Take care of high-end batteries with these inserts
I have always been the guy who bought mid-priced marine batteries to save some money. And, to be honest, I’ve not had a lot of problems with them, even though my cranking was part of my 36-volt system powering my trolling motor.
But I recently bought a new Mercury Optimax, and I heard those motors needed some real kick to crank.
So I decided to step up to the blue-top Optima batteries I’ve heard such great things about over the past few years.
The only problem (other than selling the cost to my wife) was that the batteries aren’t square. Instead, each cell is rounded on the bottom, and that means they don’t really fit standard battery trays.
I was going to just secure them as well as possible, but as I was talking to Devin Sherman at Front to Back Boat Service in Baton Rouge, he told me about trays made specifically for Optimas.
The trays, made by T-H Marine, come with special inserts that fit around the rounded bottoms to securely hold the batteries in place.
Now, I don’t have to worry about those $300 batteries sliding around as I pound across the waters. And that, hopefully, means they’ll last me for years.
And the best part is the trays are pretty inexpensive, going for less than $30 each. That’s a small price to safeguard your investment.
