Minnkota Running Sllllooowww

[Vinny Chase]

My 101 lb thrust Minnkota Maxx trolling motor is running A LOT slower than it use to and I wanted to see what advice you all had as to where to start? Obviously the first thing will be to make sure all cords are plugged correctly...check...and next is to get the batteries tested, but what after that?

Thanks,

VC

[Shawn Dompierre]

Morning, I was recently experiencing the same problem, Turns out I have a puck of weeds/fishing line behind my prop. My lower settings weren't working at all before I cleaned it out.

[Vinny Chase]

Morning, I was recently experiencing the same problem, Turns out I have a puck of weeds/fishing line behind my prop. My lower settings weren't working at all before I cleaned it out.

Yeah, already checked that out as well...thanks for the suggestion.

[MarkH024]

I was going to say it might be bad batteries. Other than that I'd have no clue. That's strange. I'll be interested to hear what it is.

I have the Powerdrive V2, 70lb thrust and ast weekend when I had my boat sitting at the dock overnight, I came down in the AM and my prop was spinning but the footpedal was off. I don't know what the heck that was about. I had to switch the pedal back and for from MOM/CON and played with the speed setting a few times. It finally stopped. My trolling motor needs some serious TLC and tuning up after this season. Ever have something like that happen?

[BKeith]

First, check and clean connections, if it's slowing that much, any bad connection should be creating a lot of heat so feel all them after running on high for a few minutes. If you have a DVM and know how to use it, you can measure voltage drops and easily identify the problem.

Just remember, you can't replace just one of the batteries, you have to replace the set, both if 24V and all three if 36V.

[Gotfishyfingers?]

Have the batteries load tested.

[slonezp]

Batteries for sure

[Vinny Chase]

So I was advised to swap out one because the other two are perfectly fine. When I brought the new battery home and hooked it up....nothing....What the heck is going on???

[BKeith]

That somebody that told you to just swap out one apparently doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground and gave you some bad advice, but it's up to you if you want to keep chasing battery problems.

Sounds like hooked a battery or two up wrong when you reconnected everything, but since I don't like giving wasted/unwanted info, good luck.

Go hear and then about half way down you will see a bold NEVER, read that and if you do some research, you will find all kinds of info on the subject.

http://www.thebatterygenius.com/battery-maintenance/how-to-maintain-deep-cycle-batteries/

Series batteries must be matching because if not, there can be big differences in cell resistance and this will cause a number of different problems, including ruining the new battery you just bought after extended use.

[Vinny Chase]

That somebody that told you to just swap out one apparently doesn't know his head from a hole in the ground and gave you some bad advice, but it's up to you if you want to keep chasing battery problems.

Sounds like hooked a battery or two up wrong when you reconnected everything, but since I don't like giving wasted/unwanted info, good luck.

I read your first post and I appreciate your help, but I guess I don't understand why I would need to...Can you elaborate on that?

[Vinny Chase]

Thanks for the help Bkeith. I will look into replacing the other two, but for now I need to get it running.

I took a picture of all the wiring and set it up the same way when I put the batteries back in. The only thing that I am concerned about is why I have a black cord going from the negative connection on one battery, and connected to the positive on another (as shown below). I am almost certain that this is how it was before and it worked, but I don't know how that can be right...

[BKeith]

You don't have a battery cable on that one battery. The only thing I see is the onboard charger cable.

Are you running a two battery 24V setup or a three battery, 36V setup? You only show two in the pic.

Are you running the cranking battery as the third battery? If so, this could leave you stranded on the lake if you are playing around with replacing just one bad battery at the time. Also, the cranking battery has to be the exact same battery as the two TM batteries.

Here's how it will connect if you are running 36 volt.

With an onboard charger, every battery will have at least two cables on each post. You will have a red to each positive post and a black to each negative post from the bank cables from the onboard charger.

We will identify each battery as A, B, and C.

Battery A will have the positive cable (usually a large red) from the TM connected to the positive post.

Battery C will have the negative cable (usually a large black) going to the negative post.

The negative post of battery A will have a large cable going to the postive post on battery B

The negative post on battery B will have a large cable going to the positive post on battery C.

It's hard to tell from the picture but the interconneting cable looks smaller than six guage battery cable. For that size TM, I would strongly recommend these cables be at least six guage or the resistance they creat could cause some performance loss.

Also note, if you are running the cranking battery as part of the 36V TM setup, you will have at least three cables going to that one because of the engine cables and probably more since they normally have all those accessory wires going to it.

[Vinny Chase]

You don't have a battery cable on that one battery. The only thing I see is the onboard charger cable.

Are you running a two battery 24V setup or a three battery, 36V setup? You only show two in the pic.

Are you running the cranking battery as the third battery? If so, this could leave you stranded on the lake if you are playing around with replacing just one bad battery at the time. Also, the cranking battery has to be the exact same battery as the two TM batteries.

Here's how it will connect if you are running 36 volt.

With an onboard charger, every battery will have at least two cables on each post. You will have a red to each positive post and a black to each negative post from the bank cables from the onboard charger.

We will identify each battery as A, B, and C.

Battery A will have the positive cable (usually a large red) from the TM connected to the positive post.

Battery C will have the negative cable (usually a large black) going to the negative post.

The negative post of battery A will have a large cable going to the postive post on battery B

The negative post on battery B will have a large cable going to the positive post on battery C.

It's hard to tell from the picture but the interconneting cable looks smaller than six guage battery cable. For that size TM, I would strongly recommend these cables be at least six guage or the resistance they creat could cause some performance loss.

Also note, if you are running the cranking battery as part of the 36V TM setup, you will have at least three cables going to that one because of the engine cables and probably more since they normally have all those accessory wires going to it.

Is that black interconnecting cable suppose to be running from one negative to a positive?

[BKeith]

Yes, all interconnect cables in a series setup are from the from the positive of one battery to the negative of another battery. You never connect positives to positives or negatives to negatives when connecting in series. Remember the current has to go through each battery in one post and out the other and then in and out the next battery.

Every cell in each battery sees the same amount of current, that's why they have to be the same size, make and age. Each cell has it's own internal resistance and that changes with age, size and manufactor so if some cells have more resistance than others, they over heat to the point they an actually boil the water out and other things. Usually, the newest battery is the first to go bad.