what I saw, they are more concerned with people have TOO MUCH Juice. That is where the BMS comes into play. In my experience so far, the engine really isn't charging the battery to full charge at all, but the battery loses the charge SLOWLY. I mentioned to someone else that I don't even have to charge mine until like the 4th or 5th time I go fish. Tell me what motor you have and I will see what I can find.
Thanks for the info. Did you also research the fact that we are supposed to add a dc-to-dc between the engine alternator and the cranking battery. I have a Mercury Pro XS 115 and was told that we have to add a dc-dc else there is chance to blow up the alternator. So is the lithium battery a drop-in replacement or not ? I have a Dakota dl+ 135 ah. Thanks. Btw, here is what we can find online on mercury website for the pro xs 115 alternator: Alternator Amp / Watt: 35 amp / 441 watt with water-cooled voltage regulator.
Another one of my subscribers was asking me similar questions. One issue which I think is confusing is that mercury is calling the stator an alternator, which is confusing. Your engine does not have an alternator, unless it is very different than mine. I have that 115 proxs, but maybe they changed it??? Their parts listing doesn't show alternators, but it DOES show stator. Can you explain to me what you mean by adding a DC - DC between cranking battery and alternator? what is a dc to dc?
If you are talking about a Step Down converter for DC to DC, I am not sure why you need one. Look at the specs for your battery: MAX CHARGE / ALTERNATOR SIZE Peak charge acceptance 165A max for one minute, 200A max BMS cutoff. Drop in replacement for lead acid and AGM starter batteries for vehicles. Limited to a max alternator size of 150 amps or less per battery (link multiple batteries in parallel for alternators >150 Amps). Your boat puts out 35 amps. :) I think you golden.
Man and us smaller boat owners get left out again. I really wish I could switch to a lithium starting battery. As I already have over 200 lb of batteries in my 17.1/2 ft aluminum bass boat. And don't have the space to spare for a fourth battery dedicated specifically for electronics. My poor battery compartment is jammed so full already. Especially because I just rewired with beefier upgraded wire the entire boat for my electronics setup. Garmin 106 at bow, Garmin 93 at console live scope Plus. Literally just turning on my Garmin 106 drains an Optima blue top " bought and installed two days ago" down to less than 12 volts before it even brings up the menu on the home screen. And that's just the 106. Not even running the 93 and the transmission of the livescope turned off
I purchased a small 30 amp lithium to run only my 106sv, black box, and the LS. It is really small and light. I have ran it for about 8 hours before running it down. My Ionics are 50 amp and I have two to run my 24v trolling motor. I love them and they can can my ultrex for about 2-3 days of fishing before I even charge them. Together, the 2 50ah Ionics are 28 total pounds.
@@PaulsOutdoorAcademy all brand new wiring too. Just installed it all myself. So I know it was done right. And I went over it again just to make sure but makes me wonder if I got a crappy battery. Either way it's getting returned
Do you know the output of your alternator or stator? I personally do not know but there are lots of good resources online and Mercury groups on FaceBook. I would search those. If the amount of juice coming from your motor meets the requirements I don’t know why you couldn’t, but I am hesitant to recommend it.
"...designed for marine cranking use." That's the key phrase to understand. What that is referring to is some kind of capacitor solution that will store and discharge a larger current than is safe for your typical LiFePO4 battery cells. The RELiON battery has a capacitor to dump the amount of amperage the starter motor draws. It's possible some other LiFePO4 batteries (or even NMC lithium batteries) could be designed with a sufficiently high C-rate on the discharge side to crank over the big motors, but then you also have the concern about how to charge that battery. Your video doesn't really cover the topic very well, to be honest.
So, the main purpose of this video is twofold. One, you can’t believe everything you hear and see, and two, the very latest Mercury update is still from 2022 and they do not recommend Relion, they simply say it meets all the specs. I try to convey those points and try to convey there are other batteries available which satisfy the requirements. Can you help me understand what info you think is not covered?
@@PaulsOutdoorAcademy - You do not cover what the "specs" are. You allude to them, but do not explain what they are, and the response from Mercury doesn't say anything more than what I quoted, above. I then go on to explain what you did not; a lithium iron-phosphate battery that is suitable for use in cranking over larger outboard engines will either have very high discharge cells or use a capacitor, or bank of capacitors, to provide that surge of amperage.
So it depends on who you ask. Ionic says any Mercury outboard from 150 to 250 HP. Mercury marine lists very specific models. Was your motor on that list?
So I’m just trying to understand a little bit clearer I have a 90hp with an alternator I’m pretty sure it’s 55 amps When you mean, you have it as a cranking battery, you’re starting your motor and your alternator cable is hooked up to the lithium and the battery monitoring system in the battery is making it safe? All I pretty much want the alternator to do maintain some type of charge until I’m done for the day would this be a good route to go down for my power needs
This is a tough question because I really don’t know much about your motor. You are saying that your boat actually has a belt driven alternator, like a car and it puts out 55 amps. That part is fine, but the thing I don’t know about is whether your boat motor was listed in that TSB. Did you see it in the list? When I said I am using it as a cranking, I meant I completely replaced my previous 12 volt AGM with it. Anything in my boat running on 12 volts is Now running off my 125 amp lithium. I don’t have an alternator but this battery connects to my motor just like the 12 volt did.
I can go out around 4 times and fish half a day each time before I even have to turn on a charger. I don’t even plug my boat up to an outlet until about my fourth fishing trip.
A lot of good information thank you. So I just bought a mercury 9.9 with electric start and I wanted to use a Lithium Battery but from what that paper said and you have said that is not possible because this motor has a stater. And the only reason I am asking is you said that your motor also has a stater so can I use a lithium battery or not? I will still ask a mechanic, but I thought I would ask. Thank you again.
There is a mixture of engine charging systems listed as ok for use by Mercury! I listed some comments from others which said you can’t but the list clearly has both. The problem is that is a very small motor and I don’t know how much output it has. I would check directly with specific lithium manufacturers and tell them which battery. Hopefully they can clear it up.
