Topic: TM interference

[Perch Jerker]

lots of crappie, all had lock jaw! also a little TM interference, which        I corrected by twisting the power leads from battery to unit.

[reddog]

Can you explain this a little more? You twisted the positive and negative leads from the battery to the trolling motor?

[LocDown]

I think he meant twisted pair. You and twist them together with a cordless drill by holding one end and "drilling" the other end until you get a good twist.

 ..kind of like this:

[Perch Jerker]

Yes Red Dog ,chuck up the power wires in a cordless drill with the opposite end secured, twist until snug. It will sometimes do wonders for interference.  Ray

[Bob B]

Yes, twisting the wires together changes the electrical characteristics of the wire and will significantly reduce interference.  There are "chokes" or ferrite coils that can be put around the wires near the unit that will help also.

[reddog]

I have the ferrite ring on my terrova. Just hadn't heard of here twisted wire trick. simple enough, thanks.

[rnvinc]

Start the twisted wire pair with about twice the length of run needed because the twisted pair becomes shorter the more it is twisted...

Rickie

[Ken L]

You may or may not want to do this but if you strip the outer covering off the power cable you can then separate the leads. If you then clamp the plug in place you can wrap the wires around each other hand over hand and they won't coil up. This will shorten the length but only by a fraction of that if you just twist the whole thing in a drill. Another way to do this would be to fasten one lead in place and spin the other with a drill. If you then slowly bring both leads together they will wrap around each other the same way with no coiling unless you overdo it with the drill. You could then wrap it in electrical tape or find another way to protect it. There could be some installations where this might be a better solution.  Long before smartphones and digital everything telephone calls were always transmitted over pairs of wires and they had to be twisted this way or the call would have been unintelligible.