This project is dedicated to John Clark who lives close to Tampa Bay Flordia. Best known as John J. Clark AKA HelicopterJohn. You can “click here” to find out all about John. I met John online back in October 2015.

John was working on his linear actuator steering system for Minn Kota electric trolling motors and ended up the proud owner of his creation. “Click here” to check out John’s creation. John’s YouTube channel has many of his projects and I invite you to take a look and hopefully subscribe to his channel.

At the same time, I was also experimenting with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) brushed motor speed controllers for my Minn Kota Endura MAX trolling motor. I have the 36″ shaft and the motor is rated at 40lbs thrust. The “MAX” designation is what Minn Kota refers to for their trolling motors that have a PWM motor speed control system. I wanted external trolling motor speed/direction control because the way I have my NuCanoe 10″ Frontier fishing kayak setup, adjusting the speed of the motor was problematic. My speed control system and John’s steering system was the perfect fit. I could now steer and control my trolling motor “remotely” from anywhere in my kayak.

Towards the beginning of 2016, I started looking into different ways to control my trolling motors speed/direction, steering and motor tilt. What I soon discovered is that remote control component suppliers specific to robotics and remote controlled planes, helicopters, boats etc were a great resource both in terms of ideas and components. ServoCity and Pololu are two great suppliers and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in projects that require control functionality.