Irratic AutoPilot Steering

[rocstar]

I just bought a used boat with a 2000 24-volt Minkota Bow Mount with AutoPilot. I just installed the CoPilot and everything works fine except in the AutoPilot mode every once in awhile the thing goes nuts and starts spinning in circles. I have experienced this before on an older model but I found it was due to poor battery connections or low power. Not the case with this new one. The motor is also mounted about as vertical as you can get. Has anyone else experienced this problem and come across a fix?

[stick]

I'm interested in hearing the response as I have the same issue. I think it's a controller board and not that difficult of a fix, but I'm interested in seeing what others say.

[kg2]

The most common reason for this is low voltage situations. rocstar, do you find that this usually happens later in the day of fishing? You do charge your batteries after every trip, correct? Could the batteries be getting a little weak? Is the charger bringing the batteries back up to snuff?

Do you have a plug on the trolling motor? Is the plug soldered to the power wire? Any corrosion on the boat side plug?

[rocstar]

Batteries brand new with full charge. The boat is a Crestliner Fish Hawk with a built in trolling motor plug on the bow. With an onboard charger, I purposly asked the seller to hook up the batteries to make sure they were right. Now you got me wondering. I will pull the trolling motor head off tonight to check voltage at the head itself. I am wondering if it is properly wired for 24-volt.

I had heard of a guy who had the same problem and had to replace a chip in the control board but I am not about to do that just yet. A little more investigation first. Thanks for all comments.

[Surface Tension]

Love the AP and wouldn't be without it, but the reliability leaves me weak.

The above suggestions could be the cause. After you've eliminated those. The compass/ board could be the problem also. I've seen exact symptoms before. Works fine then out of the blue turns in circles.

Two choices, have the compass re-calibrated or have it replaced which could be an updated compass from what you have now.

Best to bring it in to an authorized service center and have them look at it.

To help avoid problems.

The power cord should be unplugged when not in use.

Running some electrical devices below the intended voltage can ruin them.

Clean connections regularly.

Don't run you motor with a drained battery.

[fishlips]

I've heard the same complaint from others....I think its a design issue.

[BoxMN]

We have had that problem in the past, and our V1 autopilot (74#, 24V) just started doing it this past weekend. PITA. Like SF said, love the Autopilot, but hate when it doesn't work.

WE found our issue - one of the leads going from charger to battery was badly corroded. It was only putting out minute charge. We found using voltmeter. We just put on new fuse/holder and lead/connection and now putting out the full charge, matching the other. So what was happening to ours, was we only had one charged battery, leading to the result of what was said above.

Have not tried it yet, just fixed it yesterday, but I am sure that was the problem, as now the lights on the charger are lit up properly as well. Good luck!

[rocstar]

I checked the voltage at the power head and it is 25.4 volts so that looks good. Will check the rest of the connections and put some dialectric grease on them as well but I am guessing this is not the problem.

I too can't imagine fishing without the AutoPilot. When working it is great. I am a do-it-yourself kind of guy and looking for more technical support or diagnostic suggestions. Thanks to all.

[BoxMN]

One other thing is to take the head apart and make sure the compass/board screws are tight. That happened to one of our older models, and after tightening them down and using a support (RAM) to keep the head from bouncing, it has helped a ton. Good luck.

Yep, I was swearing quite a bit without AP this weekend in the wind... arghhhhh.

Edit - BTW we too have had these apart, and even checked voltage all over before last weekend. The connections we assumed were good, becasue the other one had the low voltage at the time, was the culprit. We mistakenly just didn't check each side close enough. So while we ain't experts for sure, don't forget the easy stuff, I would not have sworm so much had I looked closer last Thursday, haha! Good luck!

[rocstar]

Well I have checked and cleaned every electrical connection I can find from the batteries to the control board in the head but have not been back on the water yet. Seems to work OK in the driveway but only on the water will tell. One thing I noticed is that the compass rotating in the head does not take much out-of-plumb to get hung up. I know Minnkota says the motor needs to be mounted within 5 degrees of vertical but my guess is this requirement needs to be a lot tighter than 5 degrees unless there is something wrong or defective with my compass.

For the heck of it I bought one of those little 2" square bubble levels and glued it on the base of the motor with silicone to see what it reads on the water. This might be the issue. I will next contact Minnkota technical support directly to see if they have had issues with the older motors and if an upgrade to the compass has been made. If not, this is something I would suggest.

[Crow Hunter]

Mine is doing the same thing... A buddy had the same issue and he had to take his in and get a chip replaced. I will have to take mine in too, I suppose.

[PeteA34]

I had the same thing happen to my autopilot.....it turned out it was the power head and it cost me about 150 to replace it. The guy at the shop told me that trailering with it mounted on the bow is what takes this out. It does seem to bounce around, but take it for what its worth. I have them repair it at the Bloomington shop and its good as new.

[rocstar]

Well I got my Auto Pilot fixed (I hope). Had to take it in to a Minnkota repair shop. When I dropped it off, I am sure they already knew what was wrong with it as the gal said they had four others in with the same problem. Electronics are great when they work. Unfortunately they can be very suseptable to corrosion, dirt, vibration and voltage swings.

They first checked for shorts - none noted. Checked compass calibration - Pin [email protected] volts and [email protected] volts (high)- Should be 1 volt +/- 0.25. Bad compass. They then replaced the compass and compass control board which comes as one unit and costs $120. Total repair price with parts, tax and labor: $192 (Dey Distributing - Duluth,MN) Hands free control when I turn it into the wind with the big lunker on: Priceless. Hope it lasts another 10 years. Pike

[BoxMN]

You know, after all I mentioned above, we still had some issues with ours. I ended up bring it to Fishlectronics, and they found the board on our compass was bad as well. It cost $170 total for our model. Haven't used it again yet, but they say it should be good to go again I think 6 month warranty. Our motor is a 2004 model 74#. You are right, htey are great when the work, and just make you swear when they don't

At least now we know our connections and batts and the motor are in top shape... ha!

[Northlander]

Well I got my Auto Pilot fixed (I hope). Had to take it in to a Minnkota repair shop. When I dropped it off, I am sure they already knew what was wrong with it as the gal said they had four others in with the same problem. Electronics are great when they work. Unfortunately they can be very suseptable to corrosion, dirt, vibration and voltage swings.

They first checked for shorts - none noted. Checked compass calibration - Pin [email protected] volts and [email protected] volts (high)- Should be 1 volt +/- 0.25. Bad compass. They then replaced the compass and compass control board which comes as one unit and costs $120. Total repair price with parts, tax and labor: $192 (Dey Distributing - Duluth,MN) Hands free control when I turn it into the wind with the big lunker on: Priceless. Hope it lasts another 10 years. Pike

The crew at Dey is honest and do great work. Thats where I and many I know take our stuff if we need to.

[Muskiebait]

Best way to keep it from bouncing around and throwing the compass and board out of whack is to use a ram mount lock that thing down when trailering it and also when crossing the choppy water... a ram mount can save a lot of future headaches...

[rocstar]

I agree with all and have to say Dey Distributing is a great bunch. I operate my bow mount with the CoPilot but took my foot controler in at the same time, although I have not even used it once. They checked the foot controler out without my asking and found a bad connection in that too. Fix was free.