12/24 volt troubleshooting

[meathunter]

Hey guys sorry I know this has been addressed in the past but here it goes no matter what i do in my boat I cannot get my 2 trolling motor batteries to draw even. I have a alumacraft and hook up the red and black to one and the orange and funny black to the other both from transom and bow. I have a 24 v terrova and a 24 v vantage 2 new cabelas agm 27 batts a 2 bank minnkota charger and i believe that both trolling motors are jumpered in the plug. I can run all day without problems however when i plug in charger says one is chargeing other is full checked with meter and one is empty the other is charged. This has been going on for some time i rotate batteries every year but its bothering me any thoughts? Is one battery supposed to drain out first then the other kicks in? Help please

[Surface Tension]

Here is a 12/24 volt receptacle and plug.

Question, is your trolling motor 12/24 volt or just 24 volt?

[CaptainMusky]

Hey guys sorry I know this has been addressed in the past but here it goes no matter what i do in my boat I cannot get my 2 trolling motor batteries to draw even. I have a alumacraft and hook up the red and black to one and the orange and funny black to the other both from transom and bow. I have a 24 v terrova and a 24 v vantage 2 new cabelas agm 27 batts a 2 bank minnkota charger and i believe that both trolling motors are jumpered in the plug. I can run all day without problems however when i plug in charger says one is chargeing other is full checked with meter and one is empty the other is charged. This has been going on for some time i rotate batteries every year but its bothering me any thoughts? Is one battery supposed to drain out first then the other kicks in? Help please

You should check the wiring inside the plug. I am wondering if it is wired for 12 or 24. The determination is done by how the wires are put into the plug, which terminals they are connected to.

Did you buy the boat new? I wonder if a previous owner may have only had 12 volt motors.

I have an alumacraft as well and its pretty slick that is all prewired for 24 volt, but you have to do the business inside the plug to get it to work 24 volt. Oh, and those dang plugs are known to go bad. Its possible its wired correctly and one side shorted out. I had that happen to me. Only had 14 volts with both batteries hooked up. Looked inside and one side shorted out.

MAKE SURE THE CONNECTIONS ARE TIGHT inside that plug. Thats what caused my problem. I bet your issue is inside that plug, either its shorted out or not wired correctly.

[CaptainMusky]

Meathunter, does your plug look like this one?

[delcecchi]

Hey guys sorry I know this has been addressed in the past but here it goes no matter what i do in my boat I cannot get my 2 trolling motor batteries to draw even. I have a alumacraft and hook up the red and black to one and the orange and funny black to the other both from transom and bow. I have a 24 v terrova and a 24 v vantage 2 new cabelas agm 27 batts a 2 bank minnkota charger and i believe that both trolling motors are jumpered in the plug. I can run all day without problems however when i plug in charger says one is chargeing other is full checked with meter and one is empty the other is charged. This has been going on for some time i rotate batteries every year but its bothering me any thoughts? Is one battery supposed to drain out first then the other kicks in? Help please

No, if they are correctly wired the draw from each should be the same. On the other hand, a 24 volt terrova running on 12 volts will be way down really way down on power with only 12 volts hooked up to it. How fast does it go at WOT on the Terrova, and how big a boat? My 1775 with 80 lb terrova with go (from memory) between 2.5 and 3 mph at least. I rarely run it over about 4 when running a shoreline or weedbed casting.

[meathunter]

Yes captian musky my plug looks like that and i have a 19.5ft and it will troll over 2mph with terrova and has plenty power on the vantage wide open... i have yet to drain it down to unusable and i dark to dark from time to time...was told it was jumpered in the plug by a minnkota service tech...both trolling motors are 24v think 80lbs thanks for all the info if you know anything more please chime in!

[CaptainMusky]

They are jumpered in the plug, but I bet you dollars to donuts its shorted out OR not wired properly. Take the plug apart and look at it. Better yet, before you go there take a volt meter and take a reading across the receptacle. You should get at least 24 volts. If you do, then check the plug, take it apart and look at the connections inside.

[DANR]

+1 on the plug. On mine, the jumper was a flat bar in the plug. One screw wasn't tightened down properly when it was installed and eventually arced enough that I only had 12 volts.

[Whoaru99]

Yes captian musky my plug looks like that and i have a 19.5ft and it will troll over 2mph with terrova and has plenty power on the vantage wide open... i have yet to drain it down to unusable and i dark to dark from time to time...was told it was jumpered in the plug by a minnkota service tech...both trolling motors are 24v think 80lbs thanks for all the info if you know anything more please chime in!

Time to go buy that mulimeter you've needed for a while, but never got around to getting.

You can get one that's more than adequate for typical homeowner/hobbyist duty for $20, give or take. For example, something like this.

[DocJpa]

I had a similar problem last summer, tried everything and then determined it was my charger. Bought a new one and everything worked just fine.

[meathunter]

Sorry guys had to work...I checked with a voltmeter and I have 24 volts at the plug for sure kind of thought I had that already now what??? I checked with the motor running both the red black and orange odd black had 12volts into the plug one was reading 12 volts exactly the other 12.75 would this make a difference? Please help Im not sure what to do now.

[meathunter]

Im pretty sure its not the charger because when I have ran it all day took individual reading on the battery before chargeing and the one side was drawn down the other side was almost full. Also my charger verified what my battery gauge was reading.

[CaptainMusky]

Did you take the plug apart and make sure there wasnt anything shorted out in there? I see you checked the recepticle itself to be good, but loosen the screws that hold the plug together and slide the cover down to look at the bolts where the wires connect.

If that checks out fine I have no idea what would cause this.

I am thinking that you have 24 volts at the recepticle (which you confirmed), but that power isnt getting TO the motor because of the plug thus not draining down the one battery.

[meathunter]

I had the plug both male and female apart i checked the wire to the trolling motor which had 24volts so i assume the motor is drawing 24v if i checked it in the wire to the motor after the plug. Im at lost here i have alot invested in battery's. Thanks for all the responses anyone else? I have both a transom and bow trolling motor with the same marineco plug with the wires jumpered in the recepticle and both check out as 24v. Wonder what happens if I draw one battery down completely would I be dead in the water with the other battery fully charged?

[delcecchi]

I had the plug both male and female apart i checked the wire to the trolling motor which had 24volts so i assume the motor is drawing 24v if i checked it in the wire to the motor after the plug. Im at lost here i have alot invested in battery's. Thanks for all the responses anyone else? I have both a transom and bow trolling motor with the same marineco plug with the wires jumpered in the recepticle and both check out as 24v. Wonder what happens if I draw one battery down completely would I be dead in the water with the other battery fully charged?

The trolling motor is drawing 24 volts, and discharging both batteries evenly. Is there something else connected to one battery? Live well, outboard motor, anything?

[CaptainMusky]

Yeah something doesn't sound right. Is it possible you have the paired set of pos and neg switched. Meaning the positive from one pair is hooked to one battery while the negative is hooked up to the other battery? In this scenario I think it would be drawing in series instead. Not completely sure though.

[Whoaru99]

The trolling motor is drawing 24 volts, and discharging both batteries evenly. Is there something else connected to one battery? Live well, outboard motor, anything?

Or, assuming the trolling motors are connected properly, is the charger connected properly to the trolling batteries?

[my4x4yj]

May have to unplug the trolling motors to separate the batteries so they will charge evenly, I have a switch in my boat to completely turn the motors off or one battery won't charge. I also read a warning that if the motors are left connected while charging the circuit board in the motor could short out

[delcecchi]

The instructions for my terrova or maybe it was for the boat, say to unplug the trolling motor before charging.

[Kyhl]

That is good advice for any electronics. Avoid running electronics when charging a battery from an AC outlet.

DC from a battery is a smooth flow of electrons that electronics like.

AC that is converted to DC is not a constant flow of electrons, more like on and off at 60hz, unless you spend big money on a well designed power supply. The power supplies of the average battery charger will not have a smooth steady flow of power.

[delcecchi]

Although the battery acts like a giant filter capacitor to smooth the voltage somewhat, there are still peaks indeed.

[CaptainMusky]

I always unplug my trolling motor when not in use mainly because I didnt want the kids to be messing around in the boat, find the remote and start "trolling" and lose a finger. Sounds like there was a side benefit too.

[jentz]

You should always unplug the elec motor.A surge inpower can and will fry the board in the Minnkota.

[Whoaru99]

Perhaps, but none of that is the problem with one battery discharging and one (apparently) not.

[delcecchi]

Perhaps, but none of that is the problem with one battery discharging and one (apparently) not.

Yeah. That is a puzzle. The trolling motor has good power so it must be using both batteries. Only thing I can think of is that one battery has extra stuff tied to it, like live wells and lights and big high power depth finders.

But basically none of it adds up. A terrova is going to run like carp if it only gets 12 volts. It stays the same if the batteries are swapped.

Any ideas?