Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

I need some help with trolling motor installation. I will be as specific as I can so you can understand what I need to do.
I just bought an old bass boat, no trolling motor on it, but there was one at some point. On the bow panel there is a three prong plug. Next to that, there is a 12V Charge/12V Run 24V switch. There are two wires that come from the back 6 gauge wire which are the positive and negative that ran to the battery that are then spliced into some other wires that lead to panel. There are 4 more wires, lesser gauge wire, that go from the back to the front, two positive and two negative, that were connected to the switch which I?ve determined were for the 12V Charge portion of the switch. There is a jumper wire from the switch to the plug. On the back of the switch, there are 4 posts and a bar.
I have a Motorguide Tracker 60 motor that I want to put on the boat. This has a switch on the pedal that is for 12V or 24V operation. I have a two bank onboard charger that I am using to charge the two trolling motor batteries that I installed.
Here are my questions:
1) Is the switch in the pedal of the motor a conversion switch? If so, this would allow me to leave the batteries connected parallel, correct?
2) If the pedal switch is the conversion, this would allow me to disregard connecting anything to the 12V Charge/12V Run 24V switch, correct? I?m not going to use the plug to charge my batteries anyway.
3) In detail, what is the best way to create this wiring setup? From battery setup, wire gauge, circuit breaker, type of wiring connectors (e.g. getting 6 gauge wire to connect with the lesser gauge wire going into the plug). Like I?m a two year old, could someone explain this to me, I?m confused. Appreciate the help in advance.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

Geez I hate those systems. (Sorry -- they have created more problems than they every solved.). Yes - the switch on the foot control is a conversion switch and that's why it is labeled 12 & 24. Flip it one way the motor runs on the 12 volts. Flip it the other it runs on 24 volts. That is why there is also a THREE terminal receptacle because your motor likely has THREE wires between the plug and the motor itself. Am I correct on that? If not, you need to provide more detail.

The 12/24/RUN/CHARGE switch was installed to allow charging both batteries through the trolling motor receptacle with a SINGLE output portable charger. Now then. It appears your system has been "mucked" with because there should only have been four wires going from the batteries to the bow panel. One pair was connected to one battery and the other pair to the second battery. There would have been NO JUMPER between the two batteries. Since we have no diagram of what you have it is really difficult to give you any advice on what you have since we have limited information to go on. Pictures of the back of that panel labeled with TO/FROM into, as well as pictures of what the batteries and wires back there look like with TO/FROM labels would help.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

I can't provide pictures until the weekend.
However, you were correct in that there are 3 wires coming from motor to the plug. The jumper wire was not at the batteries, it goes from the female plug to the back of the Charge/Run switch on the panel.
I guess my question would be, if I had no wiring in the boat and was starting from scratch, what would be the best way to wire the trolling motor? I will be using two batteries, and would like to disregard the Charge/Run switch on the bow panel since I will be getting my conversion through the pedal, and charging with onboard charger in the rear compartment.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

I urge you NOT to remove or disconnect this system for the simple reason the next owner of your boat will cuss you if you do (but then what he calls you after you have his money in your hand is probably not of interest to you). So again, not knowing how the system has been mucked with, and since you have a THREE terminal receptacle rather than a FOUR terminal, here is a typical end-to-end scheme for a THREE wire system. Wire colors on the motor can vary but most popular seems to be red, orange and black. Measuring red to black produces 24 volts, orange to black provides 12 volts. The switch on the foot pedal makes that selection. This system requires that you TOTALLY bypass the switch panel. Wiring is from the batteries directly to the receptacle.




If the receptacle was a four terminal type, then you simply run one pair of wires from each battery to the receptacle.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

Silvertip - appreciate the help. I don't plan on removing anything from the boat, but I'm just going to pull the wires from the panel, label them and cap them off. It just seemed more direct to bypass the Charge/Run switch and not have to worry about it.
Just one more question about the wiring. I can replace circuit breaker (50 amp I assume) where it says fuse in the diagram, and the wires running from the breaker and the ground, should be 6ga or 8ga wire?

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

Fuses and breakers do the same thing so either one is fine. don't know what thrust motor you have. That is what determines maximum current draw of the motor. Distance from the battery is also a consideration. But you can't go wrong with 6 gauge up to the receptacle. When finished with the wiring, make sure the 12, 24 and ground connections on the troller PLUG match 12, 24, and ground on the RECEPTACLE. Don't connect any of the existing wires to the batteries to avoid electrical issues. Just coil them up and tuck them away.

One last thing. Which voltage do you use most (12 or 24). If you use 24 most of the time then why even bother with the 12 volt circuit (or vice-versa). You would only need two wires and one breaker in that configuration.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

Boat is 15'8'', batteries in the back. So the breaker would be approximately 6-10 inches from the batteries, and probably 13 feet from breaker to the bow panel.
Motor is 56 lb. thrust. I would be using it in 24V mode the majority of the time. What would happen if I had it wired for 24V only and accidently flipped the switch on the pedal to 12V? Would that hurt the motor at all, or would the motor not work if the switch was flipped to the 12V position? I guess I was going to leave it with the 12 and 24V connections because I wasn't sure about how I could affect the motor if I ran 24 volts if the switch was in the wrong position.
This is where get very stupid about electrical.

How would the wire diagram differ from the earlier one you provided for 24V only? Just connect battery one (+) and two
(-), then run two (+) to the breaker, then to the plug, and one (-) from the battery to the plug?

Again, thanks for the time and assistance.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

Somehow I knew I shouldn't have mentioned this. The simple solution would be to block the switch with tape or any other method. Electrical devices are designed to operate on a specific voltage. Over voltage typically fries those items.

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

Silvertip said:

I urge you NOT to remove or disconnect this system for the simple reason the next owner of your boat will cuss you if you do (but then what he calls you after you have his money in your hand is probably not of interest to you). So again, not knowing how the system has been mucked with, and since you have a THREE terminal receptacle rather than a FOUR terminal, here is a typical end-to-end scheme for a THREE wire system. Wire colors on the motor can vary but most popular seems to be red, orange and black. Measuring red to black produces 24 volts, orange to black provides 12 volts. The switch on the foot pedal makes that selection. This system requires that you TOTALLY bypass the switch panel. Wiring is from the batteries directly to the receptacle.




If the receptacle was a four terminal type, then you simply run one pair of wires from each battery to the receptacle.

Click to expand...

Silvertip I just bought a boat with this same setup but only 1 battery that is not connected. If i wanted to just hook up one battrry to try and see if the trolling motor worked would i simply hook red up to breaker and +, and black to -, & leave orange loose? I will set it up like the diagram shows(thanks by the way) but want to make sure it works before investing in another battery. Thanks

Re: Trolling Motor Installation Help For A Dummy....Please

WARNING: Look at the diagram. If you had only one battery and you connected the troller to the RED wire, what does the label say on that wire? It says 24 VOLTS doesn't it? Yes -- there would only be 12 volts on that wire since you only have one battery. But you are connecting to the 24 VOLT wire going to the motor. Next -- went wrong again by picking the right hand battery because look where the GROUND wire goes. It goes to the LEFT side battery. Why not just use the YELLOW and BLACK wire to feed 12 volts to the 12 volt wire on the motor. Don't make this stuff more work than you need to. You want 12 volts to the motor, wire like the diagram (Yellow & black) and no right side battery. You want 24 volts or 12 volts, wire like the diagram. If you want ONLY a 24 volt system, wire it like the diagram but omit the yellow wire.

Lastly, you jumped on another persons thread which is also a NO-NO. Start your own even though you have a similar setup, but a different issue. It confuse the be-jeepers out of these threads as to who we are responding to.