70# PowerDrive AP V2 iPILOT no pedal remote only issues

[lmuss53]

I got this MinnKota ipilot 24 volt 70# powerdrive with remote only as payment for some motor work I did. It is a 2012 year model, the first year I had it was 2013. Last year it just quit one day so I pulled it apart and found that it was sending power to the main wires running down the the motor head but that the motor head winding was open. I had an older 48# 24 volt motor here so I pulled the shaft and head off it and put them on this motor and it worked fine until yesterday. The motor will not speed up beyond about 30 % of it's capacity. The remote beeps indicating the speed is changing and it does til about the 30 % mark then doesn't speed up anymore.

I first suspected that I had a bad battery, but I pulled them out today and had them load tested and both test out to be good. Water level is fine in both.

If you run the motor out of the water it seems to run up to speed all the way to the Jackrabbit 10 number, another suggestion to me that I have a bad battery.

I cleaned all the connections today and put it all back together, I'm going to give it a tryout again tomorrow and see what happens.

My question is does anyone have any similar experience with one of these motors, and if so, how or what fixed it. Also, is there a way to further test the batteries? I hate to go buy new ones and not fix the problem.

I have 30 year old $100 MinnKota motors that work like new, naturally the 3 year old $1100 model is a POS.

It is this exact motor.

 

[lmuss53]

Well this one quit completely today, so now I have two 24v lower units that don't work. I'm going to take the original one apart tomorrow and see if the brushes are shot after about 20 hours of use. I guess if brushes look ok and I get power to them I will look at the armature. I'll post more once it's apart, any advice from folks who've had one of these apart would be welcome.

I can't seem to find a site, including iboats, with a parts ,pdf of this motor that will load on my computer. I looked at a blow up of the previous generation model to get an idea of what it's like inside the motor.

How do you test an armature?

 

[lmuss53]

So here is what happened, I just don't know why. I also don't know why the 50 amp breaker wouldn't open before this kind of meltdown. I tested the breaker by dead shorting the ground wire to the positive post on the breaker and it popped as soon as the wire touched the terminal.

I guess I'll fix it again and see what happens, I found a shaft and head on ebay, guaranteed to be in usable condition for $75 so I grabbed it up. I'm going to replace all the wiring from the batteries to the motor and probably put a 30 amp breaker in place of the 50 for a while.

 

[lmuss53]

Just in case anyone else runs in to this, I figured out what happened here. If you look closely at the picture you'll see a little line around the armature where the winding started out in life. Somehow the winding moved on the armature and pulled out of the brushes. I think this had to happen when the motor fell over and took a big impact on the nose end. This certainly didn't happen when I had it to my knowledge, so I have to guess it happened before I got it. The brushes were only on the armature by about an eight of an inch. All the current to run the motor was going through about 20 percent of the brushes and eventually burned them up and melted the brush housing down around them.

I put the housing in a vice between some wood blocks and drove the shaft back down to the place where it started out. I put a different brush housing and brushes in and put it back together, works fine.

I had already bought a different head and shaft on ebay, so I guess this will be a back up or I'll sell it.

That winding was TIGHT on the shaft, I had to put a block on the end of it and hit it a couple dozen times to move it back the 1/2 inch it had moved. If I'd seen it earlier I would have just had to get a different housing and brushes.

One other thing someone may find helpful. Notice the little cardboard ring in the brush housing, I wondered why they'd leave it there until I started to put it back together. The ring goes in between the brushes to hold them apart while you slide the armature into the brush housing, the armature pushes the ring back and the brushes pop off onto the armature, K.I.S.S.

 

[lmuss53]

Something else I learned here thanks to a tech at MinnKota. If you have one of these autopilot motors apart, you must put a twist in the red and black wires as they run through the head and be careful to route them away from the compass or the magnetic field they create will make your AP lose it sense of direction.