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Posts: 52
| I'm running a ranger 621 with a Minnkota 101 on a 36 volt system. I replaced all three trolling batteries this spring. When I first installed the batteries it took about 4 hours to fully charge them. After the first fishing trip, I plugged in the onboard charger and it is showing the first trolling battery is fully charged and lights up green within about 30 seconds. The other batteries show that they are charging for at least a few hours or more each time. This has continued all season and it also seems like the motor is a bit short on power. I suspected a battery problem so I took it in and they replaced it for me. After installing it, the charger showed that it was partially charged and took over 2 hours to fully charge. I thought the issue was solved, but I fished for the first time yesterday and after I got done plugged in the charger. Right away it showed that the first battery was fully charged and the others were way low. It also seemed low on power while I was fishing yesterday. Any ideas of what could cause this??? Could the motor be running on only the second and third battery and not taking anything from the first one? |
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| Sounds to me more like one of the banks on your charger (I'm assuming you have a 3- or 4-bank charger) has a blown fuse, or possibly that charger bank isn't working right. |
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Posts: 52
| I am running a 4 bank charger. I was thinking about a charger problem too, but it did charge right both the first time I installed the new battery this spring and again seemed to work the first time I charged the replacement battery. |
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Posts: 131
| try switching the leads on your charger to a different battery.this will let you know if it's the charger or something else is going on. |
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Posts: 194
Location: Lake Elmo, MN | Buy yourself a good multi-meter at Home Depot or similar. They are the best tool for diagnosing battery issues without guesswork. Easy to use and only about 20 bucks. Great investment.
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Posts: 31
| Are you absolutely sure that you're connected correctly so that you are feeding 36 volts to your trolling motor? This is exactly what I would expect if you were only using 24 volts. |
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Posts: 5874
| Agree on checking that you in fact are wired for 36 volts to the TM. I've seen this before, and the factory wiring was for a 24V system at the dsitribution block. |
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Posts: 52
| I think that is exactly what happened. I checked the other evening and found that the red cable coming from the trolling motor is hooked to the third trolling battery and the black cable was hooked up to the second battery instead of the first one. I am assuming that this would cause it to run on 24 instead of 36 volts. I must have done this when I was replacing all of the batteries earlier this year or it may have originally been rigged that way. The negative is now connected to the first battery. I turned it on in the garage and it seems to turn alot faster and also run alot faster.
Thanks everyone for all of your help.
Edited by muskyjeff84 10/13/2015 2:14 PM
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Trolling Motor / Battery question