Reply To: Budget thrusters

Hey Martin

1. No, it’s a different one I ordered separately. Called a pontoon mount. I believe you can buy motors with the pontoon mount as opposed to the transom mount (which requires a vertical transom to clamp to) but I couldn’t find any with the right specifications.
2. I ordered separate shafts 60” and removed the original shafts. With a bit of effort see post.
3. This sounds good. As long as you have the space for the shaft over the edge of the transom, 3 inches. The dimensions of this mount (in inches) are 6 ½ L X 5 W with the clamp that holds the shaft 3 inches over the side. Those plastic strips are starboard a substitute for plywood.

A windlass foot switch will work or even an automotive winch, bear in mind you’ll need two of them, each one will be hooked up to a bi-directional solenoid (electrically controlled high current switch). This is so that the large wires don’t have to run from batteries to switch at the helm and back down to the motors with would require more distance and consequently larger wire and to handle the higher current. The foot switch in this case has small wires running to the solenoid which does the actual switching.
So you’ll need two bi-directional switches and two solenoids / contactors. These can be mounted after the 60 amp fuse.
These are in fact more efficient than using the original controllers as there is a 4% odd loss in the controllers.
Be very aware of the wire size you’re going to need all the way from the battery/s to get to the transom especially the far side, as voltage drop will directly affect motor performance. There is a calculator on this site that I use http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
It is in imperial units and American wire gauge however. I try shoot for < 3% voltage drop. The shaft will however only accept 8AWG so there’s not much you can do about that last 7’, 5’ of shaft and 2’ to the plug. Voltage drop in high current 12v systems is a pain much, much better with 24v but then most stuff don’t run on 24v. I’m considering moving mine to the stern, but will have to move my hydraulic steering arm somewhere as it’s in the way.