Hobie Bait Tank 6Volt Battery Question

[ghotion]

It's not Bob, it's Tom. I live in Bakersfield, take my Mini X out of Shell Beach
(part of Pismo Beach) for only a couple hours, two fish and I have dinner.
I absolutely envy you guys down south that get to fish all year. I won't get to
fish from my kayak until May 1, 2015.

Love your forum, please excuse my interuption

[Lipripper92592]

Originally Posted by ghotion

It's not Bob, it's Tom. I live in Bakersfield, take my Mini X out of Shell Beach
(part of Pismo Beach) for only a couple hours, two fish and I have dinner.
I absolutely envy you guys down south that get to fish all year. I won't get to
fish from my kayak until May 1, 2015.

Love your forum, please excuse my interuption

There is hope yet! I lived in Bako for about 30 years. Nothing that pulls like WSB or YT, but the duct produces some Pig stripers year round. I've biked/fished about every wet spot in that town and it's surroundings. Always something new to find on the west end of the river, the turnouts, the siphons, the gates. It always ticked me off to find pig Large mouth bass, stripers and cats, drying away in the sun, when they cut the river off.

[Fomen]

So here's my $.02 on this. I poise a question. Why would Hobie use a 500 gph bait pump designed to run with 12 VDC, and run it off of a 6 volt battery? I already know the answer, and I'm not really asking the question. By running the pump with 6 VDC, it restricts the water flow. It's an alternative to running the pump the way it was designed and using a ball valve to restrict the flow. Now using an electrical component under it's suggested voltage rating won't hurt it. If you were pushing more than 12 VDC (say 14-16 VDC) you would fry it. Also, an electrical component is only going to pull the amperage it needs. That's why you can hook the same bait pump up to a deep cycle SLA cranking battery on a boat, and it still works without frying.

I my opinion, this is lame! The battery compartment on the bait tank is designed around the dimensions of the inadequate battery. The overboard discharge tube in the bait tank is adjustable to accommodate variables in water flow. It could easily keep up with the 12 volt battery running the pump at full bore. I've searched high and low for a 12 volt battery with the same dimensions and amp hours, but to no avail. But then again, the battery compartment isn't water tight anyways. If you roll your kayak, it's going to get wet (even with the designed configuration from Hobie). If you wanted to use a larger 12 volt battery, then remove the protective cover from the bait tank, and strap it straight down. You're out there to fish- not win a fashion show. Who cares if it doesn't look as aesthetically pleasing as the designed configuration.

As far as waterproofing splice connections- if the marine grade butt splices are utilized properly; not only are they impervious to water penetration, they will last forever. The key is what you use to shrink them down. NEVER, EVER, EVER use a lighter or a butane torch. They get too hot, too fast. And they heat the splice unevenly. They also have a tendency to scorch and ruin the material. ALWAYS use a heat gun. Harbor Freight sells a heat gun that is AWESOME! http://www.harborfreight.com/1500-wa...160-69343.html This heat gun has 12 different settings so you can heat shrink the small delicate stuff all the way up to the high voltage electrical heat shrink. If using the marine grade heat shrink butt splices, heat them until you see the inside of the butt splice start to liquefy and adhere to wire. Make sure your stripped wire end is long enough to bottom out to the center of the butt splice, but short enough that there's not a shiner hanging out of the butt splice. It's VERY easy to find the proper length. Tightly trist the stranded wire together before crimping. And use a proper crimping tool. Make sure it's designed to be used with insulated cripms. If you perforate the shrink material on the butt splice, you've defeated the whole purpose of what you're doing. ESPECIALLY inside of the bait tank. You have salt water sloshing around the whole time, and when you mix salt water with DC current, it creates massive electrolysis on the wire. This accelerated corrosion. Copper corrodes at a molecular level. That's why when your components stop working, and you strip back the wire, you see that red dust come off of the copper wire. That's the copper equivalent of rust. Just replace the whole length of wire at that point. As far as you start to trim it back, you're going to find that red crap inside.

Anyways, enough of my rant about that. The point I'm trying to make is Hobie is lame for designing the bait tank around a 6 VDC battery and using a 12 VDC bait pump. Like I said, just my $.02 though.

[Iceman]

The 500GPH pump running on 12 volt would be great if your tank was 15-20 gallons, not sure why you think the tank needs more flow, also I'd recommend using marine grade stainless wire, not copper. What exactly do you find to be "lame"? The run time? the amount of water flowing?

[makobob]

That pump running on 12 vdc KILLS our BAIT. Running on 6 vdc the bait is fine and the pump lasts twice as long.

[Harry Hill]

Originally Posted by ghotion

It's not Bob, it's Tom. I live in Bakersfield, take my Mini X out of Shell Beach
(part of Pismo Beach) for only a couple hours, two fish and I have dinner.
I absolutely envy you guys down south that get to fish all year. I won't get to
fish from my kayak until May 1, 2015.

Love your forum, please excuse my interuption

have you fished Morro Bay? I hear you can get halibut in the bay.

[PescadorPete]

Here is a little history on a rather elegant and somewhat serendipitous engineering solution.

Before "fishing kayaks", off the shelf bling, slap down a credit card and go fishing, it was roll your own. So we would get a bilge pump, connect it to a cooler or vittles bin, hook up a 12 V battery and go fishing. After all, the pump was "rated" at 12 V. But the battery didn't last too long and the pump flow beat up the bait.

So some of us tried a resistor to knock down the flow and increase battery life and it worked but not too efficient.

Then some of us built PWMs that really controlled the flow and increased the battery life. On/off timer switches did more or less the same thing.

Then someone came up with the bright idea to try a 6 volt battery. Lo and behold, the bait tank flow was good, the battery life was greater than 2x the 12V and no electronics to mess up. A rather simple and elegant engineering solution which I would not characterize as lame.

Hobie didn't come up with this but I'm sure they saw what was posted here and on other boards on 6V batteries and decided to go that route. I run a 6V battery on my Hobie tank is it works just as well and just as long as my 12V PWM bait tank with less chance of failure.