Trolling motor quits during tournament?

[Finlander]

Going along upwind with my bow mount Minn-Kota 55PD during a walleye tournament I was fishing last sunday when all of a sudden it stops working. Checked the battery gauge and it said 3/4 full charge. Press the battery condition red buttons that are located on the base of the trolling motor and nothing happens. No power head rotation, no response!
Checked the fuse and it was fine.
Checked the wiring connections and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Any idea's?

[Paul Waldowski]

Sounds like a wire parted somewhere. No matter how low your battery is the gauge on your trolling motor will at least say charge.

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Paul
Drake Motel

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[wastewaterguru]

I have a PD50 that did the same thing on occasion. The unit would sometimes turn but have no power, sometimes though it would just have nothing. Not sure if it is the same problem, but mine was due to the connection to the foot control. If you have power to the trolling motor (Red Battery power indicator lights work) than you can eliminate the power cable. I solved the problem by just putting a little bit of terminal grease on the pins in the controller connector. Haven't had a problem since.

----OOOOOoops

I just reread your post and the red lights weren't working so the main power is not getting to the trolling motor. There are only a couple things that I would check before taking it in.

1. Check the fuse with a continuity meter....sometimes they look OK but aren't.

2. Check voltage at the power connector with a voltmeter.

If you have power to the connector and the cable looks OK from the connector to the unit, than the problem is "inside" the trolling motor and you may want to take it in.

Is this an intermittant problem or is it still dead?

[This message has been edited by wastewaterguru (edited 06-21-2004).]

[Finlander]

Dead as a corn cob out of hot water!
Was working fine all week, then all of a sudden it quits.
I have two brand new Trojan batteries hooked in parralell to maintain 12 volts and has worked great. Have an on board charger that was plugged in after fishing every night.
The trolling motor is 4 years old and have had good luck with it until sunday.
The only thing that I can think of is that I was running it at 3/4 throttle against the waves going up wind and maybe it just couldn't take it?

[Guest]

Had the exact same thing happen to Dennis and I during the last LETS tourney.

I too thought that it was the connection to the pedle, but upon futher inspection the next day, I tried it again and I could hear some crackling going on inside the mount part on the boat. I opened it up and the circuit board was fried!!

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the evening putting a new motor on my boat. Could have gotten a new board for about $150, but needed a more powerful motor so I went that route.

My guess is you have the same problem, but check for coorosion in the pedle connection as well as the connections to the circuit board. It's pretty easy to take the cover off and check it and you should be able to see or hear if there is any shorting going on.

Good luck.

P.S. 4 years is a long time for a trolling motor nowdays if you use it a lot.

[This message has been edited by Tom Herman (edited 06-21-2004).]

[MuleSkinner]

My brother has a brand new 24 volt MinnKota, (free trade from MinnKota for the [PoorWordUsage]y trouble-ridden Genesis he had.) Anyway, second time using it, he turned it wide open for about 20 seconds and it shut down. No electricity at all.

You said you checked your fuse. We could not find one on his. Instructions show none. Turns out his battery post hookups he has been using for many years actually have circuit breakers on the underside. All it took was to flip those. But, of course, does not solve what ever problem tripped them in the first place. While searching for a fuse, we did see a warning label on the wire to put a high amp fuse in the power line. He is lucky he unknowingly had the circuit breakers. Suppose we coulda had a fire.

I have been using my MinnKota bowmount AutoPilot for over 7 years. Direct hookup to 12 volt battery. I did not put in a fuse. I am quite sure the MinnKota install instructions said nothing about needing one. I always assumed there was one built in. Maybe not.

[walleyehawk]

Muleskinner

Put a fuse in! I had a trolling motor start on fire out on 8 mile at Mille Lacs last year. I smelled the rubber burning on the power cord and caught it quick, but did have some flames starting at the battery.

I lucked out and the fire went out quick. No real damage, other than a dusted trolling motor. And on my new motor, there is nothing about a fuse. But I definately know better now!

I was very lucky as I was the only one out on the reef. I could have been in real trouble out there by myself.

[Finlander]

E. Martin we had a grand total of 7.95lbs of walleye so ya beat us! Had alot of bites which we missed and had hookups that got off half way to the boat.
If we could of landed 3/4 of the bites, we would of had a respectable weight, but thats fishing!
I figgered out the trolling motor. The wire going into the fuse got hot and pulled away from the contacts, so when I examined the fuse it looked OK!
So now I bought a 40 amp marine circuit breaker made for trolling motors and made to replace the fuse!
So now it works!
Thanx all for your input!
Finlander

[Tom Wilson]

Minnkota motors only like to be used for Bass fishing!

Just had to say it--I'm only kidding

[DANR]

Finlander,

Had a similar problem with my trolling motor a couple years ago. Turned out to be plug on the boat - the jumper bar on the back side of the plug was not tight. It arced enough that it lost connection.

[E.Martin]

Finlander, Take it up to Dale's TV in Alex and they can fix it up for you.

How did you do in the tourney? We ended up with a disappointing 9.95#. Great to see Chris and Wayne win it!

Eli