x510C losing bottom/depth reading

[mrjigger]

I just purchased a lowrance x510C. I have read many posts regarding lowrance units losing bottom/depth reading in shallow water. But never heard anything bad about the 510C.

This past weekend, I was in about 8ft of water, the bottom must have been pretty soft because the sonar could barely pick up the bottom. I tried increasing the sensitivity and that did seem to help, but did not completely solve the problem. Many times the depth reading would just blink for a few seconds and then eventually start reading again. Everything seemed to work great on hard bottoms, with no weeds.

I hooked the transducer to my 20C, which I primarily use for GPS, and my 20C would read the depth just fine. Since the bottom was soft, it still had a hard time picking up the bottom, but at least it worked.

anyone else have this problem with the 510C? How do I fix it?

[Casey Sunsdahl]

I dont know if this will fix it.. but it has worked on very similar problems on many different models...

go into the sonar menu where it allows you to select SHALLOW WATER mode.. put it in that mode and see how it works..

Don't let the shallow water thing scare you.. i think it will work fine to 100+ ft.

Has fixed many of problems on newer lowrance sonars that I've played with.

You can also try and update the software then do the same thing again if it doesnt work....

[JeffB]

Thanks for the post and possible solution. I've been having this problem as well.

[Casey Sunsdahl]

I hope it works out... it's an easy fix when it works!!

[mrjigger]

yes, thank you very much for the help.

I will give that a shot.

[gofishingtom]

where do u find shallow water mode in the menu?

[mrjigger]

not sure, but I looked at pretty much every menu on the 510C and I don't see anywhere that you can switch to shallow water mode.

I know it can be done on other models, but it does not appear that the 510C has that capability.

Maybe updating the software would give us that capability?

Does anyone know if updating the software would give us the shallow water mode?

thanks.

[gofishingtom]

the only way to upgrade a 510c would be to send it in and let them upgrade it...because the 510c doesnt have a place to put the upgrade chip...i have a 27 and have yet to find a spot for shallow water mode on it either..i was just curious to where this area might be in the graphs..i know the new Hd models have it built in for that mode..

[walleyeseeker]

I believe the shallow water mode is in the sonar setup catagory.

[mrjigger]

thanks for all the help everyone, but I checked again, and unless I am missing something, the 510c does not have a sonar setup category or shallow water mode.

I am going to try mine one more time on the water, if it does not work, its going back. Sucks, because I really like the sonar picture in deeper water, but I just won't put up with [PoorWordUsage] that won't work properly when I paid for it with my hard earned money. I mean it won't work in 10ft or less. I don't know about you, but I fish those depths alot.

I really like the looks of the Lowrance HDS units, but just am very hesistant to pull the trigger because of these same types of issues.

[Surface Tension]

With any sounder running depth and gain range in auto can produce hiccups. So will manually setting gain but leaving depth range in auto. Your asking a piece of software to do something that you can do better.

I tend to start out with both in manual. I might leave it there all day long but for sure I'll keep the gain in manual and adjust it. Sounders are not a set it and forget it deal. Depth, bottom content, and suspended particles will dictate gain settings. If I know my ducer is installed correctly and I can't read bottom its a simple matter or either turning up the gain or set the depth range deeper. The brain can do that every time. I piece of software can do that most of the time. Do it manually, it doesn't matter which you try first, gain or depth, eventually you'll figure it out. Software on the other hand can get confused, now throw in interference reduction and what might be soft bottom the sounder dismisses as clutter and continues searching for bottom.

[mrjigger]

Thanks Surface Tension.

Actually last night I did some reading on the support pages of the lowrance HSOforum. Much of what you explained was also stated on the lowrance HSOforum. Lowrance also stated to set your depth settings in shallow water to 0 to 20ft.

Next time on the water, I will try these setting in manual mode and report back.

The thing is though, I have had several lowrance graphs in the past, and never had this problem with losing bottom, and I have never had to manually adjust these settings to make it read. So why the problem now?

I will give the manual settings a shot though, because I really like the sonar output when it works correctly.

thanks.

[cmalis27]

I just bought a 510C this spring and for whatever it's worth, I'm very happy with it so far. I had the boat out on Saturday for a hours and never lost bottom. I had the sensitivity in manual mode and I believe the depth was in auto. The only thing I noticed was that going from deep to shallow water, I would need to turn the sensitivity down or the screen would be extreemely cluttered. As far as I know, this is normal, and along the same lines as what Surface Tension was saying.

Just my 2 cents.