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Trolling Motror wiring HELP!!!!


castmaster

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Installed some new batteries this spring, hooked up the trolling motor, nothing. Used a multimeter to test and it says there is 25.6 volts going through the plug. Rewired to plug and still nothing. Cut the plug off on trolling motor side of connections, plug into outlet on boat, 25.6 volts.

Hooked up the spare motor, nothing. Went through all the same stuff, checking this and that, multimeter says it has power through every step up to the motor. But I get nothing.

Went and bought a brand new motor from Cabelas, all the same stuff happened. Took that motor to Motor Clinic and it powered on for him.

Anyone have any suggestions for what else I can try on my end to figure this out. I'm not the best with electrical stuff, but if it has power every step of the way up to themotor, and the motor works, why wont it work for me?

My boat is a Lund Pro-V and has the 12/24 volt wiring system, it has an internal jumper somewhere in one of the plugs(I think its in the male one that wires to trolling motor wires) & there is a positive and negative wire from each battery running to the female receptacle at the bow, which is a 4 prong outlet. The male plug that wires to the trolling motor has 4 holes and 3 wires, red/orange/black. When I plug that into the receptacle I have 12.8 volts when touching positive lead to red wire and negative to black wire. I have 25.6 volts when touching positive lead to orange wire and negative lead to black wire. I wired plug with orange to positive wire on trolling motor, black to negative on trolling motor. Cut that plug off on trolling motor wire side(so before cutting those wires were from the trolling motor), plug it in, 25.6 volts when touching positive lead to red, negative lead to black.

If it has power all the way through what else can I try? I'm ready to rip my hair out!!!!

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When I took it in they used my foot pedal, so I know that works as well.

The female receptacle does not have 25 + volts to any combination of prongs. It has 4 wires going into it, a positive and negative from each battery. So when I touch those respective posts I get a reading of 12.8 volts. Its only after plugging the male plug(that wires onto trolling motor wires) that I get 25.6 volts. That male plug has 4 holes that accept the 4 posts in the female plug, and then 3 wires coming out for wiring to the trolling motor, a red, a orange and a black wire. When touching the orange wire with the positive lead on my multi meter, and the negative lead to the black wire it reads 25.6 volts. When I cut it off after having it wired to the motor I cut it off on the trolling motor side of those connections so I could check to make sure I didnt make a bad connection when I attached it, still had 25.6 volts. When touching the positive lead to the red wire and negative lead to black wire it reads 12.8 volts. So to wire a 12 volt motor to the system one would wire to the red and the black, a 24 volt system needs to be wired to the orange and hte black, which is how I have it.

I am assuming the internal jumper is inside the male plug that gets wired to the trolling motor as its only after plugging that in that I get 24+ volts. Is it possible that jumper allows the volts through, but stops working in some way once there is an amp draw from the motor trying to power on? Its the only thing left I can possibly come up with. Motor will work when hot wired direct, so it has to be something in the plug system on one side or the other. Just baffles me when I get the proper volt reading at each point up to the motor.

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To summarize; when you connect to the orange and black wire on the male side of the trolling motor plug... you get 24 volts, right?

How did they connect your trolling motor to test it? The same connections you make when you re-connect the plug?

marine_man

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Yes I get 24 volts when connecting the orange and he black wires.

When the guy tested it he had some contraption made up wehre he could send power directly into each hole. He marked the 2 holes he had powered to get the motor running. It appears those 2 holes should match up with the orange wire and the black wire. When I plug the plug in it says I have 25.6 volts at the end of those wires, so from my limited understanding of electricity, that would mean there is 25.6 volts getting to the motor.

I didnt wire it direct to my batteries. They are brand new AGM's from Cabelas. If there was a bad cell would both batteries still test out at the proper volts? Each tests at 12.8 volts on teh multimeter.

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There isnt a battery test button on any of the motors. It has to be something in one of the plugs that has it showing 12.8 volts from each battery and 25.6 volts through the jumpered plug, but that when the motor actually tries to draw current through it it fails.

Cut and bypassed all circuit breakers to eliminate them as a problem, then unhooked all connections from the onboard charger to eliminate that. So at that point it was nothing but the wires from the plug to the battery, still nothing. Pull all connections, remove batteries from the boat and run motors direct, all 3 work fine.

I am going to just get rid of this 12/24 volt set up with the jumpered plug and go with a straight 24 volt set up. Can I use the existing 10 gauge wire to run the 24 volts set up or does it need to be 6 or 8 gauge wire?

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You should be just fine with the 10 Gauge Wire.

Have you tried another plug? I suppose it's possible that there's a bad connection on the jumper that will output 24 Volts when you measure it, but doesn't have the current carrying capacity it should...

marine_man

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I went and got a new plug yesterday and had the old one tested, the jumper was bad in it. Tried the new plug and still had nothing.

Just baffles me. On the bright side look like both my Pinpoint motors still work, so I can return the new motor to Cabelas and save that $$.

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Well, I can't explain it... I suppose it could be a break in the wire or a bad connection on the backside of the female plug, or something along those lines.

But, if it were me, and given the time it's taken and hassle you've had, I'd be tempted to do as you proposed and make the series connection at your batteries and run with it that way.

marine_man

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Marine Man,

Yeah I went ahead and puilled all the wire out and rewired with 6ga. When with a Marinco plug/receptacle instead of the molded RigRite plugs/receptacle. Everything works well now and hopefully have eliminated the potential for this problem occurring again.

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