Trolling motors... can I run a 24v model at 12v?

Kelpie

Kelpie

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As per the title. If I bought a 24v rated trolling motor but only hooked it up to a 12v battery, would it
a) work just fine, but with half the usual power available
b) work a bit, but at less than half normal power
c) not work at all
d) go boom and set fire to me and my boat whilst someone with a Torqueedo purrs silently past me, tutting his disapproval.
 
Probably b, but the easy way to find out is to connect it briefly and see, you cannot do it any harm by applying a lower voltage, unless you leave it connected, but stalled. Most 24 volt motors run quite happily, but at lower powe on 12 volts. As an example my water cooled fridge compressor uses a 24 volt pump, running on 12 volts, becase that is quieter than a 12 volt pump running at full speed.
 
Kelpie said:
As per the title. If I bought a 24v rated trolling motor but only hooked it up to a 12v battery, would it
a) work just fine, but with half the usual power available
b) work a bit, but at less than half normal power
c) not work at all
d) go boom and set fire to me and my boat whilst someone with a Torqueedo purrs silently past me, tutting his disapproval.
Click to expand...

It does depend on the type of 12 V dc motor but most will without going boon.

If you already have only 12 DC you could just add an extra 12 Vdc battery and connect in to the existing battery with the negative of the new batter connected to the positive of the current battery and connect the trolling motor to the positive of the new battery and the negative of the trolling motor to the negative of the existing battery.

The new battery does not need to be ad big as the existing and if you have an isolated battery charger you could use that to charge the new battery separately from the existing.
 
Norman_E said:
Probably b, but the easy way to find out is to connect it briefly and see, you cannot do it any harm by applying a lower voltage, unless you leave it connected, but stalled. Most 24 volt motors run quite happily, but at lower powe on 12 volts. As an example my water cooled fridge compressor uses a 24 volt pump, running on 12 volts, becase that is quieter than a 12 volt pump running at full speed.
Click to expand...

Problem with that is that I haven't bought the motor yet!

I want to go electric as a supplement to oar-power, and to allow SMWBO to be a bit more self sufficient. We'll keep a 2-stroke o/b for longer/faster trips.
At the moment we cruise with a little Redcrest, and hardly ever go above idle on the 2-stroke because all it does it get you wet, unless it's flat calm. So I know that a pretty small 12v trolling motor would be fine for that.
However, I am planning to replace the Avon with a nesting hard dinghy which will be able to take significantly more power. And the extra cost and weight of the bigger 24v trolling motors is not that much.

So what I was thinking was that if I got the bigger motor now, I could still use it with a single 12v battery, with all the simplicity that brings, but then upgrade to a twin-battery pack when the time comes.
I had optimistically assumed that it would just run at up to half power, but the link above suggests more like 1/4 power. Which even for a Redcrest is not a lot!
 
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