Motor mount

Gig Harbor Boatworks built a motor kit kit for me. It's a simple mechanism of a trolling motor, a phenolic slider mount and 2 aluminum channels. I've had it arranged for awhile, but hadn't assembled it until everything got painted.

At first, it didn't slide very well. I called Falk and the crew at GHBoats.com and they said just to dose it with some silicone spray. That worked wonders and now it slides well. There were a couple of areas where the flat head 1/4-20 bolts stuck just a bit proud of the aluminum. I used a table saw to route small grooves on the back of the phenolic mount to free that up a bit.

I tested it briefly in air and it seems to be fairly powerful. 55lbs of thrust isn't a lot, but it's enough to get me away from the dock.

Port side view

starboard side

There is a through block mounted just above the motor. There will be 1/4" line through there and a cleat on the inside.

I put a stainless steel rod through the bottom of the aluminum to prevent a complete drop out of the motor. I also put a brass padlock at the top to prevent someone from walking away with the motor.

A very short quick release pin is inboard for a safety while trailering.

Motor mount holes filled

These looked good. I used a trick I found on the scamp message board to poke a pin hole in the masking tape to make sure air doesn't get trapped. Good tip.

Filled holes

The top two need some filling on the inside.

Seats glued down

This is a major milestone, the seats are glued down. It took awhile to get it all done.

First, I finished the wiring to the motor on the port side. You can see the wires run along the inside. The connector at the back is not installed yet.

Wiring runs to the back of the boat

This is the end of the wire. I have a brass through hole fitting for it.

Closer shot. You can see the hole for the motor connector plug.

Saturday I decided where the motor remote control would come through the seat and drilled the hole for that. Since I can't cut the connector off, I had to use a cable clam to go through the seat. The connector is very large and needed a 7/8" hole through the seat.

I glued a doubler on the seat and drilled the 7/8" hole through.

Then I coated the bottom of the seats.

Bottom of the seats coated. And the footwell cover and the sole doublers.

Saturday evening, I recoated all the pieces. They were ready to be installed Sunday morning, if still a bit tacky.

Sunday I started gluing the seats down. I don't have a lot of shots of the actual glue down. Just make sure that you have the seats dry fit very well before attempting the glue down.

I had sanded all the cleats. Saturday evening and Sunday morning, I recoated all the cleats. So everything had a nice new coat of epoxy on it before the actual glue down.

Using buckets of water and boxes of tiles to weight down the seats.

After I got the seats glued down, I wanted to glue the transom doubler that will be used for the motor mount. I glued that in along with the small plate that backs the socket connector for the motor.

The blue spreader clamp holds the small plate for  the motor connector.
To the left, you can see the transom doubler.

A lot of clamps holding the transom doubler.

It was a real pain clamping in the transom doubler, but I got it. I used the same trick of a cross bar spreader and a small spreader perpendicular pressing against the piece. You can just see it at the bottom of the above shot.

I had some gaps along the outside edge of the seat. After it was glued and weighted, I put tape under the seat to block the cracks. Then I ran a pre-fillet. I don't think a pre-fillet is a real thing, but the idea is that I used some thickened epoxy -- not quite as thick as fillet mix -- and forced it into the cracks as best I could. I pushed that down with a finger and let it cure for just awhile. I had the garage about 70 degrees with the oil heater, so it didn't take too long to firm.

Then I ran a real fillet all along the edges and cleaned with a gloved finger a few hours later.

I was not able to fillet right near my complicated clamp setup at the back. I'll get that later.

Starboard side is glued.

Motor from Gig Harbor Boat Works arrived today

Today I got the motor from Gig Harbor Boat Works.

I had ordered the 55lb thrust motor. It turns out it is what I figured -- an engine mount motor from MinnKota and a custom fabricated bracket. The bracket is 2 aluminum u-channel pieces with mounting holes and a black heavy phenolic engine mount that slides in the u-channel.

The mounting bracket in the channels

Another view

I'll have to figure out how low to mount the bracket. I'll also want to figure out a way to make a stop so that the engine and mount can't fall all the way out.

The motor. It's quite large and heavy.

The controller. The remote control is upside down.

The bracket attached to the motor

Unfortunately, the controller did not have a circuit breaker or fuse. It's almost like they expect you to hook it up without a circuit breaker. The manual says the USCG requires circuit protection, but they don't actually include any. I picked up a simple 60a circuit breaker switch. I'll install that inline before the motor.

My circuit diagram has not changed. I've added a simple bus block that will be located near the circuit breaker panel switch, but that is just for convenience later if I have to wire something else.

Big electrical purchase today

I spent the afternoon in West Marine; I made some decisions about the electrical and needed to execute my plan.

First, I ordered the well recommended Casey book on Sailboat Electrics. That won't be here until Tuesday, but not actually having knowledge hasn't stopped me before.

First, I gathered what I knew:

1. I needed to physically fit the battery through a hatch opening 20" x 9". It could be no taller than about 8 1/2".
2. The 12V trolling motor that I ordered uses 50 amps when full open. I'd like to have around 2 hours at full open. That means 100AmpHour battery.
3. I have no idea how to mount the battery so it doesn't move.
4. I want a 12v system to run a GPS chart plotter and maybe a VHF radio. These have to be removable so that I can stow them safely.
5. I want LED navigation lights on a switch.
6. I want cabin lights (this is easy, LED strip lights).

I can't believe that it took me over an hour, but I had a lot of decisions to make. In the store, I could design all the details in my head.

I had a simple wiring diagram drawn in pencil. Once I had everything purchased, I enhanced it (thanks to Digikey):

Wiring diagram

For inside the well, I bought:

1. 79AH AGM battery (group 24) and a housing for it. This has a little less capacity than I wanted, but should still have plenty of juice. And it will definitely fit in the well and I know I can mount the  housing inside the well.
2. a 350 amp battery main switch. They didn't have anything smaller that I could mount easily. 
3. some 6 AWG red & black wire from the battery terminals to a 100A dual bus. This can carry 50A to the trolling motor without burning up.
4. A 10AWG lead with connectors from the trolling motor section. Half will be connected  directly to the battery. (The version I bought had round lugs on it, the one on the link doesn't.)
5. A 15A offboard charger. I'll cut off the clamps and add the other 1/2 of the connector from #4. Then I can just drop the charger in the boat, connect it and 6 hours later have a fully charged battery.
6. A fuse holder and a 30A fuse. This will go from the bus bar up front to the switch panel. I used a 30A fuse so that I could use 10AWG wire to the switch panel.
7. All the crimp connectors I needed.

To mount on B3:

1. A 4 circuit breaker/switch panel with 2x 12v cigarette adapters. Unfortunately, one of the switches controls the two 12v adapters, so that leaves me with only 3 switches. Which is just enough, but I may regret no more space later. The panel has 15A circuit breaker switches. I think this means it could handle up to 60A, but that would have been #6 wire all the way to the panel and that seemed ridiculous, so I fused it at 30A so I could use 10AWG.

I even bought some accessories, like cable clips, screws and velcro.

I don't know where the nav lights will live, so I didn't buy any.

And I don't want to invest in a GPS or VHF quite yet.

It was an expensive trip, but I know what I can do this week.

What's really weird: I wanted to ground everything to the chassis. Duh, you can't do that on a wooden boat. And when I work with the FIRST robotics program, they won't let you do it for the robot either. At least FIRST supplies you with a ground bus.

I have an idea on how to mount the GPS and radio on B4 so that it is easily visible, although I may do like Noddy and put it inside on B3.

Now, I need to start laying out components and crimping connectors onto wires. I'll mount the battery box down, but I'll probably have to cut it up a bit to get it to fit correctly. Then I can finish priming and painting behind B3 so that I can get everything permanently mounted.

I do still need some strain relief and preferably a waterproof (yeah right) grommet for when I run though the bulkheads. I know bcbimmer is using PEX as a conduit. That seems like a good idea. 

I'll also need to figure out how the motor will be wired. Hopefully that will arrive this week.

Transom doublers

Since I bought the trolling motor, I would need to double up the transom under the seats for sure. I cut some rough approximations of the are under the cleats and shaped them with the shinto rasp.

I did this for port and starboard.

I decided to go with 2x 9mm doublers on each side.

The doublers cut from scrap

doublers

I glued the first one on and used a spreader clamp to push it.

spreader on port side

spreader on starboard side.

After that was cured, I mixed up some wood flour filleting mix and filled in the sides that were rough. Then I glued in the second set of plates. While that was curing, I filleted that.

I may get some pictures and add a new post.

This should be plenty beefy for the motor mount.