Trolling motor keeps conking out

[tacklejunkie]

 It’s an 85 pound thrust Minnkota and trolls fine as long as the dial is set at four or less. Turn it up to eight or 10, quits.

 

The batteries are not that old and it was fully charged before I took it out. Would this be a foot pedal issue or something else?

[Mike89]

I have always stored my battery's in the garage...  unheated on the shelf...  last many years each time... 

[Grainbelt]

 

On 5/15/2020 at 9:14 AM, tacklejunkie said:

Would this be a foot pedal issue

It sounds like it.

Does it attempt to accelerate when going from 4 to 8? Does it just cut out at 8 to 10? If it just cuts out it could be that you have an open when dialed into that position. Bad switch. You could ohm out the switch while moving the position from one to ten. Disconnect the foot feed pedal first. You should see the resistance on the meter steadily change in one direction while changing the dial from one to ten.

 

Maybe there is a pin out diagram available from Minnkota for the foot pedal connector. Might be able to put your meter leads there.

 

You can check your battery voltage while testing the switch. Full good battery is at around 12.7 volts.

 

 

  

[delcecchi]

6 hours ago, Pat K said:

Many years ago a co-worker at a big box store did his own battery storage test. When he bought a new set of batteries for his 24v trolling motor he labeled the batteries and stored battery A in the boat in my unheated pole shed. This is MN so it saw sub-zero temp regularly. Battery B was stored in the utility room of his town home. He prepared them for storage by removing all wires, topping off fluids and charging them then forget about them for the winter. Every spring he tested the batteries and the cold storage battery was always a few tenths of a volt higher than the warm storage battery. Both of them still had 85-90% of their charge.
He was a retired electrician and believed anyone who charged a battery inside of their house was a prime candidate for a Darwin award because of the explosive gasses that can result from charging the battery.
Battery B that was stored inside failed midway through its 6th season. Wynn worked part time and fished most of the rest of his time so they had heavy use. Battery A was moved to his ice house and lasted a couple more years.

His work experience was with AC but everything he had been taught about DC was that cold storage was better for a battery because it slowed down the chemical reaction so a battery with nothing connected to it would self discharge much slower. A fully charged battery doesn't freeze until -75F
Not a big enough sample to prove anything but I still find it interesting.

The batteries in my boat live there all winter in an unheated storage building, and the battery for my boat lift winch sat next to the cabin all winter.   The winch battery was at 80 percent when I put it on the charger last week.    We will see how the boat batteries held up when I get back up and get to go fishing...Last trip was a lot of work and howling wind so didn't get out.   

[BobT]

16 hours ago, Pat K said:

Many years ago a co-worker at a big box store did his own battery storage test. When he bought a new set of batteries for his 24v trolling motor he labeled the batteries and stored battery A in the boat in my unheated pole shed. This is MN so it saw sub-zero temp regularly. Battery B was stored in the utility room of his town home. He prepared them for storage by removing all wires, topping off fluids and charging them then forget about them for the winter. Every spring he tested the batteries and the cold storage battery was always a few tenths of a volt higher than the warm storage battery. Both of them still had 85-90% of their charge.
He was a retired electrician and believed anyone who charged a battery inside of their house was a prime candidate for a Darwin award because of the explosive gasses that can result from charging the battery.
Battery B that was stored inside failed midway through its 6th season. Wynn worked part time and fished most of the rest of his time so they had heavy use. Battery A was moved to his ice house and lasted a couple more years.

His work experience was with AC but everything he had been taught about DC was that cold storage was better for a battery because it slowed down the chemical reaction so a battery with nothing connected to it would self discharge much slower. A fully charged battery doesn't freeze until -75F
Not a big enough sample to prove anything but I still find it interesting.

I never remove my boat batteries for the winter and always leave them in my boat for the same reasons your coworker shared. I don't just charge them and forget about them though. Stored batteries will lose charge over time and this can dramatically raise the freezing point.

 

According to Trojan Battery, the freezing point for fully charged electrolyte is -92 F. However, that freezing point increases dramatically as the electrolyte loses charge. Electrolyte at 62% charge has a freezing point of about -16 F., which is not uncommon in MN.  At 40% charge  the freezing point raises to about +5 F. 

 

Here's a link to the data; https://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/WP_DeepCycleBatteryStorage_0512.pdf

 

I would also agree and suggest that the battery(s) could be the likely source of the problem. If the electrolyte has been low one or more times, exposing the lead plates, they could have become contaminated and the battery(s) may have lost some capacity. They will anyway as they age and now that they are over four years old,.....

 

You can improve the life of new batteries by always maintaining the electrolyte level so the plates are never exposed using distilled water. Never leave the batteries sit at partial charge so always recharge them as soon as possible using a 15A or 20A charger after each use. Smart charge technology is the best way to go if you have a smart charger. Most new on-board chargers use this technology. 

Edited June 9, 2020 by BobT

[tacklejunkie]

I’ve also had a chance to talk to others and they all agree it’s probably my batteries were  getting old and worn.    I may have taken a simple fix and made it more complicated than it should’ve been.

 

  Thanks to everybody who replied. I got fresh batteries fully charged and in the next couple days when I got some time off I’m gonna go fishing again.  I have a sense that it probably was a battery issue all along.   I also thought for some reason that the batteries were only two years old 

 

 I have talk to some of that replace their trolling motor batteries after the third season.  

 Those same people thought it was odd that the first guy that tested the battery at Napa on Sunday didn’t seem too concerned about the bulging. I’m wondering if he was the new guy. When I brought the old batteries to get new batteries Monday morning that’s the first thing that guy commented on was the bulging

Edited June 9, 2020 by tacklejunkie

[tacklejunkie]

 Took it out yesterday after work and it ran as if I just bought it

 

 I have no idea why I didn’t start from the simplest  problem first.   But  trying to troll with four-year-old bulging batteries probably wouldn’t give me much in performance  

[Pat K]

Thanks for the update. Often people get us interested a problem but leave us hanging as to whether or not it gets solved.

[tacklejunkie]

9 hours ago, Pat K said:

Thanks for the update. Often people get us interested a problem but leave us hanging as to whether or not it gets solved.

 

 Yeah it’s fixed I even ran it and did everything I could to see if it would quit and it wouldn’t. It did get hot at one of the splices from the plug to where it connects the trolling motor. I pull back the tape and it was kind of one of those [PoorWordUsage] moments. The guy who looked at the motor just basically balled the wire together and taped it up so I got a better connection  and fixed it and problem solved

 

 

[Duffman]

10 hours ago, Pat K said:

Thanks for the update. Often people get us interested a problem but leave us hanging as to whether or not it gets solved.

 

This ^^^^^^

 

I love helping people out, sucks to not know if you actually helped out.

 

 

[delcecchi]

47 minutes ago, Duffman said:

 

This ^^^^^^

 

I love helping people out, sucks to not know if you actually helped out.

 

 

Roger that.  Me too.  

[BobT]

On 6/9/2020 at 11:20 AM, tacklejunkie said:

I’ve also had a chance to talk to others and they all agree it’s probably my batteries were  getting old and worn.    I may have taken a simple fix and made it more complicated than it should’ve been.

 

  Thanks to everybody who replied. I got fresh batteries fully charged and in the next couple days when I got some time off I’m gonna go fishing again.  I have a sense that it probably was a battery issue all along.   I also thought for some reason that the batteries were only two years old 

 

 I have talk to some of that replace their trolling motor batteries after the third season.  

 Those same people thought it was odd that the first guy that tested the battery at Napa on Sunday didn’t seem too concerned about the bulging. I’m wondering if he was the new guy. When I brought the old batteries to get new batteries Monday morning that’s the first thing that guy commented on was the bulging

Bulging suggests that battery was frozen at least once, which also indicates it was not fully charged at some point while in subzero temperatures. 

[BobT]

On 6/10/2020 at 7:55 AM, tacklejunkie said:

 Took it out yesterday after work and it ran as if I just bought it

 

 I have no idea why I didn’t start from the simplest  problem first.   But  trying to troll with four-year-old bulging batteries probably wouldn’t give me much in performance  

Actually you did start with the batteries but testing showed them to be in good condition. Like quoting Bible scriptures, one cannot build a theology on one verse but must take the whole of Scripture into account, troubleshooting batteries can require multiple tests and some are difficult to perform. Glad you found the problem no go and fish away!

[Grainbelt]

On 6/10/2020 at 7:55 AM, tacklejunkie said:

four-year-old bulging batteries

That would have been a good thing to point out.