Dakota lithium battery / Aqua-vu, How to charge?

Hello All,

Just wondering if anyone has replaced the battery in their Aqua-vu camera with a Dakota lithium battery? And if so how / what are you charging it with?

I know the Dakota batteries require a special charger and charging with a traditional lead acid charger can damage the battery over time, however on Dakotas website there’s a video of them testing the run time of the HD7i with a lithium vs. a traditional SLA battery and the guy performing the test says “both cameras were charged with the Aqua-vu charger.” I don’t want to spend the cash on the Dakota battery and end up killing it prematurely.

Ya, you need the correct lithium ion battery charger. I just bought 2 of the batteries and a charger. The charger was about $25.00.

Cheers

I have bought two dakota lithium batteries (23ah and a 54ah) and each one shipped with a charger for that battery. Great batteries. I run my Garmin livescope in a summitt shuttle bag and added a switch panel that has two usb charging ports that I can chare my cell phone or run my aqua vu if its battery dies later in the day. The dakota 23ah runs them all day even in single digit cold.

Yeah I was hoping to be able to charge the aqua-vu without having to taking the Dakota battery out of the camera , sounds like I may just have to put another SLA battery in the camera and use the Dakota battery to power the camera externally when the SLA battery dies. My HD7i is only 1 year old and I’m only getting about 4 hours of run time from the SLA battery it came with now .

I got the same camera and get about 6 hours or better out of a charge, I also was going to replace the existing battery with a lithium and was going to charge it with the Aqua view charger, guess I shouldn’t
Called Aqua yesterday and they are sending me a new charger with the cigarette lighter attachment free of charge, great customer service

I just bought an aftermarket lifePO4 charger. https://www.amazon.ca/NOCO-GENIUS2-Fully-Au...ref_=ast_sto_dp

Comes with alligator clips, you can charge any battery including the Dakota, you could cut your current charger and leave it as a pig tail to put the alligator clips on, or wire it to the Dakota charger for 25$ instead of getting a fancier one like I listed.

i used a male plug end I think its a 5 or 6mm from an old router power adaptor, just expose the wires and banana clip the Dakota charger to the wires and you can safely charge without opening the battery compartment.

dont use the charge adaptor that came with the Auavu if it had a SLA battery originally the Dakota and Marcum Brute LiFePO4 lithium batteries require a charger that can balance charge the cells, i did the same swap on my Aqua vu and you will love how long that battery lasts, if you need more time on ice you can also power the unit with the same female charge port and a M18 or M12 battery, i ordered some male to male cables off amazon but i have not needed the extra power after i installed a 10ah lithium but its a nice option to have if i ever decide to do a weekend trip.

Where is best place to buy battery and chargers?

Thanks for responses everyone. I think I have the “work around” figured out now so I will be able to charge the Dakota battery without having to remove it from the Aqua-vu camera. 1st the alligator clips from the Dakota charger will be removed and a SAE connector attached in there place and then I have a “SAE to DC” connector coming from amazon so I can plug it into the cameras existing charging port. Here are some pictures of the connectors in case anyone else is thinking of doing it too.

The SAE connector that will replace the gator clips

The SAE to DC connector that will plug into the camera

I know your can get the Dakota Batteries and chargers from Cabelas and I heard there’s a store in the Vaughan mills area that sells them too

Those are the connectors that I use as well duke but on my fish finder shuttle they work well.

I changed my battery in my 715c to the Dakota lithium, I just use the plug in front that I normally used to charge...now according to Aquavu themselves, that’ll work just fine, however it might/will take a little longer to charge the lithium battery. Also, I noticed now that my battery power indicator is always on 3 bars now, even after using it all day.