Lengthing The Cable On A Minn Kota Trolling Motor

[misterbig]

I have a Trolling motor and want to put the battery in the middle to the front of the boat in order to balance it. Is this something that you can do. someone at wholesale sports told me that you can't add extensions. I want to believe him but was quite a young lad and seemed to be not sure of himself. I guess I'm looking for a second opinion.

 

I tried to contact Minn Kota but their internet is messed up..... keep getting a communication error screen when i send them messages on their contact us message center.

 

 

M

[CDone]

I have a Trolling motor and want to put the battery in the middle to the front of the boat in order to balance it. Is this something that you can do. someone at wholesale sports told me that you can't add extensions. I want to believe him but was quite a young lad and seemed to be not sure of himself. I guess I'm looking for a second opinion.

 

I tried to contact Minn Kota but their internet is messed up..... keep getting a communication error screen when i send them messages on their contact us message center.

 

 

M

 

You can easily splice in the same guage wire to extend the cables, did it on my boat a few years ago. Princess auto has the wire as well as all the shrink tubing that you would need.

 

Colin

 

[dryfly]

Not used my MinnKota for years, however I too added 4 or 5 feet to the battery wires so the batt could sit up front to counterbalance my bulk. No problems.

[TerryH]

I've been using a home built extension for years. The main component is just a good long set of booster cables. However, there is a safety issue to deal with in that once you hook the cables to your battery, you've got a potential problem with the other end now being hot. You could either get zapped or short out your battery. I got around this by building a little gizmo at the hot end, that prevents the "+" and "-" cable ends from coming into contact with one another -- or with me. The cables from the motor clamp on to the two terminals (just copper pipe and a few fittings that can be found in the electrical dept. of any hardware) shown in the second photo. Terry

 

[Tungsten]

The cables the motor comes with are most likely #8 if you want to extend you need #6 or bigger.Also add an in line fuse close to your battery on the + side.Any place that does car stereo stuff will have what you need and the connectors.

 

I'm with Terry i extended my cable for my boat with booster cables ,i needed to add 8' so a set of#6 cables waperfectct i just cut off the ends and used the connectors i got from the stereo place to join the two.

[dryfly]

Gee Terry you must an engineer or sumting.

 

That is a very cool idea. Totally eliminates any concern there could be over extending the factory cable...this effectively moves the battery terminals closer to the motor. Good one.

 

Clive