Ulterra motor error question

Installed a “new to me” Ulterra with Bluetooth. This thing is AWESOME. Only problem I have had so far is occasionally it won’t deploy all the way. It gets almost upright then stops and says motor error. It will go back down fine. It did it once Saturday but worked fine the rest of the day. It did it several times when I first put in today.but by the time I was done for the day it was working fine. When it does it I can take my hand and follow the head of the TM (not pushing or forcing just keeping a little pressure as it goes) and it gets to the point it usually stops and it will keep going fine. Try it without my hand and it stops again. Puzzling to me especially when it starts working just fine later. I even tried it once I put the boat back on the trailer and it was fine. I’m sure it’s nothing major but I would like to figure it out. One more thing, it was really cold today bad pretty cold Saturday. Not sure if that caused it or not. Thanks in advance for the help.

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Originally Posted by Rustyhunter

Installed a “new to me” Ulterra with Bluetooth. This thing is AWESOME. Only problem I have had so far is occasionally it won’t deploy all the way. It gets almost upright then stops and says motor error. It will go back down fine. It did it once Saturday but worked fine the rest of the day. It did it several times when I first put in today.but by the time I was done for the day it was working fine. When it does it I can take my hand and follow the head of the TM (not pushing or forcing just keeping a little pressure as it goes) and it gets to the point it usually stops and it will keep going fine. Try it without my hand and it stops again. Puzzling to me especially when it starts working just fine later. I even tried it once I put the boat back on the trailer and it was fine. I’m sure it’s nothing major but I would like to figure it out. One more thing, it was really cold today bad pretty cold Saturday. Not sure if that caused it or not. Thanks in advance for the help.

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Unplug and let it reset.

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Check the tension of the belt per owners manual as well as cleaning and lubricating the shaft per o/man.
Let us know what you found out.

:hesaid The Ulterra has current sensing. If anything resists movement too much, it will detect over current and stop.. Safety feature. Didn't have current sense, might loose a finger or other members the suspend from the body.

Grease the latch, mine was doing that and a shot of WD40 helped

Mine doesn't like freezing weather. Ice will form in places you can't see and causes issues until it melts.

None of them like freezing weather!!!

A week and a half ago at the first leg of the Michigan Walleye Tour, a buddy of mine had one freeze and basically blow apart. Plastic components get frozen with water and break when you attempt to adjust the draft, or deploy or stow the motor. By the time they got back in to the dock to see if they could rectify the issue (they couldn't) 5 other boats all with the same exact issue came in. When you have a 120 boat field and more than 12k on the line, it isn't a good look for your high end motors to fail due to freezing weather. By the end of the weekend there were a total of 8 motors and a whole lot of phone calls to Minn Kota come Monday morning.

Try answering to your sponsors come Monday morning when something like this happens. If it was only 1, I would say you could chalk it up to anything but when six of them happen within a 2 hour window? And 8 in two days? Many of us that fish these conditions questioned weather they would hold up in the cold and freezing conditions. Good thing that we didn't take the chance to find out.

I figured there would be moving parts issues in winter. Better hang on to that cable tm for cold weather.Thanks for posts fellas.

Thanks for the replies guys. I greased the motor arm and latch. I also found some debri in under the motor and cleaned it out. It wasn’t stuck in anything just laying there. Maybe the sensor saw it and that did it. Don’t know. All I know is it worked great today. Thanks again for the help.

Good deal. I've got to do some preventative maintenance on my dad's Ulterra. He has only used it about 5 times but reported a problem last fall with it. I purchased it for him so that he didn't have to get up front to deploy and stow the motor. After the debacle a couple of weeks ago, I'm regretting my decision. If I do have to deep six this motor (yes I will throw it. No it won't be in the water) I will purchase another terrova but with lift assist.

I've installed a good many motors for my boats and others over the last 6 years. I've never had to use a locking device such as a RAM mount for any of the powerdrive or Terrova models I've installed (7 in the last 6 years). With the ulterra, I noticed just how sloppy the head was. So much so that, if I didn't install a RAM mount, I knew this thing would break. Great concept, but very poorly designed.

I'm guessing that that up and down is driven by a screw. That screw is probably metel. I also guess that the lift and lower gears are plastic! Metal screw, plastic gears equals a recipe for dissaster. I'm betting that after a couple of lift, deploy cycles, the water is getting on the plastic gears and freezing. Because the screw is metel, there is no stopping it and it is ripping, stripping, or breaking the brittle frozen gears. Obviously, the rectification would be to use all metel parts or, install a tourque assist that would get to a cert ftlb of pressure and then start clicking.

The other issue with these turds... If you have a problem on the water and have to manually stow it, the motor is done and must be sent in. I'm not a fan of that. Last year there was a team camped next to us at one of the tournaments. After day one, both of our teams along with them were in the top 15. They were out on the boat working on their "Turd". I guess they had to manually stow it and obviously couldn't get it working again. They were forced to use their kicker motor only on day two and quickly slipped to 40th place. I'm starting to hate these motors the more I see them.

Stay tuned and I'll bring more information on the Ulterra A.K.A "The Turd".

The position sensors are magnetic. The do fail, but obstruction in the really not an issue. I is hard to block a magnetic field, almost impossible. You can "redirect" a magnetic field with a shield. This is what I remember from school about 60 years ago.

I had the same problem late in the fall in temps in the upper 20's. I always just launched my boat and used the Ulterra to bring it back to the dock after I parked my truck. That morning it just floated away across the bay and a friend had to go and retrieve my boat for me.

Anyway the problem is on the lubrication of the latch pins and the ramps. Lube them up a little, I used teflon dry lube spay and have not had any issues since. By the way that only happened to me a couple of times, always in really cold weather, When my boat drifted away was while we were launching for a tournament and a bunch of my friends around to laugh at me, but at least they were there to go and get my boat for me.

I called Minn Kota and they were very helpful. They suggested putting Pledge on the shaft. I tried spraying graphite on it think that would be better and it actually made it worse. So I did what Minn Kota tech suggested and wiped it down with pledge. Once I got most of the graphite off it worked perfectly. I just give it a good wipe down now before I launch and so far haven’t had anymore problems. Thanks for all the replies and help. This is why I enjoy this site.

Ive done a couple of posts about the Ulterra 1st Gen. If it is still under warranty send it in. You don’t want to be paying for repair to an Ulterra after the warranty is gone....the parts on and in it cost a lot. I have the same issue...and while cold brings it on it can also happen at other times. Mine was last sent in August 2017....warranty ran out in same month. It started same issues again in December. It is operational but with issues. I am going to run it until it will not work at all and then will get the new Terrova with the lift assist.

Regards


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I took the "turd" (as I like to call it) out the other day to try and diagnose the issue my dad described last year when he used it. Originally I hoped it was just user error. He said that every time he was navigating, when he hit the button, the motor didn't respond. Then he would hit it or hold it and it would run to one side or the other. I "assumed" it to be a faulty or bad remote.

Got on the water, lowered the motor and started operating it. It seemed to function OK. Then I put it in legacy navigation mode (hold the N button on the remote until you are left with an N on the screen without a circle). This is when the issue started. The motor is, for the most part, always pointing towards the front. Except when it is making minor adjustments. I used an island as reference and slowly went around the island. We use this method to work the shore. As you attempted to make a course adjustment, the motor would "hang". This caused you to hit the button a few times. Eventually, the motor would get past the hanging point and run to one side or another (Further than you wanted it to go). I tried trimming the motor up and down with little help.

I brought one of my many spare terrova remotes and programmed it to the TM. It WILL work. You just don't have the deploy and trim features. I wanted to ensure it was not the remote. Although it worked slightly better, there is still a hanging point when the motor points to the front. We primarily troll for walleyes and do might slight adjustments from time to time. We also make lazy turns. This could be a huge issue.

I advised my dad to vigerously lube the "Turd" and we will try it again. Fortunately, it is under warrenty for a couple more months. If it continues to do this, I will be sending it back and asking that they park a Terrova in it's place. I love the concept but "HATE" this motor!