snoofy 10 asked:
i have a trolling motor that has stopped working intermittently. the trolling moter plugs into a 4-hole female receptacle inside the boat. The power source is a 12 volt dc battery (which is new & has no corrosion on the posts). is there a device i can use to determine if this female receptacle I plug the trolling motor into is receiving current from the battery and is working? if so, what is it called and how would I use it? thank you!
i have a trolling motor that has stopped working intermittently. the trolling moter plugs into a 4-hole female receptacle inside the boat. The power source is a 12 volt dc battery (which is new & has no corrosion on the posts). is there a device i can use to determine if this female receptacle I plug the trolling motor into is receiving current from the battery and is working? if so, what is it called and how would I use it? thank you!
Tags: 12 Volt, Power Source, Receptacle
buy aammeter set it for volts , its really easy just put the ammeter on to were the problem is and it will tell you the current is flowing or not
Yeah a voltage tester.
Or do it the polish way, by sticking your tongue in it. It won’t kill you.
You could use a simple circuit tester to determine if power is getting to the plug or not. See the first source link.
If you want to go one step further you can get a multimeter and check the volts on the supply.
With the first one clip the negative onto the common ground and check the positive connection with the probe. It will light up if there is current.
With the second one, it’s more or less the same, black to negative and red on positive and read 0 to 12 volts on the display.
Use a voltmeter and take the positive lead and stick it in where the red wire connects the black lead and plug it into the negative wire side . If everything is working you should get a 12 volt reading unless battery is dead or your circuit breaker is popped . You may have just and in line fuse not working or even a dirty fuse which will keep it from working
Take the plug out and see if the terminal are clean and tight> Check voltage and the motor with plug out>
Get yourself an “autoranging” digital multimeter. they are easy to learn to use and will come in handy on your boat and around the house, too. Walmart has one on the automotive aisle for around $25 (not the best, but good enough).
Unless your boat is wired for a “12/24″ motor, only two of the four prongs are used — to find out which ones, take the recepticle out of the panel and see which ones have wires attached. Best to unhook the battery cable before you do this. Then hook the battery back up and test the holes in the recepticle (set the meter to “DC Volts” and stick one probe into each hole). If you don’t get at least 12.6 volts, then measure the battery voltage (touch one probe to each post). If you have the red probe on the negative post & black probe on positive, the meter will read “-12.6″; that’s ok, just ignore the minus sign or switch the probes, it doesn’t matter.
A fully charged battery measures at least 12.65 volts; when it gets down to around 12.3 volts it’ll barely move the boat (in my experience). If the battery voltage is good, then measure the other end of the wires where they attach on the back side of the recepticle. You should get around 99.8% of the battery voltage.
For a 12V trolling motor you need a 40-amp circuit breaker (30-amp would probably do the trick), and 6-gauge copper stranded wire (preferably marine-grade tinned copper). 8-gauge would probably work but you’ll have a lot of voltage drop (assuming the standard configuration of batteries in the stern and motor on the bow). If the wire gauge is too small, the wires can get hot enough to melt the insulation and start a fire.