Biting the bullet and upgrading troller to spotlock capabilities.Advice wanted.
Well have been on the fence for a while but finally decided to to go ahead and make the jump. Not my first experience with using a spotlock feature as on my last 16ft alum jet drive rig had installed a motor guide x5 36 volt unit as at the time they spot lock was supposed to be much more accurate than the Minn Kota motors at the time.. Worked pretty well but understand that the newer units are better.
Going Minn Kota this go round as the current crop of trollers that Minn Kota is supposed to be the best most accurate. Studying the models I quickly ruled out the powerdrive series as no heading sensor included and remote operation only and not even an option to use a corded foot control. Liked the pricing structure of the powerdrives but to many drawback to me to save a few hundred dollars on a major purchase.
So decided to go with the Terrova line as the spot lock features with the header sensor is the same as all the way to the top models. Also unit comes with both remote and corded foot control and I prefer a little redundancy and like the idea that the foot control is wired and does not require batteries.
I also like the idea of the lift assist as I am getting old and actually the boat I am placing this troller own I have owned since the late 90's and has had a powerdrive motor on it all these years so I know what the deploy/stow is like without it.
One of the hardest choices as this is just a 14ft mod v jon and I fish mainly smaller waters or rivers was between the 12 or 24 volt option.
I did just totally redo the wiring and battery layout on this boat earlier this year and set the boat up with a total of 3 group 31 deep cell marine batteries and laid the batteries out as such adding a few short jumper cables allows the transition from 12 to 24 volts easily.
The big thing is of course the 24 volts adds about 250 dollars to the price over the 12 volts but as I figured that getting about 44% more thrust (55 versus 80lbs) and that there is only a 6 amp difference in maximum amps pulled because of the higher voltage (50 versus 56 amps) that it was worth the extra dollars in cost to upgrade to the 24 volt.
One place I did finally draw the line even though I am planning my next upgrade to be a Bird helix 9 or 10 SI Mega unit I just cannot bring myself to add even another few hundred dollars for the "link" system even though I like the concept of being able to follow a depth contour or navigate to a saved waypoint in the bird by pushing a button.
This unit is already costing more than my 36 volt MG from a few years ago and adding the link will push the cost to over 2 grand!
I am going to pull the trigger probably by days end will I regret not getting the link even at the added cost? Would love to hear from someone that has experience with and without it!
Thanks.