# longevity of 30 lb thrust minn kota pushing 12 foot tinny?



## 3shorts (Aug 22, 2012)

what is most ecomical speed to use my minn kota so that it will pust a long time?
I have a hunch it will only last 2-3 hours at 3 level..
does anyone have an idea. or knowledge??


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## Ictalurus (Aug 22, 2012)

3shorts said:


> what is most ecomical speed to use my minn kota so that it will pust a long time?



The lowest setting :LOL2: 

You should be able to fish all day with a decent battery.


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## New River Rat (Aug 22, 2012)

Are you in current, i.e. moving water?


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## wihil (Aug 22, 2012)

Depends on a lot of things -

I can tell you that my 30# on a run of the mill wet cell group 24 lasted all of about a half hour trying to get back to the launch heading into a 20mph wind with 1.5' chop on setting 5 (which was where I needed it to be to make forward progress).

Running out of gas sucks. Not having to row home was a small bonus.

#-o


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## Zum (Aug 22, 2012)

How many AH's are in your battery and is your battery in good condition?
For fun lets say it has 120aH,your motor will draw about 30amp WOT...divide that by the 120 and you will get 4.Don't expect to get 4 hours WOT run time but you should get 3.5 ish.
I've never seen what any trolling motor draws at different settings and I personally don't think it goes down percentage wise amps), equally to the throttle position.Still though at your 1 setting you would probably get your most run time,just not sure how far you will get.


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## 3shorts (Aug 22, 2012)

Zum said:


> How many AH's are in your battery and is your battery in good condition?
> For fun lets say it has 120aH,your motor will draw about 30amp WOT...divide that by the 120 and you will get 4.Don't expect to get 4 hours WOT run time but you should get 3.5 ish.
> I've never seen what any trolling motor draws at different settings and I personally don't think it goes down percentage wise amps), equally to the throttle position.Still though at your 1 setting you would probably get your most run time,just not sure how far you will get.


I bought the good optima the gray one with blue top and multiple terminals. off hand I don't know the particulars of it. it does come highly reccommended. I was out on the resavor for 4 hrs. alternately using my 5 hp outboard and the minnkota. when I came to leave the minny was really laboring. I used it just for trolling probably 2 hours. at slow speed.


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## catman529 (Aug 23, 2012)

man with a good battery you should get plenty of time. Before I got my 5 horse, I would troll on speed 3 with my 34 lb trolling motor pushing a 14 x 32 flat bottom. I think I could troll that all day really. There were times throughout the day I would be running on full speed and other times I would be drifting or fishing off the bank, but at the end of the day the battery still had a little juice left. The one time I completely drained it in one day was when I fished an entire day at a 60 acre pay lake... and the reason I drained it was because I had a buddy in the boat and trolled on speed 5 back and forth between multiple creek arms in the lake checking jug lines and looking for grass carp throughout the day. Then there was the time I ran it for almost a week on a lake trip but that was limiting the use more than I normally would. This is just a cheap Stowaway Exide dual purpose battery - not sure how long it will stay this good but for now, it runs my trolling motor plenty long. And at only 32" wide my jon boat will go a decent speed with the 34 lb trolling motor. Even with the gas motor on it doesn't add much weight or drag... weighs the same as the battery at most! I love my trolling motor setup. Have it mounted on the bow instead of stern now.


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## Zum (Aug 23, 2012)

I agree with the above post...you should get atleast 4-5 hours probably more doing what you descibed.
I'm not to familiar with those battery's but without googleing I think they might need a special battery charger or atleast setting to get them fully charged...like a deep cycle setting or AGM?
Are you sure it was fully charged?
Even with the deep cycle I use,I put my charger on deep cycle....because that what it is...
Anyways,have the boat loaded,should be back in around 7 hours,using the TM atleast 6 of them.


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## nlester (Aug 26, 2012)

Don't try to over think it. Use your motor the way it feels best to you. I don't think it matters a whole lot what speed that you use. Get the battery with the most reserve power that you can afford. That matters more than your motor speed. 

If your TM has speeds 1 - 5 and is not variable speed, it should use a speed coil to reduce the voltage going to the motor and control your speed. From what I have read, this basically means that is does not matter what speed you run your motor, it should run the same number of hours on a single battery charge at speed 1 as it will on speed 5. With a speed coil, your TM will pull the same amperage at speed 1 as it does at speed 5. The difference is that at speed 5 all the voltage is being used to power the boat but at speed 1 the speed coil is acting as a large resistor to reduce the voltage to the motor by burning of part of the power as heat and the boat goes slower. I have to assume that running at high speed will use slightly more power because the resistance of the water at the higher boat speed should cause a little more power to be drawn from the battery but the difference is probably not important. At speed 5, you will cover more distance on a single battery charge than running at speed 1 because you get the same amount of time from a battery charge regardless of the speed setting and speed 5 is pushing the boat faster than speed 1 during that same time period. 

A digital motor always sends the maximum voltage 12v or 24v to the motor on each pulse. The more off than on time in each pulse, the slower the motor runs because the power being turned on and off 20,000 times a second. With a digital motor very little power is being burned off as heat since each bust sends a full 12 or 24 volts to the motor on each pulse. 

Based on the assumptions above, I usually run my TM at speed 5 to get from point to point. Then when I am using the TM for postioning the boat or maintaining a position on a brush pile, etc, I use speed 3 or some times 4 and turn the motor on an off with my big foot switch to maintain my poistion. I would use speed 5 all the time but the motor jumps too much when I turn the Big Foot switch on and off with the motor set at speed 5. The digital motor controls this with soft start and rapid power switching. I almost never use speeds 1 or 2. I feel I get more time on the water using my big foot switch to control my speed with a speed coil motor instead of turning the handle up and down. This is probably hard on the motor and will reduce it's life expectancy in the long run. By then, I may be able to justify a digitial motor.

Because the elecricity is turned off, more that it is turned on, a digitial motor can give you upto 5 times the time under power on the water as a speed coil motor on the same battery fully charged if you are running at the slowest speed. Check out PWM motor control on the internet.

I have to assume that if a digital motor were constantly run at full speed and a speed coil motor were run at full speed, they would both give you the same amount of time on the water for a single battery charge.

In the article below, MinnKota says that a speed coil is like holding your accerator your car all the way to the floor and using the brake to control the speed. A digital trolling motor is like using a throttle to control the flow of fuel to the car.

https://www.minnkotamotors.com/_ui/...o_banner_faq-item.aspx?id=147&terms=maximizer


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## Andrew04 (Sep 26, 2012)

Seeing as how it's a 30lb, I'd assume it's not digital or what Minn Kota calls the maximeizer. If it has a finite number of speeds, it uses the same amount of power in every speed. Just run it as fast as you can, then shut it down asap.


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