shouldnt this warm rain help the water temp?

Yeah! The water temp is skyrocketing now. Hitting 50+ in most areas.

Yesterday: It was almost 53 in the back of flat. 51 in the middle of flat. Deep into balus it was 49-50. Main channel was still 49.

There was still a lot of dead threads in Balus. I didn't notice any on top of the water in Flat, but it was raining hard while I was there and the top was obscured. The birds were feasting like there were dead fish though.

I marked a lot of fish in Flat. I even sat over a decent school for a while. Small bait, big bait, power reeling, jigs... no takers.

My iPilot remote shut down 5 minutes into the day. It was a bummer since the v2 can't use the pedal when iPilot is installed. Hopefully it was the battery. Lesson learned. Keep a spare onboard.

Battery should last longer than that. Isn't it new?

I've taken it on 3 or 4 trips. That was continuous use for about 8 hours each. That's 24-32 hours.

Any one else have feedback on how long their battery lasts?

I'm toying with the idea of dropping some wires out of the PDV2 head and putting double touch toggle somewhere so that I can switch to pedal mode if I need to.

That's a good idea. I don't know if the ST can still use the pedal or not. I've got about 16 hours on my battery so far, so I better make sure I've got some spares on board. Thx for the tip.

sorry to hijack the thread.

I thought you iPilot owners would be interested. I just bought a couple of batteries (some for the tackle box!).

Anyway, it wasn't the battery. The new battery did the same thing. It would respond and turn on every once in a while but either turn off immediately or the LCD would go half blank then turn off.

I used a blow drier on the circuit board to make sure there was no moisture and it works perfectly now, even with the old battery.

What's strange is that I had never openned it before today. It should have been water tight.

I emailed minn kota and they offered to replace the remote. They want to get a look at it to see what happened. great service.

laxcoach,

I'm with the Minn Kota factory staff and was asked to help out with a couple of i-Pilot items on this thread.

It would be possible to wire in a double pole 2-position switch in the steering wiring to do what you want if and only if your motor did not start out as an AutoPilot motor. On an AP motor, the circuitry required to drive the steering motor is located on the AP compass board (the one that gets removed during i-Pilot installation). For a non-AP motor this steering motor drive circuit is located on the motor control board. Disclaimer: If you do this modification to your motor you must ensure the switch is always in the proper position (i-Pilot or foot pedal).

Regarding your remote, it should absolutely be watertight. If you are still having issues with it or would like a replacement please let me know. I sent you a PM with my contact info.

Thank you - Minn Kota

Minn Kota, you guys just took care of me in terms of the remote.

My unit was a PDV2 without AP that got iPilot added. It would be pretty easy to wire a DPDT toggle. The problem is where to put the darn thing. If the motor were out of warranty I would find a place to drill a hole in the housing. Seems like the only thing to do is drop 6 wires past the strain relief and put it somewhere external.

It won't matter if the new remote works. Again, great service guys. Thanks.