Cannon mag 10 STX stopped working

[RodBuster]

I see one that is highly suspect...!!!!!   And i just love the attempt at waterproofing the board with some half assed silicone.......

[RodBuster]

There is no harm in taking a jumper (Piece of wire with two alligator clips) and shorting out the resistor. If it runs then you have an open circuit in the resistor. 

[RodBuster]

BTW that slam was aimed at Cannon, as that is the factory silicone job.    I've said it before, if you look at the coating on a PENN electric downrigger board you will see what potting is supposed to be like.   OK, I need to let it go!

[signalman]

Broke off i put two new battery,s in the spring and ran all year with no problem with the rigger,s cooking board,s.I run 4 rigger,s also i think that may be the key to keeping them going.

[lrg355]

That board shown definitely has cold solder joints. Obviously no inspection on that board.

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[Tesoro]

I posted the pic of the board with bad soldering. I have another one where one of the pins is smoked/burned. I just ordered a bag of relays - 20 order minimum and a better solder gun/solder sucker. I already have wick. Will do my best to replace the relays. I dont want to bypass and cancel out the short stop. I can see accidents happening. 

 

I also borrowed a scotty and took their autostop off to see if I could adapt it to work on my scottys. I think I could get it done but the turn switch/button would be in a bit of an awkward position. 

[Tesoro]

I decided to repair a couple of the bad boards I have with burned out 'up' relays. Those are the ones to the outside of the board. The inner one is the down.

Ordered a $20 soldering kit and worked well. The trick is to solder a blob on the pins and then heat up the blob and use the solder sucker as it will heat the original solder to melting as it dosent melt easy. And then can use a piece of wick to pick up any scraps. the relays wont fall out and have to use a box cutter blade to pry relay and then heat the pins to loosen the last bits of solder. patience, pita and took about 1/2 hr per board but got all 4 relays out with no damage. installing the new ones will be a 5 min job when they arrive..  just a fyi incase.

 

I took the relays apart and the contacts were a bit fried looking. assume this is the prob. 

 

I bought 3 boards from cannon last summer and it looks like the relays were repaired as the solder job was real amateur. 

 

I think my relays burned from 18lb balls and not sufficient amperage due to wiring. all that is fixed now.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Tesoro

[lrg355]

Nice work.


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[muskiedreams]

Tesaro, You are definitely on the right path and congrats on removing the relays without damaging the boards.

 

It is very tricky to remove larger components soldered onto a double sided board. If you heat up the board for too long of a period of time and/or apply too much heat to the board, the traces will de-bond from the board (including the plate through which is a copper sleeve inside the hole that connects through the board). It really takes practiced skill and proper tools to be successful without damaging the board. A soldering iron that is too small or too hot won't work or will damage the board. The soldering iron tip must be in good shape and well tinned with a little extra solder on it. You want to melt and remove the solder quick. Quality solder wick works best but sometimes a quality solder sucker helps. Sometimes it helps to add a little extra fresh solder to the connection first. One useful trick after removing the bulk of the solder is to put the tinned tip of the soldering iron (with a small amount of solder on it to conduct the heat) on the relay (or other component) lead and push with pressure to the side to break any solder loose from inside the through hole. You have to do this without touching the tip of the soldering iron to the board. As soon as the lead moves, it breaks the solder loose and you must immediately remove the soldering iron tip. This keeps the solder from reattaching inside the hole. You may also have to do it in the opposite direction.

 

As far as what may be causing you to fry boards, there are several possible causes.

 

1) Poor connections anywhere between the battery and the motor such as: connectors, fuse holders, battery switches and other connections or connectors outside or inside the downrigger. We are talking about a fairly high current device and a bad connection is like putting a resistor in series with the motor. It causes a drop in voltage at the motor and that causes the motor to demand more current. When the motor draws more current, it will cause a bigger spark between the contacts of the relay. This will shorten the life of the relay.

 

2) Too much drag or strain on the motor. This can be caused by drag in the gears, pulleys etc. or using downrigger weights higher than what the unit is rated for. I think I have heard that the older Cannons are rated lower than the newer ones and other downrigger brands may be able to handle, I have to say it, bigger balls. The heavier the weight, the bigger the relay spark, the shorter the life of the relay.

 

3) Old or weak batteries. If the battery is weak or has a low charge and the voltage supplied to the downrigger is low, the motor will draw higher current, thus causing a bigger spark in the relay and shortening relay life, possibly popping fuses and possibly shortening the motor life.

 

4) Inadequate wire gauge between battery and downrigger. All wire has resistance. If the wire is too skinny or too long, there will be a reduction of voltage at the downrigger. There are guidelines for wire gauge vs length and device current rating, same as for bow mount trolling motors. The shorter the wire the better.

 

5) Extreme usage. Basically the more up and down cycles, or switch clicks, the sooner the relays will fail.

 

Lastly: Use rated fuses inline with each rigger. If they are popping, something is wrong which is causing too much current draw. Replacing with a larger fuse may work in a pinch but correcting the cause of drawing too much current is the proper solution.

 

 

[UNREEL]

Sorry couldn’t resist. I just glanced thru this 3 yr old thread and came to a conclusion.   

 

Edited February 24, 2021 by UNREEL

[Tesoro]

I think my problem was I ran a 10 ga wire to a terminal block for some pumps and then connected rigger to the block. I think I prob lost some conduction in the terminals and that, combined with some corrosion on my female cannon plug, caused issues with a heavy ball. I have since ran a dedicated 12ga wire from battery to the plug.

 

I have bought new cannons and will be selling my mag10ts's once I have them back in shape. if I were to keep them I would look at finding a heavier duty relay that would fit or modifying the board to make them fit. However I am sure that they would work fine stock with good power supply. when I get my new mag5 the first thing I will do is take a board out and see whats up with it. I bet the relays are much larger.

 

I have had both canon and scotty and I will take the cannons any day for many reasons.  we need to treat our computer conrtolled cannons like we do our plotters and make sure they get good power.

[muskiedreams]

I ran two Mag 10s for several years in the late 90s with 10 lb balls. light use recreational. Had very short fused cables. Each one directly to it's own deep cycle battery. The DC batteries were also used for 24v bow mount. Bought them used from a charter guy for $500 and sold them for same price after about 5 yrs. Never had a problem except for ripped switch boot. I think they have more problems with big balls, especially when power is compromised.

 

These days they should be using solid state relays. But I think there would be about a 0.7v voltage drop so the motor needs to be ok with that. But if a SS relay goes bad,  it will cost more, maybe $25.

[Tesoro]

I recd my relays yesterday and anxiously soldered them in (correctly using paste). GONG.  still dont work!!  the up relay makes the same click sound but no power to motor! I have a good board which I put in to check that motor works in both polarities. So after all that back to square one. I examined the board with a loupe and see no visible damage/burn spots. So I give up and have ordered a couple of the new boards that have wire mods for the pre 2010 version. 

If I were to keep the riggers I would modify them to use the scotty auto stop and get rid of the board. with some mods the autostop could be mounted in the ball hanger threaded hole.  

[muskiedreams]

If the relay is clicking there must be a break in the circuit somewhere or the motor could be defective. test the motor by bypassing the power directly to the board.

 

From the board pictures above, it looks like the main traces on the board that are used for the power to and from the relay contacts are on the component side of the board, for which the connections are under the body of the relay. There is a plating inside the hole through the board that makes contact from the bottom to the top of the board. The process of de-soldering and removing the old relay can damage that connection through the hole. That is why I talked about ( in above post) using the soldering iron to heat up the relay post, and break it free of any solder that will be left inside the hole between the post and the inside of the hole. The copper plating can break and cause there to no longer be a connection between the two sides of the board, so when the new relay is soldered on the bottom, the solder will not make a connection between the relay pin and the top of the board.

 

You can check for that by using an ohm meter to measure for zero ohms between the top and bottom traces on the board. Disconnect power first. You may have to scrape paint off somewhere on the top trace to make contact with the meter probe. Check this for all of the relay pins. If you don't have zero ohms on any of them, you will have to solder in a piece of insulated wire to jump between the top and bottom of the board to repair the damage. The wire must be of sufficient gauge to carry the motor current. You may have to first scrape the paint off a spot to solder the wire to. Tin that spot and the end of the wire with solder before soldering the wire to the trace. Be careful to not damage the board or allow solder to bridge to another connection.

 

Sorry if I provided too much detail. Hope this helps. From what you have described, those "hole plate-throughs" are most likely where the problem lies.

 

Also, it looks like those two relays may be operating in conjunction to reverse power for up and down. If so, the problem could be related to either one or both relays.

[Cody191]

I would like to thank you all for all this information. I had been preparing to buy a couple new mag 10’s this year. Between this thread and a couple others you presaged me some headaches. Just placed order for 2 magnum metalz


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[Tesoro]

4 hours ago, Cody191 said:

I would like to thank you all for all this information. I had been preparing to buy a couple new mag 10’s this year. Between this thread and a couple others you presaged me some headaches. Just placed order for 2 magnum metalz


Dont get scared away from cannons! there are always 'a' models in all brands and atleast the ones I posted about and some others had weak controller boards. They have since been re-designed. The diff between cannon and other small companies is cannon will still be in biz after the next recession. ( coming to a theater near you soon)

 

 

 

[Tesoro]

6 hours ago, muskiedreams said:

6 hours ago, muskiedreams said:

If the relay is clicking there must be a break in the circuit somewhere or the motor could be defective. test the motor by bypassing the power directly to the board.

 

From the board pictures above, it looks like the main traces on the board that are used for the power to and from the relay contacts are on the component side of the board, for which the connections are under the body of the relay. There is a plating inside the hole through the board that makes contact from the bottom to the top of the board. The process of de-soldering and removing the old relay can damage that connection through the hole. That is why I talked about ( in above post) using the soldering iron to heat up the relay post, and break it free of any solder that will be left inside the hole between the post and the inside of the hole. The copper plating can break and cause there to no longer be a connection between the two sides of the board, so when the new relay is soldered on the bottom, the solder will not make a connection between the relay pin and the top of the board.

 

You can check for that by using an ohm meter to measure for zero ohms between the top and bottom traces on the board. Disconnect power first. You may have to scrape paint off somewhere on the top trace to make contact with the meter probe. Check this for all of the relay pins. If you don't have zero ohms on any of them, you will have to solder in a piece of insulated wire to jump between the top and bottom of the board to repair the damage. The wire must be of sufficient gauge to carry the motor current. You may have to first scrape the paint off a spot to solder the wire to. Tin that spot and the end of the wire with solder before soldering the wire to the trace. Be careful to not damage the board or allow solder to bridge to another connection.

 

Sorry if I provided too much detail. Hope this helps. From what you have described, those "hole plate-throughs" are most likely where the problem lies.

 

Also, it looks like those two relays may be operating in conjunction to reverse power for up and down. If so, the problem could be related to either one or both relays.

 

 

 

thx for the advice but I give up! I must have damaged in the inner core or who knows what but to r/r the relays for a second time is not wise. I am just getting the new version boards that have been re-wired for plug n play with the old mag10's. should have done that from the start but wanted to try for the fun of it.