Trolling motor wiring help!

[northernfishin]

So I was fortunate enough to revive a free trolling motor as a friend got a new one and didn't want their old one. I received a motor guide lazer 2 62lb thrust motor. I'm looking at the wiring and there appears to be four wires. Red, black, orange, and black with white. I'm wondering if this is 12/24 or how I will wire it up? He said it was 24v but when we pulled it out it had two wires going to one battery and two going to another. He didn't install the motor so he was little help. My boat currently has one battery to run everything and has wiring to the bow with black red and orange. Please help me figure out how to install this!

Thank you!

[Whoaru99]

When you say there are four wires are you looking at what's actually going into the trolling motor, or are you looking at the boat side power receptacle connections?

What you describe sounds like wiring on the boat side for a 12/24V system, but how the motor ties to that system determines if it's getting 12 or 24V. How that's done is usually by what terminals inside/on the plug the (typically) two motor power wires are connected to.

[Savage Brewer]

That motor runs on 24volt. You will need 2 more batteries.

[northernfishin]

So it's a 24v motor so how do I wire them to the plug that has four wires? The wires to the motor are four prong, but three wires, red orange, and black.

[CaptainMusky]

The plug that goes to your trolling motor or are the four wires at the receptacle? Do you have an outlet in the front of your boat you would plug the trolling motor into? If so how many wires run there? 2 or 4? If this isn't 6AWG gauge wire for a 24 volt system I would replace all wires to batteries.

If there are 4 wires (2 red 2 black) running to outlet then the system runs two sets of 12 volts to the receptacle and a plug would jumper it to 24 volts. If there are only 1 set then you need to jumper batteries. Red on positive of one battery, black on negative of other battery then a jumper wire going between the two open terminals not connected with other two wires. This will run 24 volts to the outlet. Then depending on what style plug you have you either just hook it up like normal or if its a marinco 12/24 plug you use the 12 volt connectors which would avoid the jumper inside the plug. IF you have 2 sets of wires running to outlet AND an marinco 12/24 plug connect wires to the 24 volt as illustrated on back of plug. Make sure any unused terminals in these plugs are winched down tight or you will short the plug out!!!!

If you have 4 wires coming out of the motor itself then I am not sure. I think you should go online and search for a manual but essentially there should be two neutral and two positive I am just not sure which would be which.

[northernfishin]

My boat has a plug but I'm replacing it with the plug that came with the motor. See attached pics. I know I will need to add two batteries to my boat as it currently has one to power everything.

The previous owner had two batteries that we're not connected together running this motor. Each of the four wires went to a terminal on one of two batteries. I want to make sure I do that correctly and know which is ground and hot. I'm leaning towards the notion that this is the plug with a jumper in it.

[northernfishin]

I think I found an answer:

help

[Whoaru99]

My boat has a plug but I'm replacing it with the plug that came with the motor. See attached pics. I know I will need to add two batteries to my boat as it currently has one to power everything.

The previous owner had two batteries that we're not connected together running this motor. Each of the four wires went to a terminal on one of two batteries. I want to make sure I do that correctly and know which is ground and hot. I'm leaning towards the notion that this is the plug with a jumper in it.

Your "help" link doesn't work for me. But, the batteries were connected together, either at the receptacle or in the plug.

To find hot and ground, for sure, you're either going to have to trace the wires or go spend $20, give or take, on a basic multi-meter.

[delcecchi]

Coincidently I was just messing with the trolling motor wiring in my Lund.

It is set up, at the factory, with 4 wires from the two batteries to a plug in. Actually there are two plug ins which I had forgot and I got really confused since there was two of everything. There was a red/black pair and a orange/black-purple pair.

Anyway there were different plugs that came with the boat, for 12 volt, 12/24, and 24 volt operation. I chose to jumper the connection at the battery wire it as a single supply. So the black goes to neg of battery 1, red not used, jumper from pos of battery 1 to neg of battery 2, orange to pos of battery two, black/purple not used. The plug has 3 wires, I use two, black and orange. red not used. Took some messing with a multimeter to get it all straight.

So the net is, you can have a plug with a jumper, or you can jumper at the battery and save some voltage drop in the circuit.

[Whoaru99]

Yeah, mine is set up the same way with Marinco receptacles and plugs.

The batteries are separately wired to the receptacles, then how you wire the trolling motor or accessory to the plug determines whether you get 12V or 24V.

Also, it came with a plug having a red housing (as opposed to black) to use with a charger. That plug was internally-jumpered to put the batteries in parallel for charging. Only used that plug a couple times though because I saw the light of a 3-bank onboard charger early on.