Please help with troller mystery

[gwood]

When I am using my 46# troller to reach a fishing area (no motor lake) it cuts out after approx. 5 minutes of constant use, I usually unplug & plug & it will work again for about 1 minute or so and then repeat plug/unplug. Sometimes it will pop the circuit breaker & after resetting follow same path described until I reach my destination. The troller is connected to two 12V batteries in parallel via a switch. I have noticed that this only seems to happen when I am trolling against the conditions and not with it. Does anyone have any ideas as to the problem? The troller is 3 yrs old, 1 battery is an interstate 27 deep cycle, 3 yers old and the other is an optima 27 deep cycle only 1 yr old.

 

[NYBo]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

What is the rating of the circuit breaker and how old is it?

 

[gwood]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

I'm not sure, but the boat is a 2007 bass tracker pro190

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

The motor has to work harder going against "conditions" than with them so it draws more current. The current draw (amperage) is exceeding the rating of the circuit breaker. The wiring from the battery to the troller must be capable of handling a minimum of 50 amps and obvously, the breaker therefore must be 50 Amp rated as well. Unless you fix a problem that trips a circuit breaker in your house, it will trip again will it not?? Same principle applies here.

 

[keninaz]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Why not repeat the test and take the circuit breaker out of the circuit just to try it?
I worked with circuit breakers and if you ran them close to the operating point they tend to break at lower amperage as time goes on.
If you find that removing it stops the behavior needless to say your CB is going bad.

 

[gwood]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Thanks for the advice, I'll try bypassing the CB & see if it works. When the troller just cuts in & out but not tripping the CB (thats what happens 90% of the time) is the systemic to a CB going bad also or perhaps anther problem...say an overheating problem with the troller motor?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

s the circuit breaker a manual reset style (push a button) or does it reset automatically. If it is an automatic reset style, how do you know it has not tripped during some of those incidents. You might also check connections. Poor connections create heat and increased current draw. There is no breaker inside the troller so loss of power in your situation is classic "circuit breaker tripping".

 

[gwood]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Again thanks for the advise, the CB is a manual push button type & not automatic. I will check connections then bypass if it continues, then perhaps replace CB.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Again thanks for the advise, the CB is a manual push button type & not automatic. I will check connections then bypass if it continues, then perhaps replace CB.

Bypassing the circuit breaker is a TEST -- not a SOLUTION. Don't run without it unless you happen to like smoke and fire aboard your boat.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Besides the circuit breaker. Check all the wiring connections (battery, crimp connections) and make sure they are all clean and tight. Same for the wire connections in the TM, are they all clean and tight? It's pretty easy to pop the top cover off the TM and verify that everything inside is OK, just a couple of screws. What size of wire is being used to connect the batteries to the trolling motor? How is the TM wire connected to the batteries, alligator clips, plug, crimp connectors?

FWIW, you could also just try 1 battery to see if there is a battery problem. Paralleling 2 batteries (different size, age, type) can cause the better battery to settle in at the poorer batteries voltage. OR, if one of those batteries is bad, it will cause the other to discharge and ruin it. IE: your 3YO Interstate could be dragging down the 1YO Optima. I kind of doubt this is the problem as it sounds like the TM works fine outside of full power, but it's something to think about. I have my dual TM batteries separated by a battery switch, so they don't see each other.

 

[keninaz]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Based on what you are saying I think something is overheating when the going gets tough and I am betting that the CB is the problem.
You are indicating that something is taking a reset after about 1 minute and that's the likely suspect to me.

 

[bassman284]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Definitely check your wire connections first. I started having the same problem last fall with my 2 year old Power Drive except it never popped the breaker. Motor would stop working and unplugging it and plugging seem to fix it until one day it wouldn't.

Because of the unplug/plug effect I decided it must be the female plug on the boat but was unable to find one locally. Then I realised that I didn't really know if it was the female or the male.

I took the flex jacket off the wire from the TM so I could test continuity. When I did this, the red wire basically fell out of the butt connector.

Appears the guy at the dealer who installed it had very little talent for crimping butt connectors. Looks like when he went to crimp the red wire, it was not actually inside the metal of the connector. So after crimping the metal flat, he just shove the wire in between the plastic cover and the metal tube (now flat) and crimped the heck out of the plastic. I can't imagine why it worked as long as it did.

In addition he stripped too much insulation so there was about 1/8" of bare wire sticking out each end of the butt connectors. New butt connecotrs and I was good to go.

 

[wire2]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

Next time on the water, and it trips, feel every connection of the TM wiring. A poor connection will be warm because the resistance drops some voltage, which translates to watts of heat. Any undersized wiring will also get warm.

 

[gwood]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

I have checked the connections and not found anything of concern, but it has a 40amp CB installed but Motorguide instructs a 50amp CB to be installed. Is this the likely problem, although I never experienced this problem prior to installing the 2nd battery? If I replace CB for 50amp is there a specific kind I should buy? the one I have currently looks like a $7 CB and iboats has them as expensive a $50. I don't mind spending the money if I am buying a quality part.

 

[keninaz]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

I would suspect that if you have a 40 amp CB installed that could very well be your problem.
I suspect that after sometime you are "warming" up the thermal protection it's giving you too close to the limits even at lower speeds. And as a breaker wears out it is normally designed to trip at lower current limits.
I just bought a 40# troller and my manual from Minn Kota says it can draw 42 amps and you have a bigger motor than I do. I have also been told that as a general rule of thumb that for every 1# of thrust figure 1 amp of current. I would bet that your motor draws more than I do at 42 amps.
You should never run a breaker near the limits either as it wears them faster running them near the limits.

I just bought this one by Hummingbird, rated at 60 amps and waterproof with a manual reset which I prefer over automatic. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001PTHKSK/ref=oss_product
It's the same one that Minn Kota recommends and they have been making motors for a long time.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

it has a 40amp CB installed but Motorguide instructs a 50amp CB to be installed. Is this the likely problem

I'd say yes. As was mentioned before, the only way to know for sure would be to jump the CB if it happens again.

I'd venture to say that the power loss occurring, "at the same time the second battery was added" is a coincidence, not a result of adding the second battery. The second battery won't cause the TM to draw more power (outside of additional weight in the boat) but will provide more reserve power to the TM.

The CBs Ken linked to are good quality breakers, much better than the $5-10 breakers. I used several of the cheap 50 amp breakers on my 2 boats and haven't had a problem with them tripping. Though,,, I'm not using the TM as hard as an "electric only" boat. I don't hold the TM on speed #5 for long periods of time.

 

[BoatNoobie]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

How about try running it on a single battery first, instead of parallel and see what happens.

 

[John_S]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

While I think this is circuit breaker or a connection problem, if this is a digital control MG, it could produce those symptoms. I have a Wireless MG and have hit a couple logs at the higher speeds. The motor speed shuts off and something in the digital logic prevents turning the propeller back on. You physically have to unplug it from power, and replug it back it to reset it. My 50amp manual reset breaker did not trip.

 

[gwood]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

[How about try running it on a single battery first, instead of parallel and see what happens.]

Thats what i'm going to do next time on the water (hopefully this weekend) because i'm also concerned that the 3yr old battery is causing the newer one to underperform. Before I installed a 2nd battery I was only getting about 4 hours of usage from the battery and on windy days that can burn off PDQ. When I added 2nd battery last summer it was ok but then again no extreme or windy days to contend with, but lately i'm still not doing any better than 4 hours of trolling w/2 batteries so perhaps what i've read in this forum about older batteries bringing down the performance of others maybe happening here also. If I run the older battery down first via the switch then it will perhaps tell me something else as well!!

If I haven't already said thank you to everyone for the advice then I apologize, because as a novice boat owner this is the greatest tool at my disposal and my son & I greatly appreciate the time and effort everyone takes to help people like me....Thank You and I will keep you all posted.

 

[gwood]

Re: Please help with troller mystery

I installed a new 50amp CB and took boat out and tested everything. First I set switch to the oldest battery only and tried to troll across lake, but with a 15 mph wind the boat remained stationary. So then I switched to 2nd battery and trolled easily across lake, so although the oldest battery managed to troll boat about in a more sheltered part of lake it does appear the battery has lost its mojo and will need to be replaced. I had no loss of power to TM during the 3 hrs I was out so again I'm concluding a happy ending to the CB issue.

1 last question, what is the recommended battery size as a replacement...the old battery is an interstate size 29 whereas the newer optimax is a size 27, should both batteries be the same size or does it not matter?