# I-pilot review update



## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

Tried out the *spot lock.* Even in 15-20 mph wind and a current off the main channel of the North Channel, it held right there. We didn't move!!!!! You can see it changing speeds and direction to keep us there.


*Record a track*. Tried it while drifting (jigging) on the North channel.Purposely started off track. It went to the track and kept right on it according to my GPS unit. Varied maybe a couple of feet according to the GPS on full zoom


I give this unit a full 10. Worth every penny and then some.


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## chamookman (Sep 1, 2003)

SWEET ! C-man


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## SMP (Oct 29, 2009)

WALLEYE MIKE said:


> Tried out the *spot lock.* Even in 15-20 mph wind and a current off the main channel of the North Channel, it held right there. We didn't move!!!!! You can see it changing speeds and direction to keep us there.
> 
> 
> *Record a track*. Tried it while drifting (jigging) on the North channel.Purposely started off track. It went to the track and kept right on it according to my GPS unit. Varied maybe a couple of feet according to the GPS on full zoom
> ...


 
Thanks for the review Mike. I do have a question, with the record a track can you vary the speed at which it moves you? Say you originally did the track at 2 mph can you rerun that track at .5 or 3 mph?


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## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

SMP said:


> Thanks for the review Mike. I do have a question, with the record a track can you vary the speed at which it moves you? Say you originally did the track at 2 mph can you rerun that track at .5 or 3 mph?


Sure can. You can use cruise control too if you want.


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## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

Used cruise control today. Even with a 15 mph cross wind. I stayed in a straight troll with the predetermined speed and auto pilot. No hands trolling and speed stayed at a constant 2.5 mph.

Also tried spot lock in the middle of the SCR. Held us as if we were anchored against all thet current.

Everyone I have had in the boat gives this unit a 15 on a scale of 1-10 on preformance.


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## sfw1960 (Apr 7, 2002)

Nice !:fish2:
Glad to see you are truly pleased with a FINE pc. of great equipment from J.O.I. !

I told you this thing is *SPECIAL*.


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## 1ManWolfPak (Dec 19, 2009)

Thanks for the review. That record a track is going to be great. Hoping to have mine by the end of the month.


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

I love my I-pilot. Now an idea I havent tried, but will Saturday.
Jigging the rivers.
1) get the boat slipping with the current at the speed you want.
2) turn the motor around 180 degrees so it is facing downstream, engage the cruise control and advanced autopilot.

From everything I have seen using it in the lake, it should be smart enough to turn itself back around 180 degrees ot whatever is needed to keep your course and speed as set, irregardless of current or wind.


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## scubajay (Jun 9, 2003)

I too am very pleased with my I-Pilot. I sent an email back in early April to Minn Kota explaining to them how pleased I was with their product and responded by saying that they have received dozens of emails with similar sentiment. They even sent me a Minn Kota hat.

I have used all functions and they have all performed perfectly. 

One idiosyncrasy that I have noticed while trolling downstream in the SCR this spring for coho was that if you have to navigate off of a recorded track because of an obstruction in your path (something like a freighter parked at the power plant or another boat fishing etc.), that when it comes time to start following the recorded track again after I have passed the obstruction and I press the track to button if the nearest waypoint is behind me that the motor will try to do an about face and go upstream. In this instance I just stop the track function and wait for about 30 seconds and once again press the track to button. You have no way of knowing where the waypoints are but the 30 second wait usually puts me closer to a downstream waypoint and the motor tracks to that point and all is well.


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## wall-ib-jiggin (May 31, 2009)

I (WAS) very pleased with mine till last weekend...Fishing a tourney. Trolling along a break working good landed a fish went to run back through pass and it wigged out ...... Wide open speed turned 90 deg. to the left and spun my boat around in 3 circles. Finally got to the bow to unplug it to shut it down by then I knitted a nice sweater out of power pro around my boat with the six lines out... Hour and a half later after un-knotting everything I was back fishing on the gas kicker..It still dosent work.. It wound the cord around the bow light and broke it along with the gear that turns the mtr. Hope LBM can get it going by the next tourney obviously not fishing this one out of linwood.. Dont know if it lost gps signal or what. Everthing is pluged in still but really ticks ya off after spending that much on it!! Makes you gun shy on the new one. For the guy that cant decide weather to go with a gas kicker or a bow mt. electric, hands down better boat control with the bow mt. I was lost with out it .


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## sfw1960 (Apr 7, 2002)

Bummer!!
Did you try changing batteries??
Sorry for your misfortune - that stinks!


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## theeyes (Mar 20, 2004)

Anyone know how long the batteries last in the remote?


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## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

theeyes said:


> Anyone know how long the batteries last in the remote?


Haven't changed mine yet. Mine gets used everytime out.


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## Steve (Jan 15, 2000)

Mike you might want to post that review in our product reviews section.


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## Ranger Ray (Mar 2, 2003)

wall-ib-jiggin said:


> I (WAS) very pleased with mine till last weekend...Fishing a tourney. Trolling along a break working good landed a fish went to run back through pass and it wigged out ...... Wide open speed turned 90 deg. to the left and spun my boat around in 3 circles. Finally got to the bow to unplug it to shut it down by then I knitted a nice sweater out of power pro around my boat with the six lines out... Hour and a half later after un-knotting everything I was back fishing on the gas kicker..It still dosent work.. It wound the cord around the bow light and broke it along with the gear that turns the mtr. Hope LBM can get it going by the next tourney obviously not fishing this one out of linwood.. Dont know if it lost gps signal or what. Everthing is pluged in still but really ticks ya off after spending that much on it!! Makes you gun shy on the new one. For the guy that cant decide weather to go with a gas kicker or a bow mt. electric, hands down better boat control with the bow mt. I was lost with out it .


I have had two previous auto pilot models do the exact same thing. They are great when they work but make a mess when they go bad. Both times I was also in a tourney, go figure. :lol:


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## sfw1960 (Apr 7, 2002)

My friend Lee (brigeton here) had his over-steer on him a few times , changed the remote battery & it's all good.


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## Lucky Dog (Jul 4, 2004)

I've been using mine all summer. I'm no quite as giddy about it as most seem to be. 
I like the overall unit a lot. But maybe only a little better than the std. Terrova. 

Spot lock: probably the best feature on the unit. Not quite as good as advertised, but still very good. It will usually hold me with in a 10-15' circle.

Track record: Seems to work fine, it is just a feature that I don't use.

Speed control: This needs a lot of work. The speed and direction need to be tied together. If I'm moving north at .5 mph, and get wacked by a 30 mph gust that starts pushing me backwards, the speed control see's it as still going .5 or faster but does not adjust. Even though I'm now going south. It is also too slow to react in my opinion. Same situation as above, but say the wind just stops you, mine will take up to a minute to get back on the "throttle" to get back to .5. Then will over shoot, by .5 and take up to another minute to throttle back down.
I have learned that in gusty conditions, speed control does not work for me and I need to go back to the manual peddle mode.

Auto pilot: To me the "Advanced AP" just plain sucks. I NEVER use it.
What it does is lay's down a series of points, then connects the dots. Well it sounds good, until you get "close" and it realizes it is going to miss it's point, then it abruptly changes direction, and I mean abruptly. One time almost throwing me off the bow of the boat.
The basic mode works fine for me, it is the same technology that the old terrova used. It seems to hold it's course fine and works well.

Over all I'd give it a 7.5. 

All that said, it is still the best thing out there.


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## sfw1960 (Apr 7, 2002)

I'd call Minn Kota if I were you!
I DO use the Advanced Auto Pilot all the time IN conjunction with the Cruise Control and mine works great.
The Spot Lock is supposed to hold you in a 5' radius which is a 10 foot circle. Mine does just fine at this.
I have not tried mine in a 30 MPH wind , but it did fine in 20's when I have had it in windy conditions....
I know all of the GPS guided features are dependent on a good , strong GPS signal for the best accuracy , but it just plain sounds like yours isn't working as it should.
G'Luck.
:fish2:


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## Lucky Dog (Jul 4, 2004)

sfw1960 said:


> I'd call Minn Kota if I were you!
> I DO use the Advanced Auto Pilot all the time IN conjunction with the Cruise Control and mine works great.
> The Spot Lock is supposed to hold you in a 5' radius which is a 10 foot circle. Mine does just fine at this.
> I have not tried mine in a 30 MPH wind , but it did fine in 20's when I have had it in windy conditions....
> ...



Talked to Minn Kota a few times, the unit works just as it is supposed to. I think you and I use it for different purposes. And it just does not work as well as I think it could for what I want. The advanced auto pilot goes from point to point that it lays down in a trail when you set it. It does a very good job of it also. But give it a little sied wind, and it starts to go off track, but will correct its self and still make it to the next point. This creates a bit of a zig zag pattern that just does not mesh well with the methods that I some times use.

The spot lock works as good as it can. plus or minus 5' is not possible with today's consumer GPS technology. I called BS to the Minn Kota folks on this and they had no argument. My Lowrance HD cant even give me 10' accuracy. I'm good with what it gives me. 

Te response of the speed control is way too slow. I have also talked to them about changing this. 

My suggestion to them was to build in a dual mode system, one for typical bow mount / fishing off the front, and one for trolling. 

Last week I was in South Dakota fishing, pulling bottom bouncers, I was in auto pilot/ spped control mode when a big gust hit me and pushed me over 50' off my line. The I pilot never did react, I had to put it in manual mode, and self correct. The Auto pilot was stearing in the correct direction, but the speed control never corrected because I was going the speed I had set. Just the wrong direction. The auto pilot and speed control need to communicate and work together.

Heck compared to my old maxim, this thing is a gift from god. It just needs some tuning.


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## sfw1960 (Apr 7, 2002)

Well , I don't know how the wind I get blown around by is different than the wind you get blown by.
:lol:
I wish WALLEYE MIKE or ESOX would chime in here and post their results , I can honestly say I haven't had the issues you say you have.
At least you like it...


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## WALLEYE MIKE (Jan 7, 2001)

allskater08 said:


> Haven't really been around the site for a while but here is my review of the I-pilot. I have a 101lb thrust 36 volt unit with a 60" shaft and have only used it for open water trolling so far. I actually don't even run my kicker motor. I use it for propulsion and steering and even on a calm day I can get a full 8 hours in on a somewhat high power setting. I have heard a lot of complaints about the advanced autopilot feature when trolling planer boards. Well the solution is simple....take it off. Just use the old auto pilot setting and you are golden. I do like my trolling motor however it hasn't been "trouble free" When it was about a week old after operating flawlessly for a week it decided to start going crazy. It would just randomly start spinning in cirlces, which isn't good when trolling boards. The end result was a bad remote that was quickly Taken care of by Capt. Dan at Lochmans in Detroit. Other than that I haven't had any issues with it and I am happy with it.


I also use the "old" auto pilot when trolling, not the advanced auto pilot.


How do you like your new boat?


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## allskater08 (Mar 27, 2004)

Mike I wasn't talking about anybody in particular. I was just referring to some posts I've seen on other sites mostly. The new boat is awesome. The Ranger talk definitely isn't hype that's for sure. I've had it in some pretty rough water so far and it has handled awesome. The ride is way better than my previous boat. I certainly don't mind that it's faster too lol. Still am having a fun time adjusting to my new boat payment though. The payment is really putting a damper on my "social life" but it's a small price to pay I guess. Plus the fishing is only going to get better and better from here until ice up so shes gonna get some hours put on her for sure. In 2 months so far I have almost 30 hours on the big motor already and haven't even been out that much lol. I'm kinda scared to see what that thing reads at the end of next season.


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