Bruce Edward Litton

That's a really good point--how long unplugged on the shelf. Thanks everyone else, too, but keep them coming if any more ideas.

I have a CTEK smart charger and closed cell marine battery so no gases escape. I keep that battery on charge constantly, except when I go on vacation nine days tops. By posting this topic, I'm really just fishing for whatever information might help me come to a new decision. I'm assuming the smart charger is probably close to 100% safe. That's how I normally use it: As if it were. My wife and I go to work; the house does not burn down. If I will keep that charger on while we go on vacation, it will be better for the battery. I guess I'm trying to see if I can make up my mind as to whether taking that risk (?) is worth the savings in battery life. Or does taking it off charge for a week to nine days really make negligible difference, and I might as well unplug the charger for that period? Some of you have real insight into a topic like this; I've read the comments on a somewhat related post. Thanks for any help.

Thanks for the replies. They really help. Imagine having confidence in something while sitting in a vacuum. Doesn't happen.

Eleven years ago, I bought a Minn Kota Endura 55 C2 transom mount with a 42-inch shaft. I used it chiefly for my squareback canoe, but it was very useful when I often rented a heavy 14 or 15-foot fiberglass boat with a 9.9 gas motor that didn't push it very fast. Rather than use the gas outboard to position, I used my electric, sometimes from a standing position when the longer shaft length really came into its own. And though I recognize now, having looked online, that I need no more than 36 inches, if even that, for the 16-foot canoe (wide and stable) let alone not so much thrust, all those years using the big electric never bothered me. True, I recognize now that the odd slow sensation I felt when the shaft loosened and worked its way down so the motor head positioned at the transom, I recognize that sensation was drag and you don't want that. But I never had any problem in the shallows. If water was really shallow, I just positioned the prop high. Reaching up for the handle was a little awkward, but I wasn't always in water that shallow. I'm trying to decide if my next electric should be 36 inches as advice online tells me it should be...except for the rented boat. (And 55 pounds thrust is good for the rental, too.) Do any of you have experience with a squareback powered by an electric? What length shaft did you go with and why? Has anyone done what I did? Gone for the maximum because it gives him an extra advantage in other situations like rentals...while on the squareback you own it really seems to present no problem for you? Or maybe you once owned a 42-incher and now feel happier with 36?

I'm using a multimeter to measure the electrical resistance of my Minn Kota's armature commutator. What I apply the negative and positive pointers to look like panels on that commutator. I've been checking one and another at 180 degrees from each other, and one and another side by side. The readout values I'm getting leap from about 13 to 26 to 49 to 193. So by what reading I've done on the process of determining whether the armature is any good, I'm inclined to believe wiring is burned out. Please let me know what you think about that. The Minn Kota, while we were on the water, had at first quit working, then worked again, and finally died altogether. I found that for the first time of the 11 years of using it, I had failed to take notice of braid line wrapped very tightly around the armature shaft and against the seal. The seal does seem OK, but I guess pressure on the armature shaft have extensively burned out wiring. What do you think?