Decision, decisions...55 Terrova or 80?

[andy6092]

I'm having a hard time making a decision on a trolling motor upgrade, so here's the situation.

I have a grizzly sportsman 1654 mod-v with a 40 merc with an easytroller plate and 50lb 54 inch shaft powerdrive up front. I mainly troll 80 percent of the time and also fish up front occasionally. In my neck of the woods wind is problematic some days, especially with my boat (yes, I knew this going into the purchase). I use this boat for fishing and duck hunting, so I have what I have and actual like the rig. Normally on days with wind 8-12mph I can get about 1.8-2.0 mph out of the 50lb full bore and into the wind if I'm lucky. I dug into the wiring harness and found it to be only 10ga (surprise, surprise...). Currently, I run a 12v parallel system and can get about 8+hrs of run time in ideal conditions. I do use my main motor from time to time if the wind is too much for the TM. My question is, will I see a noticable difference if I re-wired my TM harness to 6ga and buy the 55 terrova over the 50 and be happy with it and and still keep the run time with the parallel system or is the 80 terrova going to be more efficient and get me the same run time and power? I'm thinking of locking my main motor straight and using the bow TM
features like link/auto pilot as guidance, but would rather use trolling motor more if I can. Will the 55 TM handle it or would the 80 be better and be worth the extra 500-600 bucks? Ideally I'd like to be able to troll faster if I desire to w/ TM and I understand that that will reduce run time, but I can't get there currently with the 50 TM on 10ga wire. Opinions are appreciated!

My options:

55 terrova i-pilot link us2 54in shaft

80 terrova i-pilot link MDI 60in shaft

[Custom Eyes]

I'd go with the 80. I don't think you'll see much of a difference in run time if you're still trolling the same speeds, and probably more run time if you're just using it to assist the main engine. Always better to have more power than not enough.

[Grumps]

I run a 17' Alumacraft with a 115 Evinrude. Last year I switched out a 55 lb Co-Pilot to the 80 lb i-pilot link. It was horribly hard to justify the money (even to myself) but I absolutely love it. Strongly suggest the 80 for the extra power.

[REW]

Andy,
With a switch from 10 gauge to 6 gauge wire, you are not going to get much change, unless you have a very very long run of wire from your trolling motor batteries to your motor.

If you are really worried about it, change the pitch on your main motor - i.e. drop it by 2-4 inches of pitch and then troll with the big motor and just use the bow mounted electric to keep the nose going where you want. i.e. lock the big motor in place and then steer with the electric. You will have plenty of power.

Take care

[bfish]

I would ask the same question on crappie dot com... Lots of those guys fish out of similar sized jon boats and they troll.

My initial thought is that you should be 0.5 faster with your current setup.

[Tim_Kelly]

Running 2 batteries parallel is supposed to be less efficient than wiring them for 24v. I have a parallel 12 system as well. I remember reading that it gave less run time than going 24v, but by how much I don't know. Probably barely noticeable. Even so, I think the 80 would be much better than a 55 even if you never use all the power, The cost difference must be fairly small in the scheme of things?

[Waxy]

No one ever said "Gee, I wish my trolling motor was less powerful and didn't last so long..."

Waxy

[Ltrain]

" Man, i just wish a strong wind would blow me off this spot" said no one,

[WingDammed]

Get the 80, if you can manage. You'll be happy you did especially if river current and high water come into play.

The catch is you'll need to make room for two trolling motor batteries because the 80# is a 24 volt motor. The 55# is 12 volts (just one battery needed).

[DW]

For the extended run time you are talking about you have more of a battery problem than a motor size problem. I have a 55# and it does fine for a much heavier boat than yours . I don’t troll all day with it though.

If you plan to troll all day you either need to assist with your gasoline motor (or small kicker) or you need a lot of amp hour battery capability. You really need more than two batteries unless you buy bigger ones than commonly installed.

If you run your main engine a lot, a combiner will get you more trolling time, and if you use a combiner then AGM batteries will give the maximum impact.

Generally, the advice is not to discharge your batteries less than 50%. So if you set your 55# electric at full power it will draw 55 amps. (50 amps for the 24v, 80#) A size 31 battery with RC rating of 210 minutes, only gives you 100 minutes per battery to drop 50% . More than double double the time if you run at 50% power.Using this type of analysis you can see that you need a lot of battery capacity.

You can add battery capacity to a 12v motor one battery at a time. You need to add battery capacity to a 24v motor two batteries at a time.

Before you do anything you need to do some arithmetic.