question about battery for testing

[oceanfrank]

Hi all,

I am restoring an old starcraft islander and I'm ready to put it in the water for some testing?see how the engine runs, etc.

I went down to the walmart to get a starting battery and they only carry one marine starting battery, and they were sold out. This got me thinking about some questions:

1) Do I need an actual marine battery just for testing? If it's just for one day (and maybe just even 20 minutes, depending on how terribly things go! ha), can I just co-opt the battery from my car? Or is there enough of a difference between marine and auto batteries that that wouldn't be a good idea.

2) along these same lines: considering that I don't have much of an idea when I'll actually be using this boat regularly, is it maybe not in my best interest to buy a battery now? I mean, if it takes me 2 years to actually have a functioning boat, I'm sure the battery will be in bad shape by then. While I'm working on it, is it best to be using a fresh new battery, or just like jumping it from my car or something?

Thanks!!

 

[alldodge]

If you have 120V power and only need it for testing you could use your car battery just have a regular battery charger to keep it up. You could use just a heavy duty battery charger and no battery, would just need to change charge levels depending on what your wanting to test

 

[ajgraz]

If just for temporary testing, an auto battery will be just fine, so long as it has the cranking amps you need. (My understanding is that a marine battery just has a stronger casing, slightly thicker plates, etc. so it can take a bigger beating)

And I do agree, if it will be years before she's fully restored, may as well use cheapo re-purposed car batteries in the meantime and buy your "good" battery later.

 

[alldodge]

Woops wrong thread

 

[oceanfrank]

thanks for the replies.

Alldodge, sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean when you say that I could just have a regular battery charger to keep it up? I should have mentioned, i'll be using it with an i/o so it should "keep itself up", right?

if I have a dead car battery, could I just like a jumpstart pack and put that in there and jump the system to get it started so long as I keep that dead battery in the circuit and jump start it?

thanks!!

 

[crazy charlie]

Any decent condition auto battery will do.I always bring a jumper pack with me for insurance when on the water .I would wait till you are ready to use your boat regularly to buy a new marine battery.Not a whole lot of difference in batteries unless you are needing a deep cycle battery which is probably not the case.

 

[ondarvr]

While not recommended, there's a good chance most casual boaters have car batteries in their boats, they may not hold as well to the beating in a boat, but....

 

[alldodge]

thanks for the replies.

Alldodge, sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean when you say that I could just have a regular battery charger to keep it up? I should have mentioned, i'll be using it with an i/o so it should "keep itself up", right?

if I have a dead car battery, could I just like a jumpstart pack and put that in there and jump the system to get it started so long as I keep that dead battery in the circuit and jump start it?

thanks!!

Yes, the drive will stay up,

The bat charger idea was if you used the bat in your car and ran it down, you couldn't get the car started. So if you put a small charger on the car bat while using it, then it would not be drained.

If your not going to start the motor, you can just use a small/medium bat charger to turn lights on, run trim pump and other things, no need for a bat