newbie help with trolling motor

[cwphoto]

hello folks:

I just have a small 1436 jon boat, and looking for a trolling motor for the bow. I know nothing about these, so looking for recommendations. I've seen the edge, V2, and a few other models. The idea of a continuous variable speed sounds appealing over switched settings. Minn Kota claims greater battery life on such models, is there any truth to this claim?

Also, what shaft length should I be looking for? 45", 50"? I know it's easy enough to determine when the boat is in the water, but I don't have a main outboard yet, so it's not practical to put the boat in the water at this point.

What about foot controls versus remote control? Are extra long cables available if I want to use the trolling motor from the rear of the boat?

What about thrust, particularly if I was to get the boat stuck in shallows? What do I need? I believe they start at 45 and go up from there, but don't want to waste money unnecessarily either.

Seems like we need a trolling motor selection guide!

Troy

 

[davids.reef]

I have the same size boat and just upgraded my trolling motor from a 30 thrust transom mount to a minnkota edge 45/45 foot Control and it's amazing! Perfect motor for this boat it moves my family and I around the lake very well and that's including heavy front deck I built lol.

 

[kofkorn]

All right, let's knock a few of these off:

> The idea of a continuous variable speed sounds appealing over switched settings. Minn Kota claims greater battery life on such models, is there any truth to this claim?

Yes. Most of the motors which use switched speeds are controlled with speed coils. What happens is that the main motor coil is turning the motor, and then various speed resistance coils are engaged to control the speed of the main coil. The slower that you want to go, the more resistance is required. So from the efficiency standpoint, these motors are least efficient when they are in the slowest speed. On the continuous variable setups, there is an electronic circuit that regulates the energy going to the motor via "PWM" or Pulse Width Modulation. Essentially, these units cycle the power on and off at high frequencies. The amount of power on time drives how fast the motor goes. In these motors, there is only the main coil and no resistance coils, increasing the efficiency. So on PWM controlled motors, the power usage at low speeds is significantly lower.


> what shaft length should I be looking for? 45", 50"?


For a Jon boat, anything between 42" and 48" should be fine. Longer shafts mean either the motor is running down deeper, or the head of the motor is sitting higher. You want the motor just deep enough that the prop isn't pulling air from the surface, making noise, or hitting the boat.

>What about foot controls versus remote control? Are extra long cables available if I want to use the trolling motor from the rear of the boat?

There are two kinds of foot control; Cable steer, and Electric steer. With the cable steer motors, the foot pedal is about 5-6' away from the motor head. The benefit of cable steer motors is the steering response, as they turn very quickly. Most electric steer motors have much longer cables (15-20') that would be good for your situation. The drawbacks are that these motors turn slower and are more expensive. However the available upgrades for electric steer motors can be useful (handheld remote, compass navigation, GPS navigation, contour following)

>What about thrust, particularly if I was to get the boat stuck in shallows? What do I need?

You're running a fairly small boat. Nearly any motor size will work fine. If you are going electric only, with no gas motor, then you are going to want to go with as high a thrust as you can afford. This would help to get you to your fishing spot faster. If you are planning on adding a gas motor, a 45 lb motor would be fine.

If you get a 1436 boat stuck in the shallows, you aren't in deep enough water to be using a trolling motor anyway. The lowest part of the motor is going to be at least 1 foot below the surface of the water, more than enough water to keep your boat freely floating.

Good luck!

 

[TNtroller]

I have two MK's with the digitizer maximizer or whatever they call it (Terrova and Endura) and both have variable speed, I can troll 4-6 hrs at speeds up to 1.2mph, and still have half or 50% or more of a charge , usually about 75% charge. Good TM's, and you have to follow good battery maint as well. One of my TM batteries is 3.5 yrs old, and I can still get 6-8 hrs trolling time if needed.

 

[Delta_fishin]

Great info on the trolling motor. Because i myself am getting ready to purchase a minnkota v2 for my 14' aluminum boat. Unless there is some better competition out there?

 

[kofkorn]

It's really personal preference. The two major companies, Minn Kota and Motorguide, both have units with similar features. I prefer Minn Kota because of the advanced guidance features and inter-operability with Humminbird fishfinders to give you terrain following, but Motorguide has some nice features as well.

Closer to the issue is that you'll have to decide how you want to use it: Where do you fish in your boat, do you have a casting deck, are you going to fish rivers, do you need a 12V or 24V? Once you answer these questions, your options will be pretty clear.

Good luck!

 

[cwphoto]

kofkorn » 06 Aug 2014, 03:36[/url]"]All right, let's knock a few of these off:

> The idea of a continuous variable speed sounds appealing over switched settings. Minn Kota claims greater battery life on such models, is there any truth to this claim?

Yes. Most of the motors which use switched speeds are controlled with speed coils. What happens is that the main motor coil is turning the motor, and then various speed resistance coils are engaged to control the speed of the main coil. The slower that you want to go, the more resistance is required. So from the efficiency standpoint, these motors are least efficient when they are in the slowest speed. On the continuous variable setups, there is an electronic circuit that regulates the energy going to the motor via "PWM" or Pulse Width Modulation. Essentially, these units cycle the power on and off at high frequencies. The amount of power on time drives how fast the motor goes. In these motors, there is only the main coil and no resistance coils, increasing the efficiency. So on PWM controlled motors, the power usage at low speeds is significantly lower.


> what shaft length should I be looking for? 45", 50"?


For a Jon boat, anything between 42" and 48" should be fine. Longer shafts mean either the motor is running down deeper, or the head of the motor is sitting higher. You want the motor just deep enough that the prop isn't pulling air from the surface, making noise, or hitting the boat.

>What about foot controls versus remote control? Are extra long cables available if I want to use the trolling motor from the rear of the boat?

There are two kinds of foot control; Cable steer, and Electric steer. With the cable steer motors, the foot pedal is about 5-6' away from the motor head. The benefit of cable steer motors is the steering response, as they turn very quickly. Most electric steer motors have much longer cables (15-20') that would be good for your situation. The drawbacks are that these motors turn slower and are more expensive. However the available upgrades for electric steer motors can be useful (handheld remote, compass navigation, GPS navigation, contour following)

>What about thrust, particularly if I was to get the boat stuck in shallows? What do I need?

You're running a fairly small boat. Nearly any motor size will work fine. If you are going electric only, with no gas motor, then you are going to want to go with as high a thrust as you can afford. This would help to get you to your fishing spot faster. If you are planning on adding a gas motor, a 45 lb motor would be fine.

If you get a 1436 boat stuck in the shallows, you aren't in deep enough water to be using a trolling motor anyway. The lowest part of the motor is going to be at least 1 foot below the surface of the water, more than enough water to keep your boat freely floating.

Good luck!

Thank you for the detailed feedback. I'm not sure how I go about identifying an electric steer vs a cable steer, but perhaps Minn Kota has that information available on their site. One thing I did not ask about is a transom mount, and hooking up the motor with an extension off the remote steering. Yes, I do plan on putting remote steering on my small boat. I am told it is easier to keep the boat on track via steering from the bow as opposed to the Stern, so this is the direction I'm heading. I'm also not clear if an electric steer can be operated with a foot switch as well or if it can only be done via a remote control. if I'm understanding correctly only the electric steer would be compatible with things like i-pilot, and the remote control. It seems like the hand remote control itself is a considerable upgrade in terms of price. Would like to keep the price under $500.

The other thing that I've read that seems to conflict with your information has to do with thrust. I am told that the maximum speed of a MK is around 5 miles an hour. It doesn't matter if you have 45 pounds of thrust or 100 pounds of thrust. The difference has to do with the payload the motor can push (or pull). I guess this is where my comment about the shallows came in. If you're stuck on a sandbar and you're trying to pull yourself off, you would need a higher thrust motor. I do get the fact that since I'm running a boat with so little draft, this is kind of pointless, although I guess the motor could kind of be trimmed to be used as sort of a mud motor-- probably just easier to put an oar in the dirt and push myself out, assuming I cannot just get out of the boat and walk the boat to deeper water. Rivers in my area tend to have silt bottoms, so are more like quicksand, so probably would not be doing that. Anyway, to my understanding a higher thrust motor is not going to go faster, just push or pull a heavier payload.

Thx,

Troy

Troy

 

[kofkorn]

Electric Steer vs. Cable steer is pretty easy.

The cable steer units (MK Edge, MK Fortrex etc) are virtually all the scissor style mount where the base that mounts to the boat is about 18" long. They also have a very large diameter cable bundle coming out of the head of the motor and the bundle is only about 4 or 5 ft long.

Electric steer units (MK Powerdrive, MK Terrova etc) have a much smaller base and the shaft slides down to deploy instead of a scissor action. They will have a much smaller cable bundle going to the foot pedal. To do any kind of remote control (Without rigging something interesting) you will need an electric steer unit.

As to the speed, I agree that there is a maximum theoretical maximum speed that will be the same regardless of thrust. However, with my boat, (Tracker Pro 17) any upgrade to the thrust will directly affect the speed.

If you really get yourself on a sand bar, your trolling motor likely won't be in a good position to help you much. I would definitely carry a good long paddle or pole to push yourself with.

Good luck