Garmin UHD 73SV Ice Kit 7ah Runtime

[RStock521]

So I just got a new Garmin UHD 73SV for the boat and bought the ice kit that came with the 7ah battery.  My question is, what kind of real-life runtimes are you guys seeing with the 7ah battery?  I have a 9ah battery that I have in my Lowrance Elite 5HDI ice kit, and I've never ran it dead.  I was thinking of swapping the 9ah from that kit with the 7ah from the Garmin kit, but the 9ah is 4 or so years old, so I'm worried about the capacity being degraded being a few years old and I really don't know how to test the true capacity.  Would you run the newer 7ah, or the older 9ah?  Eventually I'm going to get the Energized 12ah LifePo4 and not worry about it, but budget constraints have moved that down the list a little bit for now.  Thanks!

[jbird68]

Here is a chart from the Amped Outdoors website. Might get you a close estimate.


https://ampedoutdoors.com/pages/garmin%C2%AE

[Iceicemike]

You running just the graph? Or with....?

[RStock521]

You running just the graph? Or with....?

I'd be running just the graph.  I just bought the Marcum Brute though, so I don't have to worry about it.

[badger132]

I have your exact setup. I can fish from dawn to dusk and never ran out, but I don't know how far it would go past that. I always charge overnight.

[RStock521]

I have your exact setup. I can fish from dawn to dusk and never ran out, but I don't know how far it would go past that. I always charge overnight.

Thanks badger, good to know.  That's about all I'd ask of it.  I'll keep the 7ah as a backup for overnight trips.

[kpd145]

I run a 10ah on my Garmin, I have split zoom and GPS on screen,

I can get a trip and a half out of my battery.

My unit I believe draws .7 amps an hour so I usually figure about 10hr run time.

Your mileage may vary with screen brightness, if I am hole hopping outside, it goes faster because the screen is brighter, if I am in my hub, my screen can be set lower so I get ALOT more run time. I also set my background to all black to help conserve battery too,

[RStock521]

Great, thanks KPD.

[chumster]

I have the 30 amp and can fish three trips of around 8 hours before I need to recharge and that’s using my pan optics.

[jbird68]

Using a dark themed color pattern will help increase your run-time. I'm using the maroon color pallet with my unit set to night mode. If you use maroon in day mode it will have a white background which draws more power to produce. I use this in flasher mode as well as when using panoptix.

[badger132]

Using a dark themed color pattern will help increase your run-time. I'm using the maroon color pallet with my unit set to night mode. If you use maroon in day mode it will have a white background which draws more power to produce. I use this in flasher mode as well as when using panoptix.

Have you made measurements of the power draw? I always assumed these displays were LED, and those work by having a uniform backlight and shuttering the light with the individual pixels. OLED displays are pretty new, only the latest phones have them, and each pixel emits light. Those save a lot of power in dark mode. My experience is that the level of backlight is very important to power draw, but choosing a color scheme that allows you to see enough contrast with a lower backlight setting could help too.

[jbird68]

Have you made measurements of the power draw? I always assumed these displays were LED, and those work by having a uniform backlight and shuttering the light with the individual pixels. OLED displays are pretty new, only the latest phones have them, and each pixel emits light. Those save a lot of power in dark mode. My experience is that the level of backlight is very important to power draw, but choosing a color scheme that allows you to see enough contrast with a lower backlight setting could help too.

I did not measure the amount of draw between a white background compared to a black background. With the maroon pallet in dark mode there is plenty of contrast. And the harder returns are a deep red. Softer returns are yellow to light blue. Very easy to see and not blinding like white. The humminbird helix units use a black background. I was trying to find one that was similar to those. This works for me.