drewmitch44
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2005
- Messages
- 1,749
There was a thread a whyle back (maybee more than a year ago) that someone had asked "if you leave the trolling motor battery deployed will current run back to the battery?". Well i took my aluminum boat out the other day just to test a small outboard that im thinking about buying. Well this winter i never pulled the trolling motor off of the bow so it was on there when i was running this motor. I had taken my tool bag as a just in case type of thing. I was rooting through there to get a screwdriver and i saw that i had my digital multimeter. I tested the trolling battery and it was something like 12.4 V with nothing hooked up to it. The outboard that i was testing was a 9.9 and was pull start so nothing there was hooked up to the batter. i had hooked up the battery to the troller just to get me away from the edge of the pond so when i started up the motor i didnt suck up the pond scum and crap off the shallow bottom. The trolling motor is a older motorguide hand controlled one. I left it in speed "1" just to keep the boat going strait and away from the edge. It goes verry slow in speed 1. So i started up the gas motor and im letting it idle for a few min so it can warm up a little bit. I tested the battery with the multimeter with the troller on speed 1 and it read 11.23v. Well i left the multimeter hooked up to the battery that the troller was hooked up too. I went to the back to move the boat around a little with the gas outboard just to test how well it runs. Well i had still had the troller on speed 1 and i was using the gas motor a little and i looked at the multimeter and it read back to 12.4 with the speed on 1 and the troller running. So just for ****s and giggles i put the troller in reverse on speed "1" and left it deployed. I started to move the boat forward with the troller down and in reverse, but i was using the gas motor to go forward. Well i look at the multimeter and it was reading 14.05 volts!!! That meand that its charging the battery!! So i put the troller into speed "2" in reverse and went forward with the gas motor and the volts went higher still!!! Now when im saying this im not running fast or anything like plaining speed or nothing i just find it interesting that if you move the boat enough that it makes the troller blade turn the opposite direction that you have the controlls set to it sends current back to the battery! So i was joking on that thread a before when i had said "it most likely charges the battery up!" But it seems to me like it is quite possible that im getting a charge from the trolling motor! This was verry hard for me to explain but hopefulluy someone knows what im trying to say!!! Im going to take a break from talking about this and try again in a half an hour or so to word it better!!!
