Marcum batteries

[Chris338378]

My friend asked me how long he could expect to get out of the battery that came with his Marcum flasher, it's a 12 volt 9 amp.  I told him that I'm not sure but it depends on how you take care of it, namely charge it at least once a month, let it warm up before you charge it when you use it during the season, don't leave it on the charger all the time, and charge it up after you use it.  Other than that I don't know the answer.  Then he told me that when he use to charge it during the off season once a month but last year he forgot about doing it and the battery is four years old.  I don't have a meter to test it and it lasts him a full day but he has to charge it after he uses it every day or it'll die around mid day on the second day.  I think the battery is on the way out and he'll be buying a battery for next season, what do you guys think? 

[Kevin23]

All models have different current draws. In the manual it states the draw. Vx1p is 250mah, i know because i looked that one up for a friend yesterday. For a brand new battery figure 20% loss due to cold. That comes out to roughly 28 hours of use. My vx1p would run all day and be at 80% charge when i plugged it in.

[3300]

you can get free digital mutli testers from harbor freight if you get on their emailing list with coupons. otherwise it's 6$.
 some say they get many years out of them. i would say 4 to 5 is average for me. a jeep i was just working on said to replace the battery every 4 years and it uses an agm (auto glass mat) battery.

marcums web site talks about how many problems with marcum sonars sent in that had nothing wrong with them and just had a bad battery. batteries at amazon are only 17$ to 22$

12 volt appliances are not meant to be be ran at under 12 volts. automotive applications use 14 volts from the charger and will run on 12 volts also. running some thing well below 12 volts is called a brown out and is not good for the appliance. any sonar manual i have read says to always recharge your battery when you get home. they don't want to see how long you can go before it needs to be recharged. i take at least one extra battery with me for lighting and it can be used in the sonar instead. a cheap ammo box and an extra battery is not expensive.
if he has a digital lx series marcum, then the back ground lights use the most energy just like smart phones and tablets do. some get 8 hours and some get more than 12 hours. we have talked about that in another thread here on how to set up your lx7 on page 2.
i would think the motor driven flashers would use less energy being it has no display or light engine.