I was using my trolling motor this weekend, and it went dead all of a sudden (like flipped a switch), and would not come back on. Any suggesstions on where to start looking, or how to test? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

There should be a breaker back by the batteries that is proably tripped. Looks like a light switch.

My trolling motor does that there may be a grey box approx 1" x1.5" on your positive battery post it has a small black button on one end or the other push it in to reset it hope this helps.

The grey box that your talking about - is that the "50 amp" circuit breaker? On my older boats that only had 12 volt trolling motors, they had a little box like your talking about - but I dont recall them having any type of a button on them. I looked back by the batteries and there is some box (looks to be the above size) but it has heat shrink around it, and I belive it is coming off of one of the negative sides. This 36 volt stuff has me confused. I haven't seen anything that looks like any type of switch or anything yet. By the way this is on an '04 Skeeter.

This is the grey box ( Breaker )

Yes Keith thats the one i was talking about. not sure one 36 v

that grey box is a self resetting breaker, should reset in about 3-5 mins after the heat is gone.

first thing is to see if you have power at the plug, multimeter and check the boat side for 36v.
if power there then pull the top off the motor and see if the red and black wires (thick ones) are shorted to something, had this happen on 3 different minn kota motors. move them so they are not touching each other or anything that is metal, tape and seal any bare spots.

pull the prop and check for line wrapped around the shaft. not likely that it could stop a 101# but ya never know.

I had the same problem when I first got my boat. But it is just a 24 volt system. I have two batteries and each of the positive side cables had the above 50 amp 24 DC V on them. My trolling motor would just quit all of a sudden. Mine has the little black push reset button on them so I just pushed the button. Then I got tired of doing that and replaced the breaker that kept tripping and have not tripped one in two years/ Sometimes they go bad.

Hop is talking about an auto resetting breaker that works the same way but like he said it resets itself every 3 to 5 minutes. They to can go bad. I hope this will help you

this is the one I use, I can pop it to charge and kill the power to the plug for safety.



http://www.academy.com/webapp/wcs/stores...ers&Ntk=All

I had to replace the same breakers on my 36V system a few years ago, they were about 8-9 yrs old.

When I was disconnecting them they literally crumbled into several pieces.

I believe age, heat, and wet-cell battery fumes when charging
contributes to their eventual demise.

Thanks for the help. I think the breaker was the problem. I have not actually tested the trolling motor, but I put a volt meter back at the batteries and didn't have anything until I pushed the reset button, then I had the 36 volts.

Do you know why there is one breaker on the negative of "battery 1" and then a breaker on the positive on what I am going to call "battery 3"? The positive side was the one that was tripped.