Quote:
Originally Posted by Fish'n John
I have removed and inspected the battery charger. There are no internal fuses that I recognize and no places where the original wiring seems to have been altered. The only abnormality that I notice is some apparent heat damage to the wire that leads in from Aux battery #2. The black negative wire appears to have been overheated at the spot where it is connected to a one of three 1" x 1" x 1" components. They are black with a white top with a number (951221B) inscribed on the side. There is a second heavy black wire leading from this component to a black device that also appears to be heat damaged. This device has an enscription "Short Stop", and below that "12v A46 4OR". None of this means anything to me, and since the company is out of business, I assume I need a new charger.
I have rewired the batteries direct to the trolling motor using #8 wire and 60a fuses as much as I can. I am waiting for the 24v #8 connector for the TM before I can try this system out with direct wiring...
|
Hmmm, I'll offer up this sage guess ... it's dead.
It might be repairable but w/o any schematics or even a parts list that'll probably cost more than a newer, betterer charger. I might hazard a SWAG that the "short stop" device is some sort of fuse or circuit breaker made for 12v and 46A. Or perhaps it's the switch to go from 12V to 24V configuration ? In any case the negative lead for the Aux2 battery would carry the full current when in 24V mode which, according to your TM manual, might be as much as 48A (0.75A/lb x 64 lbs). Maybe the "new" TM was more than the "old" charger could handle ? If you care to post a pic of the charred devices I'll have a look but I'll guess parts are now obsolete.
As for your 24V connector ... I looked briefly at the connectors/plugs in the WM catalog. I couldn't imagine why there would be 12V and 24V connectors, there's just not enough difference in voltage to make a difference in design. What I did see were 2 wires (+ and -) for the 12V sets and 3 wires (+24V, +12V and -) for the 24V ones. If you got one of these you'll end up using only 2 of the wires/contacts. If at all possible I would recommend getting a plug/socket set with 4 contacts (I didn't see one but I didn't look all that hard) and using 2 of the contacts (in parallel) for the +24V and the other 2 (in parallel) for the -. Indeed if you wanted to double up the AWG8 wires (for the longest run) that would be prefered as well. Somewhere I read than ideally the voltage drop in the wiring and connectors from the batts to the TM head should be <1v. I think the online calculator I previously listed estimates you'll have something more (1.3v) for a single AWG8 to and from batts carrying 50A and at what I guessed to be 20 away (40' round trip). I didn't see any current ratings on any of the plugs/sockets, which surprised me a bit.