New trolling motor install please help

[hertel11]

Hi all. My Johnson trolling motor that is on my 1997 Sea Nymph TX175 has failed. I bought a new 24 volt Minn Kota Edge to replace it. The existing plug is 4 prong and the plate at the bow says 12/24v receptacle. I have always ran my 2 batteries in parallel with my old trolling motor. I just need some help here to figure out if I should get and use new 4 prong plugs or convert to 2 prong plugs and how to do so. Thank you, I have tried to attach a bunch of pictures to hopefully make sense of what I am saying but I can not get any of them to not exceed the limit of bytes....

 

[gm280]

The only way your present two prong receptacle will work for your 12/24 volt trolling motor is if you use only the 12 volt or the 24 volt setup. If you want to select the two voltage ranges you will need to replace the receptacle. There is no other way to allow both voltage to the trolling motor via just two prongs. A three prong receptacle will do, but why not get the four prong receptacle that matches your new trolling motor's connector plug and wire your batteries for that setup. It isn't hard to do. Let us know which way you are going and then we can offer the proper way to wire the batteries and receptacle. JMHO

 

[Scott Danforth]

with the new trolling motor you use the new receptacle that came in the box and you re-wire the boat to the new instructions that came with it as well

 

[hertel11]

Let my try again. My previous trolling motor was a 4 prong 12/24. The new one I purchased is a 24volt that comes with no plugs male or female and only has 2 wires coming from it, one red and one black. I believe I will just have to wire the new trolling motor to have two 12v batteries in series and replace the old 4 prongs with new 2 prongs. But, if I do this I will lose the ability to check battery charge from the bow unless someone knows how to do that. Can anyone tell me how to shrink the sizes of the pictures I have to make this easier to explain?

 

[Silvertip]

You don't have to replace the receptacle. Just because it has four terminals you only need to use two of them. Just buy the matching four terminal plug. .

 

[gm280]

Yes Silvertip is absolutely correct.

Wire your batteries in series to satisfy your new trolling motor requirements. And that is battery one's positive to battery two's negative terminals, but also run another wire from the junction (the series jumper wire) of the two battery to the four prong receptacle as well with the series positive and negative wires. Then your trolling motor has its supply voltage and you can also check each battery independent of each other as well from that four prong receptacle. Just make sure you wire your new trolling motor plug to the exact same capability and pattern you used for the receptacle for the 24 volt terminals. Easy peasy.