Yamaha FSH 210 36V Lithium Trolling Motor Battery Runtime

[FSH 210 Sport]

I have the Dakota 36v 63AH single battery and just got to use it last weekend. I spot locked for about 4 hours and trolled for 1 hour and the ipilot link controller was showing full battery for the Dakota. Not sure if it was accurate or not, but when I got home, it only took 45 mins to fully charge with the included 8ah charger from Dakota.

Great results!

Be careful with the ipilot link controller battery monitor… it is set up for lead acid batteries. LiFePO batteries hold their voltage till the very end then the voltage drops off sharply, at roughly 90% discharge the voltage is still 12.6V, so your ipilot link monitor will still show full. I don’t know which troller you have, if you have a manual deploy type then it isn’t that big of a worry. But if you have the self deploying model you could have issues. One time with my lead acid batteries the motor just stopped providing thrust, it was still on but wouldn’t spin the prop. I checked the battery indicator on the remote and it had the slimmest of red lines in the battery indicator, I was able to stow the motor for the rest of the day. Others with the Lithium batteries have had the motor just shut off completely and they had to remove it from the mount.

I highly recommend a Victron energy smart shunt to monitor your trolling motor battery.. they are not that much money, maybe $125, and are super easy to set up. It will show state of charge, Ah used, KWh used and voltage.

 

[JakeTJCJ]

Great results!

Be careful with the ipilot link controller battery monitor… it is set up for lead acid batteries. LiFePO batteries hold their voltage till the very end then the voltage drops off sharply, at roughly 90% discharge the voltage is still 12.6V, so your ipilot link monitor will still show full. I don’t know which troller you have, if you have a manual deploy type then it isn’t that big of a worry. But if you have the self deploying model you could have issues. One time with my lead acid batteries the motor just stopped providing thrust, it was still on but wouldn’t spin the prop. I checked the battery indicator on the remote and it had the slimmest of red lines in the battery indicator, I was able to stow the motor for the rest of the day. Others with the Lithium batteries have had the motor just shut off completely and they had to remove it from the mount.

I highly recommend a Victron energy smart shunt to monitor your trolling motor battery.. they are not that much money, maybe $125, and are super easy to set up. It will show state of charge, Ah used, KWh used and voltage.

@FSH 210 Sport

Do you have a diagram of the wiring for you smart shunt? I am preparing to install 2-12v dakota batteries for a 24 volt system with the quick disconnect and was curious where I would add that. Before the breaker or after? Finally able to find a motor and it should be here next week. Time to get prepped for the install.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

@FSH 210 Sport

Do you have a diagram of the wiring for you smart shunt? I am preparing to install 2-12v dakota batteries for a 24 volt system with the quick disconnect and was curious where I would add that. Before the breaker or after? Finally able to find a motor and it should be here next week. Time to get prepped for the install.

The shunt is put in series with the ground from the battery bank and the trolling motor. Check out the links below. You should be able to scan the QR code and get the online directions.

https://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/smart-battery-shunt#pd-nav-secondimage

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet-SmartShunt-EN.pdf

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I know! I went with lithium because it's supposed to last the longest. When the motor died after 5 hours I was like "OK maybe this is just a fluke" but then next time out it died after 4 hours. Talk about bummer when you're geeked to go out for a day of fishing and it's cut short.

No battery monitor on the Dakota. I have their 8 amp charger, which should charge the 63Ah battery in <8 hours.

The manual recommends 8 gauge wire over the distance I'm running the cable. I think over 25' of cable and it recommends 6 gauge.

Last night I ordered all new cables, and a new receptacle and circuit breaker. Going to re-install everything and see if that fixes it? I read it's possible there's a short somewhere but I feel like it's pretty hard to screw up the wiring install on a trolling motor... red to red, black to black, done.

What was the outcome ?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

@FSH 210 Sport

Do you have a diagram of the wiring for you smart shunt? I am preparing to install 2-12v dakota batteries for a 24 volt system with the quick disconnect and was curious where I would add that. Before the breaker or after? Finally able to find a motor and it should be here next week. Time to get prepped for the install.

How did this turn out?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I have the Dakota 36v 63AH single battery and just got to use it last weekend. I spot locked for about 4 hours and trolled for 1 hour and the ipilot link controller was showing full battery for the Dakota. Not sure if it was accurate or not, but when I got home, it only took 45 mins to fully charge with the included 8ah charger from Dakota.

Still having great success with your DL batteries?

 

[NateKurtz]

Still having great success with your DL batteries?

I’ve trolled for 8 hours non stop with trolling motor on 6.5-7.5 power setting and am usually left with 15 percent battery (according to victron app). I’ve done this 4 times this summer and am satisfied with the run time but will probably go with 100ah setup to give me a little more of a cushion. I was worried taking the battery any lower as I didn’t want to be stuck with motor deployed.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I’ve trolled for 8 hours non stop with trolling motor on 6.5-7.5 power setting and am usually left with 15 percent battery (according to victron app). I’ve done this 4 times this summer and am satisfied with the run time but will probably go with 100ah setup to give me a little more of a cushion. I was worried taking the battery any lower as I didn’t want to be stuck with motor deployed.

Thats pretty darn impressive!

Besides the % of battery life the Victron shunt shows Ah‘s & KWh’s used. Did you set the peuker effect ?

 

[NateKurtz]

Thats pretty darn impressive!

Besides the % of battery life the Victron shunt shows Ah‘s & KWh’s used. Did you set the peuker effect ?

I’m not home to connect to battery to check history but I remember seeing 52 and 53 amps used during those trips. I’m definitely impressed with performance as I was able to maintain 2-2.5 mph on Lake Erie for that extended time. I may just use boat motors for thrust and trolling motor for steering for an hour or two and then strictly run on trolling motor to give me a little more piece of mind at the end of the day. These are the settings I used:

 

[Cowboy14]

I have 2 deep cycle marine batteries mounted in the bow area right in front of the center hatch door. If you are sitting in the center seat in front of the wind shield facing forward, your feet would be above the 2 batteries. They are in battery boxes and on a NOCO charger. I noticed one was not charging. So I pulled it out and noticed that it had actually busted open and all the battery acid/fluid had leaked into the box! So needless to say, I cannot understand how it busted. Was it from rough water? Bad battery casing? Heat? It was right on one corner and it looked like had just separated or popped open. Good thing I had it in the battery box to catch all the acid. Otherwise, I might have had quite a mess and who knows how much damage. Anyone else ever seen this happen in a 2 year old battery?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

At least Dakota Lithiums support is top notch. They said without multimeter readings they won’t know if the battery is defective, but they are sending me a new charger to test that first. If I still have issues they asked that I obtain a multimeter and if it shows the battery is bad they will send me a new one.

So what ever happened with your Dakota LFP battery, short run time, a new charger and such?

 

[daaaddy27]

So what ever happened with your Dakota LFP battery, short run time, a new charger and such?

Sorry! Forgot about this thread. It was a defective charger which Dakota replaced free of charge. I can troll around my lake all day with no problems now

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Great news! Did you ever install a smart shunt?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I’ve trolled for 8 hours non stop with trolling motor on 6.5-7.5 power setting and am usually left with 15 percent battery (according to victron app). I’ve done this 4 times this summer and am satisfied with the run time but will probably go with 100ah setup to give me a little more of a cushion. I was worried taking the battery any lower as I didn’t want to be stuck with motor deployed.

Did you ever switch over to 100Ah batteries?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

As far as run time I’ve found that if I keep the trolling motor at ideally 4-5 I get a much much longer run time. If it’s running at 7-7.5 it’s pulling 20-25A and the run time is greatly reduced. So if Im running into a head wind, to keep the prop speed on the troller down I use the mains at idle to give enough thrust to keep the troller in the 4-5 range and it does all of the navigation and speed control.