Wireing two trolling moters

[gordy g]

Hi guys this is my first post so please bear with me.

I just bought a new 24 volt Minnkota vantage trolling motor (transum mount). I only have room for three batterys,1 for starting and 2 for the trolling motors.My problem is my old bowmount is a 12 volt system.Is there a way of making them both work at the same time?

[Paul Waldowski]

Not off of the 2 trolling motor batteries. They can be wired as a 12 volt system, or a 24 volt system but they cannot be both....although I guess you could wire it with some kind of switch sytem that would allow you to go back and forth between the two.

[riverrat56]

Don't know if this would work, but couldn't you just run the 12 volt off the starting battery? Thats what I do, but in a 14 ft boat, one battery is all I get to work with.

[Macgyver55]

You can wire it to work both a 12 volt and a 24 volt motor off the two trolling motor batteries. The 12 volt will only be drawing off 1 battery though and the 24 will draw off both.

The main problem is it's gonna discharge the one battery thats being used for both motors sooner. Sorry for the poor diagram. Its the best I could do with MS Paint!

[katoguy]

Mac doesn't quite have the preferred school of thought.

The 24-v is correct. The 12-v negative should go to the same negative as the 24-v, then the 12-v positive should go to the + post of the same battery as the negatives are hooked to.

Also, the Vantage lift system is 12-v. This is the yellow wire in the Vantage lead wire. This should go to the + post on the same battery that both the negatives are hooked to.

[Macgyver55]

Ok, I understand what you are saying. Although both ways would work, why would one be preferred over the other? I'm not questioning if you are right or not, I'm just a curious kind of guy and I always like to know the whys not just the hows.

Also, just to avoid confusion I changed the diagram to the way you said.

[katoguy]

Common grounds are always a good idea. (staying away from potential issues involving the outboard being grounded to the water / frayed wires or a + voltage to the boat)

[marine_man]

It could be dependent on the type of trolling motor plugs you have too..

On the lund boats the trolling motor plug takes care of the jumper wire between the two batteries, so all of your batteries are in parallel until you connect the trolling motor plug... then the 24V is made at the plug instead of the battery connection.

marine_man

[Satchmo]

If the boat has a 2-wire system you must wire it to 24 volt for the Vantage. If it is a 4-wire trolling motor system, the entire boat gets wired 12 volt and power gets converted to either 12 or 24 volt at the trolling motor plugs. Like stated above, the Vantage lift motor is 12 volt so be sure to wire it properly. FOLLOW YOUR INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!!

P.S. Another advantage to the 4-wire system is that the 12-volt motor can be set up to draw evenly off of both batteries at the same time. This will make for much more even discharge times, and keep the whole system running longer at peak performance. It will also make recharge time shorter, even if you use a 2-bank on-board charger.

[katoguy]

Yes, there are some plugs (Marinco makes one that comes to mind) that do the jumping internally in the plug. If all wired correctly, it serves the same purpose.

It is not as efficient, however. You are, essentially, putting more feet of wire in the system and, thus, causing a higher voltage loss. (i.e. if the batteries are in the rear of a 20 foot boat and this plug with the jumper in it is in the front, then you essentially have 80 feet of wire in the circuit)

Keeping the jumper wires directly at the batteries is the preferred method.