Thread: Any reviews on the new and improved Minn Kota Spot Lock?

After doing much reading about the so called upgrade kit for Ulterra TM I called Minn Kota. I talked to Tracy and was informed you can upgrade your Ulterra to the new model. They do not consider it a kit so to speak but a box of parts they are willing to sell to bring the older Ulterra's up to date as to what is being sold now. It includes a new head unit....GPS puck....the new remote with jog feature. For regular iPilot it is 500 bucks...for iPilot Link it is 800 bucks. Will I upgrade.....I have no clue. Just thought I would pass on the info that I got straight from Minn Kota today.

Regards

Have not heard, my terova is nice but do miss the cable

I was fishing when a cold front came through today and the improved spot lock worked great i was sitting over a stake bed in 12 feet of water and toggled around it and then sat right on it with the wind gusting to at least 25 miles an hour. I don't know if it can get any better. The advanced trolling will take getting used to. It is good just different. The controller is better don't seem to screw it up when bending over or it touching something. This on the ulterra with bluetooth I Pilot.

Don

I bought the 24 volt, 80lb / 60 inch Ulterra with I-Pilot. I purchased it at Scheels. I made them unbox it before leaving the store. I wanted to make sure it was the newer version with the round, white puck.The trolling motor installs to the boat deck on supplied rubber bushings, or with a quick-slide plate (purchased separately).Installation involves removing the side covers (2 phillips screws on each side) and removing a dampener rod to access the bolt holes. R&R of the dampener takes all of about one minute, it's simple.

The new version Ulterra (2017) comes with a 12 volt, Bluetoothcompass puck.The puck is not gps, it's a compass that assists the gps in the trolling motor head. The puck must be installed away from any magnetic interference. The instructions explain how to determine that, and how to pair it with the trolling motor and calibrate it.

I heard several complaints about the older Minnkotas"jerking" the boat around when making corrections while spot locked. My Ulterra has a feature / setting called "boat scale". If you find that your boat is being jerked quickly during spot lock, you can change the boat scale setting to a value that's more or less than the default"0". By changing the number, you are telling the trolling motor that your boat is lighter / smaller, or heavier / bigger. The trolling motor will respond by being more gentle or more abrupt, depending on what setting you choose.You might want to adjust the boat scale on a windy day if you find the trolling motor isn't responding with enough thrust. I think it's a neat feature.

I got caught by surprise when I realized the Minn Kota built-in US-2 sonar does not support down imaging or side imaging. I wanted to use my external trolling motor transducer, but I had concern about the cable getting tangled up during deploy / stow and rotation. I found a solution from Precision Sonar dot com.They call it the cable guard.It consists of some coiled hose and two machined brackets.The whole thing installs in minutes without disassembling any part of the trolling motor. There are several videos of it on the internet.

The lift belt runs along the side of the trolling motor shaft. It remains stationary, and it's adjustable in case it stretches over time. Adjustment is done with an external allen head screw on the bottom ofthe trolling motor head.

You'll want to download the I-Pilot phone app. There's one for I-phone and android. The app serves two purposes. You can operate the trolling motor from your phone via Bluetooth, and you use the app to update software in the Minnkota remote and trolling motor head.

I had a 50 amp circuit breaker in my boat. Minn Kota recommends a 60 amp on the 80 lb Ulterra. I think Motorguide recommends a 60 amp breaker on one of their XI5 motors. I got varying opinions on the need to upgrade, but I went ahead and ordered a 60 amp.

I printed pages 26 to 35 of the Minn Kota owner'smanual.It's downloadable from MinnKota, but it doesn't come in the box like the installation manual does. Those pages contain important user information such as what to do if you lose all power on the water and the trolling motor is deployed. I'll keep those pages on the boat in case I need them. I changed the orientation of the trolling motor so the prop was turned to the starboard side. Changing that took about 15 seconds. The how-to is in the owner's manual. There's a section on how to stow in case of total power loss. Minn Kota notes that if you do this, you'll have to send the trolling motor in to an authorized service center for a reset. I called a local service center and asked about that. I was told that you can do the reset yourself by following the steps in the owner's manual. Again, there's a lot of good info in that manual.

Hope this info helps. Feel free to comment if you see something that doesn't sound right in my post.

Great review ..... That's the first I had heard about that "boat scale" setting. I could se that being VERY valuable to tune for your boat and different conditions.

Thank you John, that is some very helpful information.

You're welcome guys, glad I could help.

Boat scale must be a function with the new Gen2 Ulterra. My Ulterra has a plain Jane Ipilot.