Fuses or breakers for trolling motor

[vince.bornais]

I have a 24V-65 lb Thrust Minn Kota with 40A inline fuses on my boat. I have been unable to find 40A replacement fuses for it. The highest I can find are 35A. The boat came brand new with 40A. I have talked to Rocky up in Orillia and he mentioned 50A breakers is what it should have.

My question(s) is what do most people have on their boats(breakers,fuses) and where can one buy these breakers at a good price. I've checked some stores around town and the price is pretty high. I need 4 of them, if I was to go with the 50A's.

I am doing this to clean up my battery box on the boat and because at one time, I was going through these 40A fuses

Edited May 23, 2010 by fishhook2

[bassman87]

car audio stores, yeeeeeeeah

[scugpg]

car audio stores, yeeeeeeeah

 

You should be able to find ones like these in the $8-12 range:

 

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0001110014081a&type=product&cmCat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=breaker&sort=all&Go.y=0&N=0&Nty=1&hasJS=true&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23&Go.x=0

 

NAPA has them at some locations, any marine dealer can order them.

[bassjnkie]

I have a 50A reset breaker for a 24v 67Lb motor. No fuses on mine that I can see.

Edited May 23, 2010 by DanielM

[vinnimon]

Try sayal electronics in burlinton they may have what you need.

[Billy Bob]

You for over 20 YEARS I never had either a fuse or breaker on my trolling motors...now with the new one the directions call for a BREAKER so I added a 40 amp breaker just like the one from Cabela's but I got mine at a auto part store for $4.95....

 

Bob

[irishfield]

Breaker.. and why would you need 4?? You only need one on the positive lead to the trolling motor..

Edited May 23, 2010 by irishfield

[vince.bornais]

I need 4 because I have a plugin at the front and one at the back . There are 2 hot leads and 2 commons coming from both plugins.

[irishfield]

Then you only need TWO ! You don't fuse the ground leads.

 

..or are you saying you have two + feeds to each plug?.. and the next question would be why?

Edited May 24, 2010 by irishfield

[vince.bornais]

There is a plugin at the front of the boat for the bow mount and one at the back for a transom mount. Each plugin has a red, an orange, a black and a black with a blue stripe. The red and orange are my hot leads and the black ones are the commons. There are 4 hot leads and 4 black leads going into my battery box plus some smaller wires for the battery meter. Technically I only need two breakers for the front plugin, since I don't have a trolling motor for the back plugin, but I figured I'd put breakers on all of them.

Pictures would probably help if I knew how to put them on here.

[irishfield]

Sounds like you're wired for both 12v and 24 volt units. What do you use?? Wire for the purpose at hand.. Resettable CB's are the way to go and as others have pointed out there are cheaper sources than trolling motor companies.

Edited May 24, 2010 by irishfield

[Fisherman]

Princess Auto carries C/B's from 20-50A or the large Maxi fuses from 20-70A. They also have C/B's that fit into the same place that fuses go. From $3.99 for either.

Edited May 24, 2010 by Fisherman

[Billy Bob]

Maybe I'm confused but shouldn't he be using only 1 40 amp fuse right at the battery terminal on the positive side or are there two positive leads going to 2 different plugs. If so WHY two different plugs for one trolling motor.

 

Bob

[irishfield]

Sounds like he is feeding both 12V and 24v to EACH plug Bob.. one at the bow and one at the transom. So all 4 positive runs need to be protected.

 

On the other hand.. I can't see a person running both bow and transom trolling motors at the same time.. so he could put the 12v and 24 v feeds to both plugs thru only 2 CB's.

[Tybo]

I just bought two 50 amp 100% waterproof,manual set

circuit breakers. 50 bucks a crack.

The small steel ones are cheap. If they get wet they rust and rust fast do to the heat.

They are also auto reset.This means that every time

the short cools from being a open,It will short again.

If you want to cheap out. You should use a fuse.

[Terry]

would there be four pos wires

at most there could be 3 ( a 24v and 2 12v ) but most likely still would only 2 and would be crossing the one pos/ neg at the plug at the front.....

 

 

Edited May 24, 2010 by Terry

[vince.bornais]

Terry, in your diagram above, the common leads(black) are split to both batteries. Then add

another plugin and remove the green lead. I really appreciate the help here guys. I think I have it figured out now.

[fish_fishburn]

Originally my boat had a 12/24 system trolling motor and came with two 50A CB's.

[DanD]

I just bought two 50 amp 100% waterproof,manual set

circuit breakers. 50 bucks a crack.

The small steel ones are cheap. If they get wet they rust and rust fast do to the heat.

They are also auto reset.This means that every time

the short cools from being a open,It will short again.

If you want to cheap out. You should use a fuse.

 

 

I agree 100% with Tybo: don’t use the inexpensive automotive circuit breakers on your boat. The points inside will rust or weld them-selves together and they will not trip.

Even in automotive applications; I now will only install these breakers on non electronic devices (not many anymore), inside the passenger compartment; hopefully away from condensation.

There’s a lot more then condensation to worry about on a boat and

I don’t care how water “resistant” the fuse box claims to be; if Mother Nature wants in; she’s there.

It would be a shame to take out an $8-1,000 ignition module that are used on the newer motors or the boat’s complete wiring harness because of a $5.00 breaker. I can only imagine how much smoke they pack into a 24 volt trolling motor. LOL

One other note about the automotive automatic reset breakers; an electronic device does not like having its power source toggled on an off while it’s in use. The power surge will again let the smoke out of almost any form of electronic box and there’s no way of getting it back in.

Manual reset marine type of breakers or fuses; if breakers, test them at least once a season; by turning them off; making sure that the circuit will actually turn off.

 

Dan.

[doubleheader]

Minnkota makes a waterproof circuit breaker for this application

[Billy Bob]

Minnkota makes a waterproof circuit breaker for this application

Yes they do, but it's WAY overpriced.