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oldtimer57.
I had noticed that mine was a REAL tight fit. The plug sticks out about 3″ or so and was actually sitting UNDER the steering cables and wiring exit from the foot control to the TM. Could not remove the front side panel without removing the plug. Could not remove the plug without first removing the TM control. Etc…I came up with a fix. Will try to figure out pics here later. But the basic instructions are:(1) remove the two screws on the bottom of the connector. That will release the long black/brown housing (the part that sticks out from the receptacle way too far.(2) loosen the two wires to the TM foot control. Now you can pull the plug end off of the red/black wires (mark where they go, obviously). Then the clear plastic wire guide, and the black cover.(3) if you look at the black cover, you can see the two screw holes and how they are basically extra material on the inside of that black cover. I measured to the top of them, and used my trusty band saw to cut the top of the black plastic off. Throw the piece without the screw holes into the trash.(4) I had some 1/8″ flat plastic in my shop so I roughed it up for adhesion, sanded the cut off end of the plug I was keeping, and then used some epoxy resin to glue the two together. Back to the band saw to trim the excess, then my belt sander to smooth it all up. I had nothing better to do so I went full-tilt and used 220, then 400, then 1000, and 2000 grit sandpaper on the glue joint and the outside (exposed side) of the black plastic. It polished up to look factory. For a stronger bond, I mixed up a bigger batch of the west system 105 epoxy resin and poured it inside this plug. Let it cure overnight.(5) now the only problem you are faced with is you cant get the wires in since that black plastic sheet now closes in that side of the plug completely. I measured carefully and drilled two holes just big enough for the TM wires to fit through snugly. I lined them up with the clear plastic holes they have to pass through, since the cover to the plug is now much shorter and doesnt give you a lot of room to bend and work with those wires.(6) assembly is easy. Thread the two TM power wires through the holes, feed through the plastic guide and into the lug screw connector. Tighten. Snug the clear plastic up against the lug end, and finally snug up the cover you just shortened. Insert the two screws and tighten. If you are concerned about water intrusion, a little liquid vinyl will seal the two holes completely. Now you have a plug that is maybe 1.25″ long rather than 3″ or so, and it now no longer interferes with the foot control cable exit. I can now unplug the TM without having to remove the foot control hold-down screws to get it out of the way.Sounds harder than it really is. Dont understand why marineco makes that plug so blasted long. Certainly not needed for anything I can see.One other potential addition if you want. If you look at the panel side (receptacle) you will notice that two of the connectors are connected together. But the other two are not. I added a second jumper so that I have +24v on two of the contacts, and -24 on the other two. Same deal on the plug side. Gives twice as much lug surface area for contact, to keep resistance down. Took very little extra time.
The foot control cable should usually be under the Marinco plug.
oldtimer57 wrote:One other potential addition if you want. If you look at the panel side (receptacle) you will notice that two of the connectors are connected together. But the other two are not. I added a second jumper so that I have +24v on two of the contacts, and -24 on the other two. Same deal on the plug side. Gives twice as much lug surface area for contact, to keep resistance down. Took very little extra time.Not sure which model Cat you have, but the newer ones are wired with a two wire system instead of the old 4 wire. The Marinco plug is wired with two wires from the trollingmotor going to the “Ground” and the “12” side, the receptacle wired the same. The jumper in the plug doesnt come into play. I understand the 4 wire system, but posting so those that have the two wire (newer) system will not be confused and start adding jumpers where theyre not needed.John
Mine is a 2008. It has two 6 gauge wires from back to front. But at the front, it is using only 3 of the 4 lugs on the connector, as I mentioned. Whether this was changed by the previous owner or not I dont know. What I did was to simply use all 4 lugs of the connector, two to +, two to -, on both sides. Where it originally had two to one side, but only one lug used on the other side, with one lug not connected to anything. My change simply added that unused lug into the circuit.I am also running a maxxum pro 80, which has the highest current draw of any of the TMs I have seen (56 amps). My boat came with a 50 amp breaker which would trip if I ran more than 30-60 seconds on max speed. And I had noticed that after replacing the 50 amp breaker with a 60, the Marineco plug would get slightly warm when running on max. Not hot, but enough to indicate that some of the current flow was being converted to heat rather than going to the TM. After modifying the thing to use 2 lugs for + and 2 for -, I did a test run of 5 minutes on high this past Tuesday and could not feel any warmth at all.In any case, I would not suggest ANYBODY modify wiring if they dont know what they are doing. But this is dirt-simple.BCB: As this is set up, the plug could go over the cables either. Nowhere near enough room. The body of the plug is dead-center on the cable exit from the foot control. Either way puts it in a bind. Again, whether this is factory or previous owner I dont have a clue.
Im trying to visualize what you did. The two wires coming from the back, with Basscats wiring, or going to (on the receptacle) A- and B – with the trollingmotor side connected to “-” and “12”. The 24V “jump” happens at the battery. The internal jumper in the plug jumps from “12” to “no connection (there is no hole in the clear back of the plug)”, however on the receptacle that connection goes to B – with an internal jumper to A+ (A+ is the “no connection) so when connected to B- it also connects to A+. The B+ corresponds to the “24” imprint on the clear back. This plug was made that way so you could run a 12/24V trolling motor (which are obsolete) and also purchase a “red” charge plug that had two jumpers internally that went across the plug, connecting “-” to “12” (which corresponds to A- and B – ) and “24 to “no connection” (which corresponds to B+ and A+) when using the 4 wire system.Now, what Im seeing from youre post is you connected the B- and the A-, then connected the B+ and the A+, creating a parallel circuit for the prongs, but not adding additional wiring (except the jumpers). I do hope you disconnected the internal jumper inside the plug, or risk a short with the jumper at the battery.John
Different idea. Think about the female receptacle up front. If you pull that bow panel, there are four screw-type connections on the back, that match up with the 4 lugs on the front. On MINE, which I assumed was standard but might not be, TWO of those connections have a jumper between them. Flat piece of stainless that fits the connection perfectly. The other two connections have no jumper.The two 6 gauge wires from the back come to the front as +24v (red) and -24v (black). Originally, one of those (I dont have it exposed right now but can look to be more accurate tomorrow) wires was connected to one of the two connections that has a jumper, making TWO of those female connections co-joined. The other two connections were not jumped, and one of them had the other 24v wire. So three of the connections on the female receptacle had power supplied to them, the fourth did not.In my TM MALE plug, it was done similarly. One of the two wires was connected to two prongs of the male plug which were jumpered together. The other wire from the TM was connected to the other lug that matched up with a connected contact on the female side. ONE of the male prongs was unused.My adjustment was to, on the female side, jumper the two unconnected contacts so that there are now two pairs of contacts that are connected to each other. I ran the +24v to one pair, the -24v to the other pair. I did the same on the TM side. I still have two wires from batteries all the way to the TM, but the wires connect via two lugs/contacts rather than just one. Twice the contact area will carry twice as much current at the same voltage.So, to summarize, I have two batteries with + on one jumpered to – on the other. The two remaining connections are carried to the bow thru the 6gauge wiring Bass Cat used. I do NOT use a 12/24 v TM, nor do I plug a charger into that connection. As it was wired from the factory, I dont see how you could charge there anyway unless you had a 24v charger. To use one with mine, the charger connector would have to be examined to make sure it matches up with my change. On my female connector, + goes to 2 of them, – goes to the 2 others. On the male connector, – goes to the same 2 and + goes to the same 2 so that it matches red to red and black to black.Just to ease your mind, my background is electrical and computer engineering. I taught it for over 40 years. This is simple stuff. 🙂
I underderstand fully wat you have done. In theroy makes sense. 110 outlets are this way. With the jumper connector from each connection on the same side. With the marinco plug it will only “mesh” up one way. So no chance of a meltdown. My question is did you make a crossover? Or just use 6 gauge or a piece of lighter wire. Best i remember the connection point is “full” with the 6. Carrying the voltage load thru 2 prongs on – and 2 prongs on + in theory has got to be better than 1 and 1. Im just not sure how you connected the jumper. Pictures would be nice.
Mine had ring connectors on the two 6 gauge wires, I presume from the factory, so a jumper was easy to attach, just two more ring connectors, a 3″ piece or wire, and it was done.
Ok, Im understanding what you did. When the boat was born, there is no jumper on the boat side female receptacle. The jumper in the plug is designed to jump the 24V with a 4 wire system. A long as the jumpers placed on the boat side receptacle were placed with A+ to B+ and A- to B-, then jumpers in the plug were done to match, what you did will be OK. Thing is, on the boat side, the factory jumper is jumping a negative to a positive, which means that on the boat side, you couldnt follow the polarity markings on the actual receptacle.John
I really didnt pay any attention to the polarity markings since they didnt make much sense anyway with only two wires. On the female receptacle, mine did have a jumper. Not one like I made, but a piece of what appears to be stainless steel that connects two on the same (long) side together. Didnt look hand-made but might have been.At least now the plug-side jumper makes sense. I have not seen a 12/24 v trolling motor since my old MotorGuide Brute on my 1992 Astro. And I rewired the TM to turn the 3-way switch from 12-24-on to constant-on – off – momentary-on, as my current maxxum pro 80 is wired. That let me double the wires Astro/ProCraft used back then which were NOT 6 gauge. IIRC it used 10 gauge. Two tens is close to an 8, which improved TM performance a bit when running on high.Out of all of this, the only thing that has surprised me in this deal is that this 80 pound TM draws 56 amps at full power, which is more than any other MK TM I could find. It was enough to trip the original 50 amp breaker after 30-60 seconds of full power running. I replaced it with a 60a breaker and have had no further problems. That kind of current tests each and every connection in the system. I eliminated the bullet connectors in the TM head after they grossly overheated and shorted out.
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