I had to move my boat to start work on installing a fish cleaning area in my basement garage and I noticed one of the lights on my onboard charger was red. I recently had one of my leads burn up on the old charger and this one is less than 1 yr. old. Check the starter battery it was completely dead. Interesting. I disconnected all the negative leads and hooked up a portable charger. I then touched the negative engine lead to its respective terminal and the trim motor would kick on for about 2 seconds and then shut off for six and kick on again. I replaced the trim solenoid a few months ago and thought I musta really messed something up................again.
Had to get started on the wall and sink and stuff while I had help with me. Worked on that until about five.
Sat down to watch a little Star Trek Next Generation with my boys and something dawned on me.
There are three trim switches on the boat. Is it possible one of them shorted out?????? But why would it kick on for two seconds and kick off for six and kick on for two and kick off for six?
Didn't take long to figure out the problem. My depth finders is on a RAM mount in the front of the boat. The cover was laying over the front of the boat and the depth finder was resting against the trim button.
One of two scenarios here:
1) I put the cover on and it slowly worked the depth finder down to the trim button. Had to happen after the fact as I would have heard the trim motor when the cover was thrown up there.
2) I put the cover on and it slowly worked its way down because Mrs. Fat Kitty likes to lay up on the boat cover. (Most likely)
Trying to figure out a solution:
1) Put a cover over the trim button so it can only be activated when the cover is moved?
2) Relocate the depth finder so it can’t touch the trim button?
3) Relocate trim button.
4) Shoot the cat?
Option #4 is the cheapest and would be a cost savings.
I did figure out why the trim would activate for 2 second and shut off. The battery charger's thermal kick out was activated as the amp draw was too high.
Glad the Minn Kota chargers are smart enough to know when something is wrong and shut off so I didn't burn up a solenoid or trim motor.
G.
