I have an ipilot minnkota and every time i take them off the charger they drain the remote is off and nothing else is hooked to the batteries except an on board charger do yall no of anything that might be draining them I was going to charge them then unplug the trolling motor from the front deck to see if they still drain

After replacing two mother boards; It didn't take me long to find out one should unplug the trolling motor every time you charge the batteries.

Over the years I have burned out 12/24 volt. stitches while charging.

Those who have the TM hard wired should make sure the speed is set at OO, or OFF.

In your case you have a bad battery in the lineup and the charger cannot do it's job. If the batteries are over two years old replace all of them.

Always unplug troll motor when charging......

you should have a breaker in line or a fuse, pull the fuse or flip the breaker and your good.

if batteries are left to sit they will lose charge without anything pulling them down, it is just how it works.

check the charge while the charger is goin, it should show between 13.5 and 14.5 volts, let them charge. next is to get them load tested this is the only way to really tell if they are good or not.
it is worth the money imo to buy a load tester and learn how to use them, this will save you money in the long run.

I only get about two years out of our new tm batteries. After a while they just won't last the entire day. I'd try disconnecting your tm and see if that helps.

You will also want to read the charger book and learn what the light blinking system on the charger for each battery means.

When a battery is not charging the light on that lead will blink a particular color or give a soled amber light.

You will also want to learn to test the volts being put out by each lead wire, to determine if one of the banks is bad on the charger itself.

Why is that

THANKS GUYS MY BATTERIES ARE NEW AND SO ARE THE CHARGER ILL START UNPLUGING TM UNTIL USE

Check your wiring on the charger. Make sure positive to positive. I had a friend that hooked up on set of leaads to one battery backwards and even though the charge indicator showed full charge, the battery was dead.

they are hooked up right my trolling motor has a battery gauge on the trolling motor and i can look at it as full when then the charge is complete then go out there a couple days later and see it down to 2 bars and then a couple days later be dead im going to un plug it after the charging cycle and see what happens the trolling motor has gps on it so im thinking the unit staying on even though the remote is turned off

It is said that both MG & MK digital models always have power to the control boards when connected.

Yes, some trolling motors still use a little power whenever connected to a battery, even though TM propeller is not turning.

Leaving a TM connected while charging also means the TM circuitry is exposed to any leakage voltage spikes,peaks or residual AC voltages atop the DC chargers voltage. Best to disconnect any TM from battery when stored or whenever a battery is on a charger.

Another source of drain on a fully charged battery is an unpowered charger itself. Most chargers, this in negligible. It is best to leave some chargers connected to batteries powered 24/7 or, if you are choosing to shut their power off, disconnecting them from the charged battery so they don't leak current back from the battery.

A typical sold battery load tester that was suggested will not accurately test a true deep cycle trolling motor battery, good for testing only cranking batteries.

The mentioned internal leakage of a fully charged stored flooded lead acid battery sitting is almost negligible for at least several weeks.

Sorry, your batteries are NOT NEW... You repeatedly have ran them dead and they are surely permanently sulfated and somewhat damaged.

I also have a minnkota, when finished fishing for the day, the last thing I do is turn off the switch at the foot control. Never had any problems in doing this. However if I fail to do this it will run down batteries.

Trolling motor repair man told me to always unplug the trolling motor while charging it, at least on my Maxxum 80. I looked at the electrical diagram and the board is "ahead" of the on/off switch so cutting it off does no good. Don't know about other models.Very easy to just unplug it everytime.

sorry lou but that does not make sense, both trolling motor and start batteries in boats are deep cycle. the load tester tells you what amp load duration you have available.


Do batteries self-discharge when not in use?
All batteries, regardless of their chemistry, self-discharge. The rate of self-discharge depends both on the type of battery and the storage temperature the batteries are exposed to. However, for a good estimate, wet flooded deep cycle batteries self-discharge approximately 4% per week at 80�F

http://www.batteryweb.com/faqbw.cfm#q31