LiTime 12V 100Ah Group 24: A Marine Battery That Actually Does Both Jobs — Gadget Flow

If you’ve spent any time round outboards and marine electrical techniques, you already know the usual recommendation: preserve your beginning battery and your own home battery separate. Picture a bass angler working a livewell pump, a chartplotter, and an aerator all day on match apply, or an offshore crew with two fish finders and outrigger electronics working from first gentle to the trip residence. Push both of these exhausting sufficient, and a mixed battery setup can go away you with out sufficient reserve to crank the engine again on the ramp. That’s not an previous wives’ story; it’s an actual failure mode, and it’s why most rigging guides nonetheless inform you to run two banks.

The LiTime 12V 100Ah Group 24 Dual Purpose Marine Battery is likely one of the extra credible makes an attempt I’ve seen at fixing that drawback on the battery stage as an alternative of simply including a second one, and it’s price strolling by way of why. If you want to buy, you should utilize the low cost code Gadget10 to get pleasure from 10% off.

The spec that issues first: what it’s truly constructed for

This is a 900 CCA / 1000 MCA marine beginning battery constructed on a 100Ah deep-cycle LiFePO4 pack, in a regular Group 24 case, with compatibility listed for frequent outboard manufacturers (Mercury, Honda, Suzuki, Evinrude, Tohatsu). It’s additionally rated ABYC E-13 compliant, which issues greater than it sounds: that’s the marine electrical security normal a surveyor or insurer truly checks for, not a quantity a producer invents for the itemizing.

Cold cranking, rated the place it truly will get examined

Most batteries on this class quote CCA at 32°F, a comparatively straightforward bar. LiTime charges this one at 900 CCA at 14°F, the form of quantity meaning one thing on a pre-dawn launch for a spring walleye opener, a late-fall striper run on a ship that’s been sitting in an unheated marina because the final journey, or an early-season bass match the place the dock continues to be frosted at blast-off. Add 5000+ cranking and 4000+ deep cycles, and this isn’t a battery banking on beginning your engine reliably as soon as; it’s rated to maintain doing it each a type of chilly mornings for years. Most lead-acid Group 24 starters don’t publish a cycle rely in any respect, as a result of they have been by no means designed to be cycled that tough within the first place.

The 15% reserve, and why it’s the quantity I’d truly verify

Think of a flats information working a trolling motor on spot-lock by way of a full morning of sight-fishing, then needing the engine to fireside immediately to make the subsequent spot earlier than the tide turns. Or a kayak angler who’s had the fish finder and a cellphone charger working for six hours and nonetheless wants sufficient left to get an outboard-equipped skiff again throughout open water earlier than the wind picks up. LiTime’s Smart Power Reserve locks 15% of capability away particularly for cranking, irrespective of how a lot the electronics have pulled down the remainder. That’s the mechanism, not simply the advertising and marketing declare.

One caveat price flagging for anybody rigging a bigger outboard: LiTime doesn’t publish precisely how that 15% interprets towards a much bigger engine’s particular cranking draw. Match it towards your individual outboard’s beginning necessities earlier than assuming it covers each setup.

IP67, and what that protects towards on the water

Anyone who has ever piloted a center-dash boat on tough, offshore waters, or navigated a flat-bottomed dinghy towards the wind and present throughout a bay, is aware of how waterlogged the battery compartment can change into on the finish of the day. This battery incorporates a waterproof and dustproof design with an IP67 safety ranking, making it appropriate for marine and out of doors environments. 

Weight, the place it truly exhibits up

Group 24 is a regular footprint(L10.24*W 6.61*H 8.27 in, 22.71 lbs), so this drops into the identical slot a lead-acid battery of that class would use, at as much as 82% much less weight and about 64% much less quantity for a similar rated output. A kayak or small skiff angler feels that pulling the battery out solo for winter storage as an alternative of needing a second set of palms for a clumsy hatch. A match angler towing to a special lake each weekend feels it in much less useless weight sitting low and aft.

Cold-weather charging, and the half price setting expectations on

Standard LiFePO4 batteries received’t cost beneath freezing, interval. LiTime’s LiHeat system will get round it: With 10A heating efficiency, the battery can warmth for about 30–60 minutes at 32°F / 0°C and 70–100 minutes at -4°F / -20°C, then resume charging as soon as it reaches 50°F / 10°C. Think of a steelhead journey in late November the place the boat comes off the trailer with frost nonetheless on the deck. It’s not on the spot, but it surely’s an actual resolution for anybody working a ship by way of a real winter. On the discharge aspect, it’s rated to maintain supplying energy all the way down to -4°F, so it might probably nonetheless run electronics on that very same chilly morning even earlier than it’s heat sufficient to cost. Learn extra in regards to the Litime self-heating lithium battery system.

Monitoring that’s helpful, and a element price watching

Real-time SOC, voltage, present, temperature, and discharge standing over Bluetooth issues most on a protracted offshore day, checking the app between trolling passes as an alternative of guessing off a needle gauge, or confirming all the pieces’s stable earlier than a multi-day journey the place the boat sits unattended in a single day. OTA firmware updates are the extra attention-grabbing half, which means the BMS isn’t locked in at buy, an actual benefit on a battery rated for a 10-year service life, although its long-term worth depends upon LiTime truly transport updates down the road.

Where it suits in an precise fleet

Still the precise name for a full-size offshore boat working two banks and a severe electronics package deal. But for a kayak or paddleboard-adjacent skiff, a single-outboard bass or bay boat that doesn’t wish to hand over storage to a second nicely, or a weekend runabout the place one succesful battery beats managing two half-measures, this closes an actual hole.

If you’re the form of boater who’s rigged across the two-battery rule for years just because that’s the usual, this can be a respectable cause to rethink it. Marine battery techniques constructed round this type of reserve logic, paired with Self-Heating Lithium Battery tech for cold-weather months, are a real step previous the previous two-bank default.

Madhurima Nag is the Head of Content at Gadget Flow. She side-hustles as a parenting and STEM influencer and likes to voice her opinion on product advertising and marketing, innovation and devices (after all!) basically.