Minn Kota Ulterra/Terrova mounts

[LGF]

I recently bought a Minn Kota Ulterra bow mount troll motor and as with the Minn Kota Terrova, the entire length of the shaft turns with the electric steer as opposed to the top section that is static on conventional cable steer motors. The latter posses no issue with mounting transducers etc to the trolling motor, with the former mentioned models this is not easy or very safe for cabling that cannot really be protected, just dangling around at best between the motor and the head unit.


So it starts, yet again. The transducer cable got pinched twice already and suffered badly. Fixed and it’s functional again and is now sleeved in a piece of coiled air hose that required some serious tuning before it worked each time being deployed and stowed without killing the cable, or placing stress on the motor parts when deployed or stowed.


That said, I am planning on getting a 360 imaging sonar soon and that will require a different approach.


I have started with a parallel deployment system and only need to pick up some linear ball bearings on Tuesday. The rig might be huge as the bearings and shaft dimensions is limited and basically governs the entire spec of the system.


Will keep you’s updated and perhaps there’s a fellow angler sitting with the same issue and in that maybe I can help if it works out great.


PS there are some aftermarket DIY systems available but @R6,5k it’s ridiculous. Will see what I can come up with.

[LGF]

Bought the linear bearing and it slides smoothly without any play on the tube, now I must just draw and CNC the brackets, however the bracket that pulls the tube through the bearing needs to have some sort of a sleeve as to not pinch the shaft making the tube want to rotate with the shaft, but it also needs to be tight enough to pull and push the tube without slipping off wherever I attach it to the shaft.


The solution here might be a recessed split bushing with an extrusion that I can bolt to the shaft and have the bracket run on some sort of Teflon/Vesconite recessed bearing/bush that fits into the recess of the bushing. So there’s some lathing in the near future is suppose!

[LGF]

Scrapped about four prototypes, ended up with a manual version, but as suspected, I left it down tree times yesterday, twice noticed before I punched the hammer, third time I only noticed it when I suddenly had spray from the front hitting me in the face   all good, no damage, I overbuilt everything!!!


This is not going to work, I need it to be automated to some sorts without attaching it to the troll motor, as it seems the only viable places messes the deploy and stow procedures up pretty bad.


Walking around with the idea of a belt/pulley system rigged to a 12v heavy duty dc motor, small one, all encased in an aluminium box?????


Will see how that works!