Ipilot issue

[bigv]

Last eve was the maiden voyage for the year for my boat. Terrova wouldn't work right. First off the remote would only work intermittent but I think that was probably bad battery? But I couldnt get the motor to hardly work. The light on foot pedal for constant was on but no power to prop. I would move dial up and down and it would kick on or remote would kick it on but often nothing either. When did get it running it had very little power. Would turn left and right just fine but not speed power. I even hit rabbit mode and it barely sped up. It finally died all together. So my local boat man says batteries or brushes in bell. He's too busy to check right now. I charged batteries all winter. I plugged back in last night. The button on the trolling motor say full charge but the bank charger says one is 50% and the two other are 25% and they were hooked up for days before use. I suspect one or both deep cycles are iffy? Any thoughts? Hope not brushes as he said that is minimum $600. thanks

 

[SDMF]

Sounds like batteries. Are all of the charging banks charging properly? Pull them off 1 by 1 and touch them with a tester.

Hate to be Capt'n Obvious but, if they're regular lead-acid, did you check the water in the batteries?

 

[bigv]

I haven't yet. Am going to dig little deeper this eve.

 

[zoops]

Usually when minnkotas do goofy things, it's a battery issue. I would definitely start there. 600 sounds high for brushes, pretty sure I had some done this spring for like 200.

 

[Up Y'oars]

I had a bad experience with the Terrova last summer. Had similar issues with the prop not turning as fast as I had the remote or foot pedal set at. Then, my remote blinked an 'f' code (fault). Took it in to Scheels and the repair guy said it was both iPilot and main motherboards, so I had him replace that ($700). I looked at it like the repair was a lot less than $3k for an Ulterra.

Took it out again the next week... same things. Brought it back to Bismarck Scheels. He then said it was the lower unit. Opened it up to find full of water and rust. So, now that I was in the $700 I might as well go another $450 for a new lower unit. Paid the bill and took it up to the lake the following weekend.

Yup, same issue still. Brought the motor BACK to Bismarck Scheels and this time he says it's the cable from the unit to the head. Another $175 later. So late in the fall that I hadn't been able to take it back out on the water.

Crossing fingers my maiden voyage for 2021 will be without incident.

 

[johnr]

If you have one bad battery you need to replace both of them.
Or the other non replaced battery will fuck with your new one.

 

[Captain Ahab]

You can get decent battery testers for not much $$ now days. Nice thing to have in the tool box when you have an issue.

 

[guywhofishes]

Chk all the connections. What seems like a decent connection (feels tight) can be crap.

 

[3Roosters]

Boats.....2 great times. lol;:;bowdown