Telemachus
10 W
I got an open box Intex 40lb trolling motor to throw on my inflatable. Seems to work well on 12V lead acid.
I used some leftover 18650 cells to make a 3S 60AH battery to power the thing. It ran great in my pool, giving me almost 2 hours of thrust at full speed until it cut off. The voltage on the battery was 11V when it cut off, about 3.67V per cell bank.
I have no problem running down to 3.0 V per cell, and in theory I should get at least another 2 hours but the low voltage cutoff of the motor makes that impossible. I get it, it is trying to protect a lead acid battery from going too low.
So I ripped the battery back apart and reconfigured it into a 4S. I figured the loss of amp hours will be made up for by being able to use more of the battery before LVC.
And of course, now the motor just blinks at me with a warning that the manual says is too high of voltage!
:x
My RC discharger will discharge the battery at a 1 amp an hour, which would take forever to discharge it down to 13 volts, which is what I assume the motor will start to work at. I hook up a few 12 volt Motors left over from old razor scooter to the battery and let it run all day long, but only got it down about half a volt.
Well my new plan was I'm going to bypass the relay board in the motor and hook up my own pwm controller (still on it's way from Ebay). I opened up the top of the trolling motor and bypassed the relay board entirely, connecting the positive battery lead directly to the lead going down the shaft to the motor. I disconnected all of the other wires going to the relay board, including the one to the LED display, the control on the handle, and several wires going down to the motor. I assumed these wires were for the temperature sensor and to control the LED display, as if there does not appear to be any integrated circuit in the relay board.
But now, if I connect directly to either a 12 volt battery or my 16 volt battery, the motor does nothing.
Its a red and black 12 gauge wire going down to the motor... not three wires like I would expect from a brushless motor. However there are another 12 wires or so that head down in a tidy little ribbon cable... I'm not quite sure why the motor doesn't spin I suspect that needs some sort of feedback from the ribbon cable and there are more advanced electronics closer to the motor itself.
If anybody has dissected the Intex 40 lb trolling motor, I would really appreciate some ideas. I want to bypass it's high and low voltage cut off completely.
Otherwise, I guess my next recourse would be to try a dc-to-dc buck converter, to take my 4S down to a steady 12 volt, and just use the built-in controller on the motor. I don't prefer this method, as I feel like I will be losing power off the top that I would rather just send to the motor... I guess I could always add a switch that turns off the buck converter when I get closer to the voltage that the motor will take directly.
Or I just buy a lead acid lol
I used some leftover 18650 cells to make a 3S 60AH battery to power the thing. It ran great in my pool, giving me almost 2 hours of thrust at full speed until it cut off. The voltage on the battery was 11V when it cut off, about 3.67V per cell bank.
I have no problem running down to 3.0 V per cell, and in theory I should get at least another 2 hours but the low voltage cutoff of the motor makes that impossible. I get it, it is trying to protect a lead acid battery from going too low.
So I ripped the battery back apart and reconfigured it into a 4S. I figured the loss of amp hours will be made up for by being able to use more of the battery before LVC.
And of course, now the motor just blinks at me with a warning that the manual says is too high of voltage!
:x
My RC discharger will discharge the battery at a 1 amp an hour, which would take forever to discharge it down to 13 volts, which is what I assume the motor will start to work at. I hook up a few 12 volt Motors left over from old razor scooter to the battery and let it run all day long, but only got it down about half a volt.
Well my new plan was I'm going to bypass the relay board in the motor and hook up my own pwm controller (still on it's way from Ebay). I opened up the top of the trolling motor and bypassed the relay board entirely, connecting the positive battery lead directly to the lead going down the shaft to the motor. I disconnected all of the other wires going to the relay board, including the one to the LED display, the control on the handle, and several wires going down to the motor. I assumed these wires were for the temperature sensor and to control the LED display, as if there does not appear to be any integrated circuit in the relay board.
But now, if I connect directly to either a 12 volt battery or my 16 volt battery, the motor does nothing.
Its a red and black 12 gauge wire going down to the motor... not three wires like I would expect from a brushless motor. However there are another 12 wires or so that head down in a tidy little ribbon cable... I'm not quite sure why the motor doesn't spin I suspect that needs some sort of feedback from the ribbon cable and there are more advanced electronics closer to the motor itself.
If anybody has dissected the Intex 40 lb trolling motor, I would really appreciate some ideas. I want to bypass it's high and low voltage cut off completely.
Otherwise, I guess my next recourse would be to try a dc-to-dc buck converter, to take my 4S down to a steady 12 volt, and just use the built-in controller on the motor. I don't prefer this method, as I feel like I will be losing power off the top that I would rather just send to the motor... I guess I could always add a switch that turns off the buck converter when I get closer to the voltage that the motor will take directly.
Or I just buy a lead acid lol