I don’t think that either of you understand the purpose of a separator relay, the batteries are separated until the starting battery is fully charged, only then will the secondary battery be charged. This is regardless of the ignition being on etc. What I am wondering is if the Minn Kota Alternator Charger does anything else?

Ron wrote:

The MinnKota alternator charger has a wire you connect to the ignition circuit and the ignition circuit needs to be “on” for it to work. I don’t think you’d want your ignition on while the solar charger is hooked up.

Why would I not want the ignition on with the solar charger connected?

Ripjiggen wrote:

So you want to run the trolling motor. Main motor and electronics off 1 battery?

Sorry I probably wasn’t completely clear on that. No, I want to run the trolling motor on a separate battery. I then want to hook this secondary battery up to the starting battery so that this secondary battery can be charged by the solar panel/alternator through the starting battery.

JasonP wrote:

He’s not asking for a work-around.

Oscar – sounds like firmware. Check to make sure you are using the most recent firmware on BOTH the controller and the remote.
remote – 2.040
controller – 2.150

If not follow instruction in manual to update FW.

j

This may very well be the problem – just checked the remote and it is running v1.150. I’ll go to the garage and try to update the firmware tomorrow and see what happens, only problem is I won’t know whether it worked or not until I’m out fishing as the remote sometimes works for 45mins-1hour without any issues