trolling motor setup

[nelsonk44215]

I recently bought an 88 tracker tournament 18ft and it came with the original 36 lb trolling motor on it. The boat came with 3 batteries, one cranking and two rigged up in a series for the trolling motor. The question I have is will this motor handle 24 volts? I have ran it this way for a few ventures and I have not had any problems with it. The motor doesn't say 12v any where on it, but it also doesn't say that it is 24v. Not really sure what i should do. Thanks for the info.

[Durand Dan]

See if this page will help. I would imagine the batteries are rigged to produce 12v

http://www.ccis.com/home/mnemeth/12volt/12volt.htm

[fiker]

If I remember my high school physics correctly, when batteries are hooked up in series, we add their voltages together to get total voltage.
When wired in parallel we don't.

So if they are + to -, to + to -, that should be series, and the total voltage should be 24. 

You can always check to be sure with a multimeter. 

[nelsonk44215]

Maybe the terminology I used was wrong, I know that they are rigged up to produce 24v and I just wanted to know if the trolling motor can handle it. The boat came with a toggle switch up front that would choose between 12 and 24v but the previous owner had bypassed that and just jumped the batteries. Thanks guys for your input.

Nelson

[Waterfoul]

I have never seen a 36 lb motor rated for 24 volts.  Check your wiring again... my bet is they are set up in parallel so that you still run 12 volts but get a longer AMP hour rating (add the amps but keep the volts constant).  This is how I have mine rigged.

[slsail]

Before i converted my motorguide to digital. it was a 24/36 volt system.
you could switch voltage .
not sure why they designed it like this but it is so.
Any good repair shop or the TM manufacturere should be able to tell you what volt motor yours should be