What trolling motor to go with Lowrance HDS Gen 2 Graphs

Hey guys this open water season I am going to be running Lowrance hds 8 gen 2 & a hds 7 gen 2 (both push button) in my boat. I have a 2003 18 foot Lund Explorer. Now, my next move is to upgrade the trolling motor. Right now I just have an older Minn Kota Power Drive that came with when we bought the boat. Do I need the top of the line motor guide trolling motor to get it to sync with the graph or can I go with Minn Kota? Let me know what you guys have ran that works has worked! Thanks guys!

My suggestion is the xi5 80lb with pinpoint gps system. It will sync with gen 2 hds units (but you need the gateway kit). You should be able to find that trolling motor for about $1300 (if that’s in your budget). You can find the gateway kit to link up for about $200 now, so that will put you around $1500 give or take. An 80lb Terrova with I-Pilot (new generation), are running around $1700. With the motorguide kit, you can plot a trail on your HDS units, or tell it to go anchor lock on a certain waypoint etc…

You can’t really link an ipilot up with Lowrance units, so Xi5 is really your best option.

You should be able to get an adapter to use the universal sonar from your minn kota to display on the lowrance units, BUT I don’t believe those are made anymore so finding one might be difficult.
Aside from depth reading, that would be all you could do with it.
I went from a Powerdrive to a motorguide Xi5 Pinpoint with the Gateway Kit 2 years ago and it is amazing.
The motorguide was head and shoulders better than the power drive I had and its far better then my buddy’s terrova. That clunky remote on the terrova sucks and doesn’t work half the time. He always has me run his boat when we fish together and I hate using that dang thing so I have spent a ton of time using it. I told him next time I am just going to bring my trolling motor on his boat.

Another question. Will the motorguide link to every unit on my boat (1 on the bow 2 on the dash) or will it only link to 1 unit?

X2 on the motorguide. To answer your question, yes it will network with all units as long as all units are connected to the nmea 2000 network. This will require a few more cables and tees for the network.

Got the xi5 is installed and ready to roll! I don’t have it hooked up to my graphs yet…