I have a minn kota maxxum pro 80lb foot control. It surges & cuts out on high speed & picks back up and goes. Really annoying!!only does it in the water. It will run on high out of the way all day long. " thought" I found the problem but I was wrong. Replaced the control board in pedal twice now & found a cut ground wire in the shaft close to the lower unit. Replaced it with new one. No signs of water in the lower unit its self. All Connections are good. It cant be circuit breakers cause I hooked my voltmeter up at plug & when it surges it never drops amps. Its not a batttery or circuit issue. Does this sound like a bad armature? any ideas? Thanks!

way**-Water

Could be a bad armature, sounds more like water in lower unit but you eliminated that. Could be a bad prop, but that would be easily seen when you took the prop off.

An easy way to see if the armature is dirty or bad is when it quits working turn the motor, it's usually enough to barely spin the prop and it should work again. My old Maxxum did this all the time. I just figured out that if I would turn the motor left and right a few times, it would work again immediately. Good luck!!

Yea I was set on bad armature & took it to minn kota dealer & they eliminated the armature. Thought it was bad control board again, Hooked up a new one from their store & still the same. Volt meter coming off control board reads 23-24v Hold the prop with resistance & its only pulling 4v. (Update: Pulled out female end plug & seen this had been wired for 36v. When I bought new batterys I had them put in & wired up 24v. ( I thought ). Well sure enough I find 2 hot wires runing to Battery 1, Ground Wire running to battery 2 plus jumper wire. Ive never seen 2 hots running to the same battery for 24v, So i unhooked the one used for 36v all together. Got out on lake & ran fine again for 5mins & this time it blew the circuit breaker on positiive. I have a 50amp Reset breaker. So I reset it & ran on low. But It still wont run on high without blowing breaker. Still reading 4v from control board while holding the prop. Im at a standstill now . Any ideas would be great!! thanks!!

we see that all the time.
older boats prewired for 24/36 or 12/24 volt trollers.

problems that arise are the boat side recep goes out. and also check your breakers.

when you have the right power from the batteries and you apply power to the troller it drops the voltage on the output side of the control board. could also be a dead battery.
the control board will protect itself (somewhat).

it's not the troller. it's a battery. breaker. recep at boat side.
the system needs to be re wired and replace the breakers and check the batteries with a load tester.

Steve, Yes I beleive its in my wiring now as well. Minn kota guys rewired my male end plug & only think I can think of now is my male & female plug & receptacle wiring is not wired up matching when I plug it in. ( im at work now & will update this when I get off). I really appreciate yalls help!!

Think**Thing

I had one that was doing that. Mine would work when it was up, but when I would drop it in the water it would stop or surge. It turned out to be a bad female plug on the boat. The wire would pull away when it was down, just enough to not make connection.

Yeah its some kind of annoying, but Im just now getting into re wiring & plug issues. Never would have thought it.

Ok, Ive replaced female end plug, New jumper wire. Opened up Trolling motor head & Found that my hotwire was toast at the connection & im assuming this is from the 2 hot wires I had running to the battery, Checked in the lower unit & it looked ok on that end. Rewired & Tested with volt meter & im getting better amps. Not a big climb but il take it. Tbc til I put it in water..

Ok, Took boat out today here in 10-15mph wind, put trolling motor on high and ran it for a hour without surging or blowing fuse. I feel the problem has been corrected. I atleast I hope so!!

good to hear