I am looking to upgrade to a new 24 volt trolling motor on my boat. I have a Helix 12 on my bow and I know that the Minnkota motors are able to be connected to Humminbird units fairly easily. I was wondering if the new Garmin or Lowrance  trolling motors  can be hooked to other depth finding units then their namesake, with relative ease. Any thoughts on these three units both pro and con would be greatly appreciated. 

I bass mostly in lakes and spot lock is extremely important. 

Thanks

Minn Kota was the first trolling motor to have spotlock. 

the ultrex is a proven motor. I have owned two of them.

A lot depends on what you have.

stating you have a helix 12 is pretty vague. is it a g2, g3, or g4n.. does it have down imaging, side imaging, or just 2d sonar. 

if you are looking to use any imaging with the  trolling motors built in transducer  It will have to be a minn kota. 

Otherwise you will have to mount an external transducer on the other brands.

To add to that. Read up on the difference between I-Pilot and I-Pilot Link. 

Not quite that simple.  If you only want 2D sonar and buy an Ultrex with the built in 2D transducer, you can hook a Lowrance (I'm not sure about Garmin, but I think you can) to it with the appropriate cable.

 

If you want SI or DI, and have the appropriate transducer in the TM, then, to the best of my knowledge, you are limited to HB.

4 minutes ago, mcipinkie said:

Not quite that simple.  If you only want 2D sonar and buy an Ultrex with the built in 2D transducer, you can hook a Lowrance (I'm not sure about Garmin, but I think you can) to it with the appropriate cable.

 

If you want SI or DI, and have the appropriate transducer in the TM, then, to the best of my knowledge, you are limited to HB.

The 2d transducer in an ultrex is a universal transducer. It will work with multiple brands. As I stated above, if you want to use built in imaging transducers . Either down or side. It will have to be with a hummnigbird

Thanks all, The Helix is G-3 with di and side scan however, will mostly use 2d while fishing. Other then not having the transducer wire running along the shaft, it sounds like anyone of them will work. I will dig into the difference between i-pilot and i-pilot link and see what there is to offer there. Leaning toward MK since their unit has been on the water a bit longer then the others. 

If you get an Ultrex and plan on using the built in transducer for di and si, make sure you buy the motor with correct transducer. There are a few different options.

3 hours ago, BBug said:

Thanks all, The Helix is G-3 with di and side scan however, will mostly use 2d while fishing. Other then not having the transducer wire running along the shaft, it sounds like anyone of them will work. I will dig into the difference between i-pilot and i-pilot link and see what there is to offer there. Leaning toward MK since their unit has been on the water a bit longer then the others. 

You will not be disappointed. The Ultrex is a great TM.

There are so many more options if you do ipilot link and go with the MK.  Like suggested research ipilot link.  If I had to do without it I might just quit fishing.

Good information. Thanks! I did research it and it looks like i-pilot link is the way I am going to go. I will be adding an ethernet connection so that I can have my console and bow mount units all connected. 

Off topic a bit but going with i-pilot link, will all of my waypoints that I have now, use the new puck or the units as the point of reference, after they are connected together. Just curious.

 

Thanks 

if both your console unit and your bow unit are networkable (the n designation) the yes you can connect with an ethernet cable and all your waypoints etc will transfer. however for mapping you will need a different card for each unit. alsoif you fish deep structure at all the ultrex i pilot link with the humminbird is the way to go. absolutely incredible technology.

If you are linking 2 units and i-pilot link you will need the an ethernet switch when adding a third ethernet item (i-pilot link) to the network. Each item will also need its own ethernet cord to the switch. 

 

Once the i-pilot link is networked, you can choose the ultrex gps for the the helix units or use their built in gps. I would use the ultrex gps for the bow unit since it has a directional compass and is at the bow transducer for best accuracy. Your console unit would be more accurate if you had a separate gps puck near the transom transducer. If no transom gps, I would use the console's internal gps before using the ultrex gps for better accuracy. Your previous waypoints will be based on the unit you created it with. If you were using the console unit, any waypoint created with sonar data will be off by the distance from the transducer and gps device. 

 

So just for the sake of learning, If say the console unit is turned off and it was the unit that had captured the wp and everything is tied in together with ethernet will the bow unit still read the information  or should the console unit be on and  put into energy saving mode for it to still be viable? Thanks for all of the insight and information that has thus far been shared.

What a great sight!

Pretty sure whatever unit u save it on has to be on to be able to see it on the other. It doesn't save the waypoints to the linked unit just shows them as a smaller icon. So yes to see the waypoints on the bow that were saved on the console the console unit would have to be on