1994 17 SCX Trolling Motor conversion

[RisenAngel]

Good morning all I had a quick question on my 94 17scx. It originally had a brute force 12/24 46lb tm on it. I just upgrade it to a 24v motorguide TM but the plug had three wires and the motorguide only has two. Assuming I didnt need the orange wire I wired up red to red and black to black. Ran it out on the water and it felt like it didn't have the thrust it should for an 82lb thrust motor. At the end of the day I hooked up my charger and noticed only 1 of 2 batteries was dead. I believe the factory wiring of the boat was not rigged for 24v, but the original TM did something to connect the two batteries in parallel to achieve 24 volts. Can someone help me confirm this?

[Mickstix]

Yea, the 3 (4) wire system used a different plug, which let the TM choose 12 or 24v. They run separate (+) (-) wires from each battery, up to the bow and into the plug. On mine, I tied both (+) and both (-) wires together at the bow (TM) and also in the bilge, and used them as 1 big (+) and 1 big (-) wires. (You'll then need a short "jumper" wire to connect the 2 batteries)

Note: You probably don't "need" to tie the wires together, but if they used 6 or 8 gauge wire, like on mine, it's not quite adequate for 24v imo.. I did it to simulate a smaller gauge (larger) wire for the power to flow from..

[gcross]

I know that's the way you hook it up but it just looks like it shouldn't work thatta way. lol

[gaboy]

mickstix, it sounds logical but 2 separate wires tied together does not handle more amps the strands has to be twisted together inside the same insulation to create a higher amp capacity. you are probably good anyway is it right to say the amp goes down as the volts go up?

[Mickstix]

Im not much of an electrics guy. Can't remember who recommended I wire it that way (combining the wires) but I used to burn a 40a fuse about once a month. Since the rewire, I've not burned a fuse in 4+ years. Maybe it just had a bad connection before, causing heat, but either way it runs good this way, batteries last longer, no blown fuses.