Electric trolling motors. What do i need for the hook up to a battery?

[MidCoast]

For electric trolling motors do I need to hook any thing else besides hooking the trolling motor to the battery?  Transom and bow mount should be the same?

I am thinking about getting either a 12 Volt 55 lbs transom trolling motor or a 36 volt electric transom  trolling motor for my 16 footer boat.  I am wondering if I can directly hook it to the battery without any fuses or anything.    Thanks. 

 

 

[gunner55]

 No you need a in line fuse. We use a trailer type harness with a 30 amp fuse. Reasonably priced fuses can be hard to find

[delcecchi]

12 hours ago, MidCoast said:

For electric trolling motors do I need to hook any thing else besides hooking the trolling motor to the battery?  Transom and bow mount should be the same?

I am thinking about getting either a 12 Volt 55 lbs transom trolling motor or a 36 volt electric transom  trolling motor for my 16 footer boat.  I am wondering if I can directly hook it to the battery without any fuses or anything.    Thanks. 

 

 

There are reasonably priced circuit breakers available.   For a 16 foot boat, a 24 volt should do the job. 

[ClownColor]

2 hours ago, gunner55 said:

 No you need a in line fuse. We use a trailer type harness with a 30 amp fuse. Reasonably priced fuses can be hard to find

Not always. I current;y have/use 4 trolling motors and only one has an inline fuse...funny thing is, that is the only trolling motor I had to replace the head on cause it fried from an old, under charged battery. Also, most people separate their main motor battery from their trolling motor battery. If I had both connected to one battery, then I would definitely use an inline fuse.

With that said, an inline fuse piggy tail is super cheap and I'd place one in my expensive boat with expensive equipment. My 10' row boat, old 16' lund,  trolling motors have no fuses nor will I put them in place...never had an issue.

[delcecchi]

If the connection to the battery is a clip, like on jumper cables then you probably don't need a breaker since if something shorts you can just pull the clip off, plus the connection is more out in the open. 

If you hard wire the trolling motor to the battery, a breaker is probably a good idea. 

[bobbymalone]

Agree with the breaker vs a fuse.  Most of those inline fuse piggy tail things use like 14 gauge wire and your trolling motor is probably more like 8 gauge.  Plus if you blow the breaker, you just reset it.  No need to carry around backup fuses.  

I've always ran a breaker, alligator clips or not.   It's a cheap investment.

13 hours ago, MidCoast said:

I am thinking about getting either a 12 Volt 55 lbs transom trolling motor or a 36 volt electric transom  trolling motor for my 16 footer boat.  I am wondering if I can directly hook it to the battery without any fuses or anything.    Thanks. 

 

 

I'm guessing your talking about a 16 foot aluminum boat with some bench seats?  I have a 17.5 foot alumacraft with decks/storage/and a steering wheel.  My 12 volt 55lb minnkota gets that thing moving and can last a whole weekend with moderate use.    

A 36 volt system seems like overkill on that boat.  3 deep cycle batteries wired up in a 16 foot boat?

Edited March 7, 2016 by bobbymalone

[MidCoast]

Sorry guys I meant 24 volts instead of 36 volts.  So my question is if I put circuit breakers on the batteries, do I need to put a circuit breaker on each of the two batteries for 24 volts?

[bobbymalone]

Nope, just one fuse.    

Even 24v might be overkill.  If you've got the space for two batteries, go for it.  But I think you'll be fine with a 12 volt system on that boat.   

[gunner55]

We choose to fuse all our batteries to prevent burning up the rest of our electronics. A gps / graph on the dash & bow as well as MK trolling motors on front & back at times. Probably $2-$3 k to replace them so it's pretty cheap / easy insurance for us. We even used the cheap trailer harness on the old 14' Mirrocraft / Eagle/ MK 50 set up we had back in the 80's. I have to agree bm as we use a 12 volt MK PD 55 on our Crestliner FH 1750 & it works fine 80-90% of the time.

[BobT]

A 12-volt 40pd would be plenty for a 16' with bench seats. I used both 36pd Motorguide on the stern and 40pd MinnKota on the bow on my Lund Rebel 16 for years and it was good fit. When I sold the Rebel and bought my Sylvan Adventurer 1600 with console I transferred the 40pd to the bow and used it for many years. Even though the Sylvan was quite a bit more boat, most of the time the 40pd was plenty unless the wind was over about 20mph then it had to work pretty hard. In fact, the only reason I upgraded to the 12v 55pd last year was because my brother-in-law upgraded his and I got his 55pd for a fair price. 

The biggest advantage of 24v over 12 volt (all else being equal) is that you can get by on much smaller wire and fusing. A 12v 55pd motor will draw about twice the current of a 24v 55pd under the same load conditions.

Just some things to consider.

[gunner55]

We have a 70# 24 volt for the transom but don't use it that much, in fact it often isn't even on the boat. We keep different jumper wires in our battery compartment to change from 2 rigged(series) as 12 volt or to change over to 24 volt system. One thing to be sure of is using the right gauge of wire.

Edited March 9, 2016 by gunner55