Trolling motor power supply for depthfinder

[Farley]

Is there a way I can run the power for my depth finder off my bowmount minnkota Powerdrive trolling motor? The trolling motor was new last year, I run the transducer off the trolling motor, just curious if there is a way for me to get by with one less battery. Right now I just hook it up to a vexilar battery. I noticed there are two plugs comming out of the trolling motor, one is for a foot pedal, dont know what the other is for.

[Water Hazard]

It is possible. I have a MinnKota PD w/ universal sonar and it has that pigtail that you are talking about (it is small and circular).

I just cut the red and black plugs on my old Eagle Fish Easy 2, spliced in a fuse, and connected the wires to the plug that connects to that pigtail (the dealer threw in the connector when I bought the boat). It was quick and painless.

[katoguy]

You MAY be subject to depth finder interference. This is not recommended.

[Water Hazard]

I have not experienced any sort of interference. It could be that since the transducer is built into the PD w/ US, it doesn't have that issue.

[PierBridge]

Why not run off the Battery itself?

[Farley]

Right now in our boat we have 2 batteries that are dedicated to the trolling motor, (24v) , a battery under the counsle that runs the depthfinder\GPS there and all the auxillary stuff on the dash plus the stereo and c.b. (and who knows what else), also we have a starting battery in the back that also runs the bilige. So all that stuff plus another battery just for the front depth finder. I know I can run the wires back to any other of these batteries, but was thinking Minnkota would have made it possible to not only hook up the transducer through the trolling motor but also the power, by a simple plug.

[Water Hazard]

I looked a little closer at this when I got home from work and I want to clear up a mistake in my intial post.

The pigtail on the trolling motor actually plugs into the transducer wire connection of your depth finder.

The wires coming up from your trolling motor batteries will need to be spliced into and a fuse added to the positive wire. Then you can add connectors to the end of the red/black splices.

Put the opposite connectors on your depth finder power wires (I had to cut the old connectors off) and you are set to go.

If that is still confusing, let me know and I can post some pictures.

[marine_man]

Like Katoguy posted - typically connecting the depthfinder to the trolling motor power wires will cause interference on the depth finder. I belive only Motor Guide claims to have no interference from the trolling motor with their digital drive system as compared to what I believe is Minnkota's Pulse Width Modulation Drive(turning the motor on and off extremely fast multiple times per second).

So, if you don't have interference in your setup, great.. but that's typically not the case when the trolling motor is running and your locator is running.

marine_man