TOTALLY FRUSTRATED WITH MY TROLLING MOTOR INTERFERENCE PROBLEMS.

[diveshades]

Late last year I purchase a couple of Helix 10's along with the 360 transducer. Both are on the front of my boat. My marine dealer has just about given up . They consulted with Humminbird, and Ranger and checked all the wiring, added many chokes, added a ground from the negative of one of the trolling motor batteries to the cranking battery. I have talked to Humminbird, and Minn Kota and they apologize. Today I visited a trolling motor repair center and they added a ferrit and checked my fuse, etc. Still having a useless screen everytime I push the trolling motor button to get it moving. Really bummed! One positive today was that I did catch a 9.12 pounder on a Zoom speed craw.

[ssbassman]

Is everything hard wired? If not I would try that.

[diveshades]

As I am not really knowledgeable, I really do not understand what hard wired is. The front panel has all the wiring and according to my dealer it has been checked and is correct. The trolling motor repair center checked the wiring as well and could not see anything wrong with it.

[Rip Bass]

One thing you can try that lots of folks have had success with is run a ground wire from the neg buss bar under the bow panel to the Trolling motor skeg. You will need to drill a hole in the skeg and bolt the wire to the skeg.

[Tracker18]

I think he means wired straight from battery. Did you go to the Humminbird forum. Most are running minimum of 14g wire straight from battery with in line fuse at battery. It does make a difference with the Humminbirds.

[GhostComanche]

One thing you can try that lots of folks have had success with is run a ground wire from the neg buss bar under the bow panel to the Trolling motor skeg. You will need to drill a hole in the skeg and bolt the wire to the skeg.

.................what trolling motor are you running Jack??.......................RR

[TritonJT]

One thing you can try that lots of folks have had success with is run a ground wire from the neg buss bar under the bow panel to the Trolling motor skeg. You will need to drill a hole in the skeg and bolt the wire to the skeg.

This is the only thing that will fix it. Forget everything else you have been told.

[TopgunZ521C]

i had the same problem with my birds went to lowrance no more issues. i just got tired of chasing the issue.

[jimsch]

Riggers wire tied the transducer cable to tight on my last boat. It didn't take any time before the interference made it unreadable. It had a slight dent where the tie was. I shook the wire while on the lake and watched it go from great picture back to crap as I moved the coax. New transducer and no more problems.

[McGreavster]

Just had a bad interface problem between my Hummingbird and Motorguide. I jumped the negative cable under the foot pedal and ran a 16 gauge wire to the skeg on the trolling motor. Cleared the interface right up.

[TopGun21x]

i had the same problem with my birds went to lowrance no more issues. i just got tired of chasing the issue.

Got some buds with the same problems with HB

[diveshades]

I will try the trolling motor skeg ground wire and see how it works out. Today I moved my transducer wires down and put electrical tape underneath each tie wrap and unfortunately nothing changed, still have the interference problem. Thanks to all you guys for your suggestions. I will keep trying!

[Lou r Pitcher]

Trying these quick fixes is a bit like going to a doctor for pain and he begins writing prescriptions without ever knowing what is the cause.

Have you determined the path of the interference into the sonar?

[Kodiak16]

Locators need to be powered off the main motor battery not the trolling battery. Worth a look didn't see it mentioned

[joebw]

I will try the trolling motor skeg ground wire and see how it works out. Today I moved my transducer wires down and put electrical tape underneath each tie wrap and unfortunately nothing changed, still have the interference problem. Thanks to all you guys for your suggestions. I will keep trying!

You may have damaged your transducer wires already. Did that myself years ago. Replaced transducer and used electrical tape, it worked.

I never use tie wires anymore.

Good luck

[squib]

One thing you can try that lots of folks have had success with is run a ground wire from the neg buss bar under the bow panel to the Trolling motor skeg. You will need to drill a hole in the skeg and bolt the wire to the skeg.

Yep do this.

[squib]

I think he means wired straight from battery. Did you go to the Humminbird forum. Most are running minimum of 14g wire straight from battery with in line fuse at battery. It does make a difference with the Humminbirds.

and this too

[Syncros]

As I am not really knowledgeable, I really do not understand what hard wired is. The front panel has all the wiring and according to my dealer it has been checked and is correct. The trolling motor repair center checked the wiring as well and could not see anything wrong with it.

You could try finding a member around you who knows what these things mean to take a look at it for you. If you were in Omaha I'd be happy to look at it, not sure I could fix it, but I could at least tell you if you were hard wired to the battery and if you aren't I'd help you pull cable and get it all connected and I wouldn't charge you for any of it (I actually like rigging and have all the supplies someone could need to do it).

Lou brings up a good point. I don't have that level of expertise to troubleshoot at that level. My knowledge stops at hard wired, cable routing and ferrite rings. I have not yet had interference that one, or a combination of those things didn't fix with Humminbirds and MK trolling motors (never used Lowrance or MG).

[CaymasRodney]

I have taken a 14 gauge wire and ran it from negative on cranking batter to one of the bolts that hold your trolling motor bracket on ( under your bow panel)most of the time that fixes it.

[riverrat29]

Late last year I purchase a couple of Helix 10's along with the 360 transducer. Both are on the front of my boat. My marine dealer has given up but not after a last charge for 1 1/2 hours labor. They consulted with Humminbird, and Ranger and checked all the wiring, added many chokes, added a ground from the negative of one of the trolling motor batteries to the cranking battery. I have talked to Humminbird, and Minn Kota and they apologize. Today I visited a trolling motor repair center and they added a ferrit and checked my fuse, etc. Still having a useless screen everytime I push the trolling motor button to get it moving. Really bummed! One positive today was that I did catch a 9.12 pounder on a Zoom speed craw.

It could be quite a number of things as you can see folks mentioning, but it sounds like you are working down the list. Grounds, power supply issues, TM interference, inductive noise from large power wires, issues with the ducer or ducer routing/cables, you name it, it can mess with the graph. This is an out of the box thinking and it took me a good while to think of it, but I had helped a buddy of mine once with an issue we chased like this and found that in his case it was getting interference from the on board battery charger itself. We disconnected the the charging leg going the battery that was serving his electronics and it went away fast as that. Had something to do with a back feed or electronics in the charger. We just put a switch in series so that when he was done charging and going to the water, he could open that line up and not have any issues on the water.

Nice Fish By the Way !!!!!!!!!!