New Cannon Digi-troll 5TS

[wolfman]

I hope someone can help us with some info. We used 4 old Cannon mag 10 riggers for years and never had any problems. We decided to upgrade and purchased 4 new Cannon digi-troll 5 riggers. One thing we did not think about was the power requirement of these new riggers. I was told by Cannon that only 2 riggers can be wired to a battery. We have 2 batteries and used West Marine (Seavolt) starting 650 batteries in the past and never had a power problem. I am thinking of purchasing West Marine (Seavolt) deep cycle AGM 105 batteries for extra power. Does anyone know how much more power these new riggers use compared to the old ones? Also, are the deep cycle AGM batteries worth the extra price? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Yankee Troller]

Wolfman - none of us have ran the DT5 yet, or any of the DT's. Billy V had one on his boat last summer. I too, read that you can only hook up 2 to one battery. We have gone and hooked up our 3 DT-10's to one battery. That battery being an accessory battery. We also installed a Minn Kota DC charger, which takes excess voltage from your alternator and keeps a charge on an accessory battery. Billy went this route last season and saw a great performance improvement by always having a charged battery.

I was told that there was a little less draw with the new riggers compared to the old. I will know better how/if our set-up is going to work in the next month.

[Billy V]

I ran both the DT5 and the DT10 last year and noticed no increased draw from either of the riggers as compared to the old Mag 10's & 20's we used to run. In fact we drew a lot less from those riggers while at the dock than we did with our Mag20' DT's because we were able to turn them completely off whereas the Mag20 DT pulls current whenever they're plugged in. Just to get some clarification on your questions about the actual amp draw on these riggers I've emailed the product manager at Cannon and asked him to shed some light on the subject for us. As soon as I hear back from him I'll be sure to let you know. I seem to recall hearing during the design and testing phases of the new riggers that the new motors inside them draw a little less amperage than the old ones did.

As far as the DC Alternator charger goes, we've been running the Minn Kota MK DC 2 for about 3 years now. It's a great piece of equipment that keeps our batteries fully charged all day long out on the lake. Where before we could watch the voltage drop on our fish finder over the course of the day we now stay pegged at about 13.2 volts all day long.

[wolfman]

Thanks Rick, Thanks Billy. I forgot to mention that if the water is ok, we will use our 9.9 merc kicker instead of our main motor. We never had a problem before trolling all day on our kicker and then firing up the main engine to run in on. If the new riggers don't draw much more than the old mag 10's, I think we will still be ok? We are weekend warriors, so I would like to get this resolved before we put the boat in for the year. We will not have much time to fish before the Wilson Invitational, so I would hate to spend that time working on the boat. Thanks again guys!

[Billy V]

The official word from the engineer who designed the new riggers is that they actually draw less than the old riggers did. They draw at least 2-3 amps lower then the old units with the 20 lb weight. You should be fine with your current set-up!

[wolfman]

Thanks for your time and the info Billy. I think I will still purchase the deep cycle AGM batteries from West Marine, they have to be better than the starting batteries we have been using. Thanks!