Need Help with trolling Motor wiring

[Kennyjr2000]

I have a 24V Minn Kota Raptor trolling motor. When I removed the Female plug on my boat I found that it had melted on the Ground side. I also noticed that it was a three prong Female plug, But on my trolling motor male plug it only had two wires coming out of it. I traced the wires back to my batteries and noticed that they had tied 2 batteries together to get the 24v for the trolling motor. I also noticed that the red power wire ran straight to the Female plug, but at the battery it had a short stop 12v circuit breaker on it. There was then an orange wire coming from the batteries also with a 12v short stop circuit breaker on it that went to a bus panel under the front bow of the boat then from there went to the Female plug. The ground wire ran from the battery to the buss panel then to a foot pedal then over to the female plug. My question is why would they be running 3 wires to a trolling motor that only has two wires coming out of it. Any info would be awesome on this issue.

 

[GA_Boater]

By any chance the TM can be switched between 12 and 24 volts? The orange is 12 volts and the red wire is 24 volts.

Belatedly - Welcome aboard.

 

[Kennyjr2000]

There is not a switch on the TM that allows this. Both positive wires are set up with the 12v Short stop circuit breakers.

 

[GA_Boater]

No idea why it's wired like that. The only reason would be to run 12 or 24 volts. Short Stop CBs can't be manually switched off, so the TM is always running on 24 volts.

 

[Kennyjr2000]

I think im just going to run it like it should be with a positive and negative and leave the other wire in as a spare.

 

[GA_Boater]

Disconnect the orange wire and tape the end. Inside the plug the orange and red wires are tied together so the orange wire is always hot.