Brushless Trolling Motors?

Why are the big names dragging their feet on offering more efficient designs?

Cost?

You will probably have to wait 70 more days to see one or two. Lowrance’s new motor is rumored to be brushless and I would bet Motorguide’s big announcement will also be a new brushless trolling motor. I think the marketing wank potential is probably much greater than the performance and efficiency potential.

When Was the last time you changed the brushes your trolling motor?

mark-bruzek wrote:

When Was the last time you changed the brushes your trolling motor?

I think mine might be due.

I’m not concerned with maintenance, primarily motor efficiency. From my understanding a typical kota is less than 20% efficient doing work at the prop side, a brushless should double that.

Brushless motor controllers are huge generators of RF Noise and High Frequency Harmonics. If you think you have problems with EFI Outboards, Bluetooth, Ehternet, Sonar Interference on your Humminbird Classic/Helix/Solex; Garmin; Lawrence Units now just try to dampen interference from a brushless motor controller.

Think about it, take a nice clean stable DC Voltage and you chop it up into square waves and fire those voltage bursts once for every 120 degrees of motor rotation into an inductive magnetic coil. The reflective waves ripple through all the wiring from the battery to the trolling motor. The induced frequencies are ever changing with increase and reduction of motor speed making it almost impossible to filter out.

My PD2 will probably be on my boat for a long time to come.

Fish On…

What is the efficiency of a brushless compared to brushed?

Looking at the a DC motor itself with no drive loss im seeing 85-90% efficient for brushless and 75-80% for brushed.
So, im seeing 10% more efficient… but a 30% price increase for DC brushless motors.

To me, the numbers are not there. But im sure the marketing genius’ will make their partial true statements like “more efficient” and “longer run time” and the sheep will flock to buy them.

Spending a couple hundred in larger capacity batteries rather than thousands for a new trolling motor seems like a pretty solid investment…

But that just me, very thick headed for change and never the first to jump at buying something new and unproven. First gens always have bugs…

Might not seem like longer run times, but for example look at brushless cordless drills, they run quite a bit longer,then think about casting a weed edge on a nice summer night and you forgot to charge your battery the night before,that extra run time would sure be worth it to me!

djshannon wrote:

Think about it, take a nice clean stable DC Voltage and you chop it up into square waves and fire those voltage bursts once for every 120 degrees of motor rotation into an inductive magnetic coil. The reflective waves ripple through all the wiring from the battery to the trolling motor. The induced frequencies are ever changing with increase and reduction of motor speed making it almost impossible to filter out.

djshannon wrote:

Brushless motor controllers are huge generators of RF Noise and High Frequency Harmonics. If you think you have problems with EFI Outboards, Bluetooth, Ehternet, Sonar Interference on your Humminbird Classic/Helix/Solex; Garmin; Lawrence Units now just try to dampen interference from a brushless motor controller.

Think about it, take a nice clean stable DC Voltage and you chop it up into square waves and fire those voltage bursts once for every 120 degrees of motor rotation into an inductive magnetic coil. The reflective waves ripple through all the wiring from the battery to the trolling motor. The induced frequencies are ever changing with increase and reduction of motor speed making it almost impossible to filter out.

My PD2 will probably be on my boat for a long time to come.

Fish On…

There are very, very few people in this world who understand RFI issues. You do! It was a true pleasure to read that.

S.R.

gregory wrote:

think about casting a weed edge on a nice summer night and you forgot to charge your battery the night before,

If I forget to do something that needs done, regardless of what it is, then that is on me.
Next thing they will be selling us, will be batteries which plug themselves in at night, so we don’t have to tend to even that little detail.

Don’t get me wrong im not willing to spend what ever on a trolling motor,but if it costs a little more and uses less energy,longer run times, no need for extra batteries in boat = less weight in boat better boat performance. seems like a win a win.

djshannon wrote:

Brushless motor controllers are huge generators of RF Noise and High Frequency Harmonics. If you think you have problems with EFI Outboards, Bluetooth, Ehternet, Sonar Interference on your Humminbird Classic/Helix/Solex; Garmin; Lawrence Units now just try to dampen interference from a brushless motor controller.

Think about it, take a nice clean stable DC Voltage and you chop it up into square waves and fire those voltage bursts once for every 120 degrees of motor rotation into an inductive magnetic coil. The reflective waves ripple through all the wiring from the battery to the trolling motor. The induced frequencies are ever changing with increase and reduction of motor speed making it almost impossible to filter out.

My PD2 will probably be on my boat for a long time to come.

Fish On…

How would a sinusoidal brushless dc control compare to a pwm brushed motor control (like Minn Kota digital maximizer) as far as noise is concerned?

djshannon wrote:

Brushless motor controllers are huge generators of RF Noise and High Frequency Harmonics. If you think you have problems with EFI Outboards, Bluetooth, Ehternet, Sonar Interference on your Humminbird Classic/Helix/Solex; Garmin; Lawrence Units now just try to dampen interference from a brushless motor controller.

Think about it, take a nice clean stable DC Voltage and you chop it up into square waves and fire those voltage bursts once for every 120 degrees of motor rotation into an inductive magnetic coil. The reflective waves ripple through all the wiring from the battery to the trolling motor. The induced frequencies are ever changing with increase and reduction of motor speed making it almost impossible to filter out.

My PD2 will probably be on my boat for a long time to come.

Fish On…

Simple fix. Don’t put any interference sensitive items on that circuit….

I’ve been wondering when a brushless motor will be coming out for 5 or 6 years now. They’re amazing in everything else they get put in, can’t imagine it would hurt in a trolling motor. Ever drive a brushless RC Car? WOW!

“Mr Derek
How would a sinusoidal brushless dc control compare to a pwm brushed motor
control (like Minn Kota digital maximizer) as far as noise is concerned?”

Sinusoidal brushless technology in significantly more expensive to manufacture than square wave driven motor controllers due to the cost solid state power elements (transistor vs. SCR).

Brushed PWM motor control technology has fewer power elements (SCRs) and operate at a much lower frequency and hence produces much less RFI noise.

“gregory

Might not seem like longer run times, but for example look at brushless
cordless drills, they run quite a bit longer,then think about casting a weed
edge on a nice summer night and you forgot to charge your battery the night
before,that extra run time would sure be worth it to me!”

The part you are missing here is most all brushless technologies that are sold today (ie, Drills, Tools, Ice Augers, RC cars, Tesla Cars, Toyota Prius …) are linked to new battery technologies. These Lithium Ion based batteries are not as heavy as lead acid (AGM, wet cell, jell cell…) have very flat power/discharge curves (so you have almost full voltage until they are dead) and are extremely expensive.

Look at the cost of a new battery for your Marcum Shuttle.

I’m not saying that I am against brussless technology in my trolling motor but there is a steep learning curve that comes with that purchase and an associated cost.

What do you think the cost of a new “Ulterra B’less Ilink” will cost? $4xxx (just a guess). How much are you willing to pay. Maybe even new batteries required?

I can charge my batteries every night and fish more (maybe not better) to improve my skills.

I have rambled enough… Fish On….

munchy wrote:

Simple fix. Don’t put any interference sensitive items on that circuit….

I’ve been wondering when a brushless motor will be coming out for 5 or 6 years now. They’re amazing in everything else they get put in, can’t imagine it would hurt in a trolling motor. Ever drive a brushless RC Car? WOW!

I don’t think it’s that easy. How are you going to separate a built in transducer?

And networking?

Anyone hear about Garmin working on a TM. A few BBC posts I read suggest they are?

blackbay wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Munchy wrote:</div>
Simple fix. Don’t put any interference sensitive items on that circuit….

I’ve been wondering when a brushless motor will be coming out for 5 or 6 years now. They’re amazing in everything else they get put in, can’t imagine it would hurt in a trolling motor. Ever drive a brushless RC Car? WOW!

I don’t think it’s that easy. How are you going to separate a built in transducer?

A built in transducer isn’t “needed” for an effective trolling motor. However if you want to go down that road, Put the controller and motor into a faraday cage, separate the wires, add extra wire shielding, and use a separate power supply for the transducer powered off the fish finder power. I’m sure there is a little more to it than just what I’ve listed but engineers have been working with highly sensitive electronics that are a lot greater than our little fishfinders for decades.

djshannon wrote:

The part you are missing here is most all brushless technologies that are sold today (ie, Drills, Tools, Ice Augers, RC cars, Tesla Cars, Toyota Prius …) are linked to new battery technologies. These Lithium Ion based batteries are not as heavy as lead acid (AGM, wet cell, jell cell…) have very flat power/discharge curves (so you have almost full voltage until they are dead) and are extremely expensive.

You actually bring up a good topic here. Lithium batteries are beginning to gain ground in the marine world. Right now comparable batteries are about $1000 each. There are definitely some added risks associated with them but I’m hopeful they can find their way into this market soon.