Low Powered Trolling Motor?

[Josh Smith]

I've acquired a canoe. I plan to primarily use paddles, but would like to find a low-powered, light, efficient trolling motor for longer trips.

 

The one I had in mind was the Minn Kota 10 with 8lbs of thrust, figuring that, with today's electronics, it would sip electricity.

 

Unfortunately, it appears it's not been made in some years.

 

What's today's equivalent? I just want a lightweight stick-controlled transom mount trolling motor with around 10lbs of thrust.

 

Thanks!

[MN Fisher]

Far as I know, the 'smallest' TM you can get now is 30# thrust. I had one on my old canoe as it's main propulsion...but keep the throttle down to 3 and you'd get around 10#

 

[Susky River Rat]

I had a 55 thrust Newport vessels  on my scanoe for awhile. Honestly with the stock props no matter what TM you have you will reach about the same top speed. The thrust comes into play with stuff like current and wind.

[casts_by_fly]

A small thrust trolling motor run on medium will take more electricity than a higher thrust motor on low.  I have a 43lb thrust in my

kayak and at fishing speeds (1-2 out of 10) just working the bank it uses basically no electricity. I can fish for five or six hours that way and only use about 4-5 AH. If that’s all I did I could get away with the tiny fish finder batteries or a drill battery. 

[Susky River Rat]

14 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

A small thrust trolling motor run on medium will take more electricity than a higher thrust motor on low.  I have a 43lb thrust in my

kayak and at fishing speeds (1-2 out of 10) just working the bank it uses basically no electricity. I can fish for five or six hours that way and only use about 4-5 AH. If that’s all I did I could get away with the tiny fish finder batteries or a drill battery. 

Just like 3 phase power uses less power draw  for the same voltage then single phase. 

[WRB]

Minn Kota C2, 30 # thrust weighs 15 lbs, $110 free shipping.

3 speed motor so #1 is about 10 lbs thrust.

Tom

PS, no such thing as 3 phase DC,AC OK.

[MN Fisher]

Ummm - Tom...Endura C2-30 has 5 forward and 3 reverse speeds.

 

https://minnkota.johnsonoutdoors.com/us/shop/freshwater-trolling-motors/endura?v=101691

[Bankc]

The Endura C2 30 is going to be your lightest motor available today.  You don't have to run it at full speed, if you don't want to.  And if you're not planning on running it at full speed often and want to conserve battery power, I'd consider the Endura Max 40# instead.  It costs about twice as much and has even more thrust that you may not want, but it has what they call a Digital Maximizer, which is a PWM controller for the motor.  The *** speeds of the Endura C2 uses a resistive system to slow the motor down at lower speeds, so it burns off extra electricity as heat to reduce motor speed.  And that's fine in practice, but it wastes electricity when not run at full speed.  The Endura Max's Digital Maximizer uses rapid pulses of electricity to control speed, so there's no wasted electricity (other than the additional circuitry, which is minimal), so you'll get longer run times on a more powerful motor, so long as you don't run it at full speed all of the time (in which case the bigger motor will eat more power).  

 

The downside is those PWM controllers like the Digital Maximizer can interfere with your sonar if you have one.  They create a lot of electrical noise which can cause some sonar units to reproduce garbage results when the frequency of the motor and the frequency of the sonar ping are in harmonic resonance with each other.  So the usual fix is to keep them on separate batteries, which solves the issue.

[airshot]

Keeo in mind to check your state regs....many states reqyire a different reg if there is a motor on a canoe!  No longer hand powered once an electric troll motor is added, worth checking into....

[Josh Smith]

On 7/5/2023 at 9:56 AM, Bankc said:

The Endura C2 30 is going to be your lightest motor available today.  You don't have to run it at full speed, if you don't want to.  And if you're not planning on running it at full speed often and want to conserve battery power, I'd consider the Endura Max 40# instead.  It costs about twice as much and has even more thrust that you may not want, but it has what they call a Digital Maximizer, which is a PWM controller for the motor.  The *** speeds of the Endura C2 uses a resistive system to slow the motor down at lower speeds, so it burns off extra electricity as heat to reduce motor speed.  And that's fine in practice, but it wastes electricity when not run at full speed.  The Endura Max's Digital Maximizer uses rapid pulses of electricity to control speed, so there's no wasted electricity (other than the additional circuitry, which is minimal), so you'll get longer run times on a more powerful motor, so long as you don't run it at full speed all of the time (in which case the bigger motor will eat more power).  

 

The downside is those PWM controllers like the Digital Maximizer can interfere with your sonar if you have one.  They create a lot of electrical noise which can cause some sonar units to reproduce garbage results when the frequency of the motor and the frequency of the sonar ping are in harmonic resonance with each other.  So the usual fix is to keep them on separate batteries, which solves the issue.

 

This is what I was after.

 

The reason I didn't want to go with a more powerful trolling motor is because running them at low speeds produces that waste heat.

 

I have no problem running a PWM controller. I just wasn't aware they made them for trolling motors (though I guess it only makes sense that they do,) nor was I aware that PWM messes with sonar, though I suppose that also makes sense.

 

I'll look into the PWM motors. Not after anything real expensive, so we'll see. Thank you!