Dual Purpose Battery vs 1 Crank and 1 Deep Cycle
 

I have a small boat with a 25 Tohatsu and wondered if I could get by with a single dual purpose battery instead of separate deep cycle and cranking batteries. Does anyone use or have any advice on dual purpose batteries?

You can get by with a single dual purpose battery. However if you drain your battery down trolling, lighting, etc. then you'll have to pull start it. May not be too big of a deal for you

I have a dual purpose that I use for cranking and running my lights, depth finder, and trolling motor. I have no issues with it. I have a 30 hp tohatsu in a 14 48

What 2 batteries give ya is redundancy. I have used my deep cycle to start my 90 and my cranking battery to run my trolling motor. If ya 25 starts easy and has a pull rope I wouldn't think twice and get one nice big deep cycle it will have plenty to start the 25 and the rope would be your back up when on the water ya dont want all ya eggs in one,,,,,er battery box.

I have a 24volt trolling motor.
I run my starter cable for my motor to the front where my batteries are. Never had a problem.


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FYI.....


After years of buying batteries from Walmart, Academy and Battery Wholesale I got a recommended battery from someone on this site.


These "cheaper" batteries generally would last 20 to 30 months. I would charge them up after each trip, but none of these batteries would last much over 2 years.


Then someone said they used batteries bought from a NAPA auto parts store and had them for 5 years.


I bought their battery to use for starting and trolling motor. Several months later I bought a new boat and 2 more deep cycle batteries for my 24 volt TM. I keep the batteries connected to an onboard charger in my shop.


I bought this boat 5.5 years ago so I have had one battery for about 6 years and 2 for 5.5 years..... and still perform well.


These batteries now cost about $ 99, so not a lot more than the "cheap" batteries. Be sure to bring an old battery, if you go there to buy batteries..... core charge is very high.

Thanks for all the comments, I do have a pull rope backup starter that isn't hard at all, so I think I will go to one battery when I need to replace. I use a trickle charger and have found that keeping batteries topped off all the time lengthens their lifespan.