HUMMINBIRD ICE 55 FLASER, ANYONE GOT THE GOODS AND BADS ?

[OnAFly]

FL18 come with 9AH batteries too, I think most of them do.

[CJH]

My Ice 55 came with a 9ah battery and the battery life has been fantastic.

The gain goes up to fifty, so to say that you have to turn it up to 7 or 8 is a bad thing is totally bunk. ( That's equivalent to a 1 or 2 on a 10 point scale)

More garbage feedback.

[Maverick]

I bought my HB ICE55 last January and used it quite a bit and loved it. It did everything it was suppose to and I really like the big screen and digital depth read out.

So, this year I take it up for some early ice fishing in Ottertail County. It worked just fine for the first 2 or three hours of fishing, then it went crazy. Lights were flashing all around the screen, then they would all go off, but the wheel would keep spinning. When I would try to turn the unit off, the wheel kept spinning until I disconnected the power. All of this happened intermintently for the next hour. The next day after charging it completely I tried it in the cabin. Looked like it was going to work, but as soon as I got on the ice the demons took over again.

It is beeing shipped back to HB in Alabama by my retailer and I should get word on what they are going to do in the next week or so. I am worried that it won't act the same when they get it and then the fight will be on.

Reading numerous blogs, it appears that another guy and I may be the only one's that have had this problem. It will be interesting to see if more people have a problem now that the season is in full swing.

I hope they can fix it or replace it because I really liked the features. I ended up using my FL8 and almost went blind looking at that tiny screen.

[Feathers Rainin]

I'm thinking of getting a bird after X-mas. Does anyone have any good reason to drop the extra hundred to get a 55 over a 45? I know they have more colors and a few more features but they don't seem worth the extra $ you fork out.

Thanks guys.

[Borch]

The 55 comes with the soft pack. I believe that the 35 and 45 do not. Soft pack will run you $50, plus the extra features on the 55.

[blongtin]

I think you can get the soft case for free under rebate if purchased before Dec 31st. Just have to send the info required in and pay shipping.

[chberry]

mav1951 - I had the same issue last year, when I called into Hummingbird, they overnighted a new unit to me, and had me send the defective unit back once I had received the new unit. They seemed to know what exactly the problem was when I described it. I called around 1 pm on a Wed, and by 5 pm Thursday, the replacement was in my hands along with some goodies!

[chberry]

by the way, love my 55...have fished with a fl-8 for years, upgrade last year after looking at the fl18/20, as well as the lx-5. hands down, the 55 IMO is the best product out there.

[Borch]

I think you can get the soft case for free under rebate if purchased before Dec 31st. Just have to send the info required in and pay shipping.

Good to know. Same deal as last year and a heck of a value!

[fishersofmen]

Wow after reading all these posts I am thinking about getting a Hummingbird. Someone stole my vex fl-8 out if my garage so I figure I may as well upgrade. Really thought about getting a Marcum but I really like the flat screen on the fl-20 and the Hummingbirds. Thing is I don't want to pay for the fl-20. I can get a Bird 45 for less than $400 and still get the flat screen and the zoom features.......

[bigbad401]

Good choice, as the Bird has more features than the Vex and for less money

[two cups]

I also bought my HG55 last January, it worked really good last year and sat,sun of this week. Then on monday after about three hours it started doing what you said. I called HB yesterday and they asked me what was the charge of my battery. I did not know but I tried a different battery and it did not help, but do not know the charge of that battery either. They told me to charge the battery fully and try it, check the charge by the gauge on the HB, they need 10.? volts to operate. I am planning to fishing this afternoon for a couple of hours, we will see if it is tha battery charge. I hope it is because I would have a hard time going back to a different screen or trust the HB. It is not fun for me to fish without a depth finder. Hope you get yours back and it works good, please let me know what thay say. Rick

[Feathers Rainin]

I ordered an ice 55 last night, found them for $399.00 on sale. Seems like a steal to me. Hopefully all goes well and I don't have this problem.

Fishersofmen where did you find that deal? I've found em for 439 at the cheapest. I might have to pull the trigger if I can find one for that.

[BK19]

is that this years model or last years this years the gain goes up to 50 last years was 25

[fishersofmen]

This years model......I checked when I ordered.

[jon1719]

You will Never recieve Any interference from a vex or marcum because the Humminbird runs off a completely different frequency. They will only interfere with other birds. One thing i didnt see with the Humminbird is target ID... The lx-5 has target id down to 3/4 of an inch. And the FL-20 with even better down to 1/2 inch. But what about the bird? Does it even have target ID?

[bigbad401]

Actually the Marcum say "target separation" and the Vex is "target ID". Is there a difference between the two?

[MaskedMallard]

The bad thing about the Bird, is everyone wants to see the new toy. I've got a new Bird 55 & love it. The six color display is awesome. I love the information being displayed.

Dislikes, are (maybe I need to read the directions again) the way the ZOOM is set up. It allows you to target 10 foot incroments. I'd be nice if I could switch it to a 5 foot. Also, when using the ZOOM, I can't exactly target the depths I want to. For example, if I'm fishing 5 feet off the bottom, & I target the bottom 10 feet, I might be forced to go 2 feet into the bottom of the lake bed & loose the upper 2 feet of the column of the water. So basically I'm only getting to target 8 feet. If I adjust the ZOOM it raises it three feet, so now I get to target a specific 10 foot water column, but I loose the bottom foot in ZOOM feature.

Overall, I love the unit. Currently the Big Outdoors retail store that starts with "C" has a tiered coupon system. Spend "X" amount of money & get "X" amount off. I believe the unit cost me $499.99, found something else that was a dollar or something & got a $100.00 off. So, that basically put the HumminBird Ice 55 at $399.99

Good Luck on your choice.

[jon1719]

No they mean the same thing.

[wildmanp]

wait until you fish deeper water.

[bigbad401]

wait until you fish deeper water.

What do you mean?

[Cecil]

No, you don't need the other cord at all. They need to put the other cord on there so they are not infringing on Vexilar patent.

[BIG DS]

Quote:

No, you don't need the other cord at all. They need to put the other cord on there so they are not infringing on Vexilar patent

Very good point. If anyone has the float rigged the way the instructions say and are haveing problems seeing their jigs, need to re-rig the floats "Vexilar" style and that should solve the problem.

[Maverick]

Just thought I would post an update to my problems with the ICE55. Humminbird replaced the head, power cord and transducer under warranty. They figure the problems had to be with one of those components. I am taking it out on New Year's Day, so hopefully I won't have any problems with the new one. I am very impressed with Humminbirds support. I got it back in 7 working days, not bad.

[Down2Earth]

With all this talk and the cheap price i was thinking of adding a 55 to my arsenal so I looked up some reviews. Granted this review I found is on the 2008 model but if those of you who own one could read it and especially give your reviews on the negative things I would appreciate it before I pull the trigger on one of these.

Humminbird Ice 55 Review

Before I get on with my review of the ICE 55 flasher I'd like to point out that I'll not try and hide the fact that I'm a big MarCum fan. In my opinion MarCum has done a lot to advance the flasher market over the past 10 years to the benefit of all ice anglers that spend time out on the ice hovered over their flasher unit of choice. And that's how I view the introduction of the ICE 55 from Humminbird. This is just one more player in the market that will bring new ideas and technologies to the market place and in the end the competition will continue to push each of the major manufacturers forward seeking fresh technology and improved performance.

As I walked out onto the ice at the MarCum High Power Challenge event held on White Bear Lake on Saturday, December 20 I was actually quite excited to have the opportunity to put flashers from different manufacturers side by side in ice holes separated by a couple of feet and finally get to see the strengths and weaknesses of each respective unit. It is one thing to listen to the double talk on the chat forums about what a unit can and cannot do. It is a whole different experience to set aside 30 minutes or an hour of your time and compare the units with a critical eye where it counts... out on the ice in a real world situation.

This review will focus on the strengths and weakness of the ICE 55 from Humminbird as it is a new unit for 2008 and little is know about the unit's capabilities.

I did not take the time to see if an ICE 35 or 45 was available at this event as I wanted to test the "top dog" in the Humminbird lineup to get a feel for the best their product line had to offer. If I get a chance to hit another one of these events I'll be sure to seek out some ice time with their other units.

Ice 55 Soft Pack

A top of the line flasher unit should come in a soft pack standard from the factory. If I'm going to drop $500 on a flasher I want it to stay safe and protected while in transit from one fishing spot to the next. The ICE 55 comes in a black and grey soft pack that appeared to be well made and without any noticeable flaws in the stitching. The soft pack material felt durable. I did not care for the way the soft pack opened or closed. Instead of velcro a pair of zippers, one on each side of the opening flap, is used to open and close the face cover. Getting a grip on the little zipper tabs with gloved hands was a difficult task and I feel the opening cover to the unit would be best secured with velcro. In watching the way others opened the case it was apparent to me that the zippers on the cover will take a beating over time as everyone I watched as they opened the cover simply reached to the bottom of the flap and yanked the cover upwards forcing the zippers to retreat backwards under force. If you have the discipline to take off your gloves and work the zippers by hand this arrangement will not be an issue. If you fish like the masses you'll be a "grip and rip" guy and those zippers won't be long for this world.

Initial Impressions

My initial impressions of the unit's look and layout was fairly positive. The flat panel face of the unit was easy to read (conditions were overcast with visibilities of about 1/4 mile due to blowing snow) so it was impossible to determine on this day how well this unit would do in bright sunlight. Control knobs were large and easy to manipulate with gloved hands. The unit I was using was fairly quiet and the standard color readout of red, yellow, green appeared to be on par with other units reagrding brightness. The ICE 55 did not have the crisp bright colors and color separation you see on a MarCum unit but I would give the ICE 55 decent marks in this area.

I did not like the way the unit sat on its mount and the overall size and height. This is a big, tall unit. Obviously if you design a unit around a larger flat screen display the unit is going to be bigger than other flashers offering a smaller display area. That's not my beef here. What I didn't like was how high the unit sat on the mount... the head unit needs to be lowered considerably and there appears to be room to do so by moving the head unit forward and down in front of the battery. I could see no reason why the ICE 55 couldn't be tweaked slightly to reduce the overall height of this unit substantially. The mount and plastic shuttle on which the unit is mounted seemed up to the task.

Getting Set Up

Here's where I started having serious issues with the unit. The knobs for adjustment on the face of the unit are large enough to be easily adjusted. However it would be nice if they were actually attached in a manner that would keep them attached securely. The "on/off" knob on the ICE 55 that I demoed pulled off under a light amount of pressure. Upon inspection I found that the plastic knob used friction alone to hold the knob in place. In comparison the MarCum units I'm familiar with use a metal allen head screw to "pin" the adjustment knobs in place securely. In fairness I was able to push the knob back in place and get back in action and the knob only came off one other time during the course of the event. However, this lack of attention to detail is going to bite someone out there and you'll find that guy adjusting his Ice 55 with a pliers for the remainder of his trip until a replacement can be secured.

The function buttons are fairly large but the labels next to the respective buttons are silk screened or printed on the face of the unit in a "dirty" white that is very hard to read when fishing out on the ice in blowing snow. I'm sure this can be addressed in the future as the product is refined. I would highly suggest bolder print or decals using contrasting colors to indicate the function of each control.

The ICE 55, and likely all other ICE series units, use a system to adjust settings where a user pushes the button for the desired control and then the user makes the adjustment using the large adjustment knob at the top of the head unit. It sounds workable, right? Here's why it drove me nuts!

For example, the active function is set for "gain" but I want to adjust the noise filter. I press the "noise" button and I adjust the amount of noise suppression using the control knob. So far, so good. The issue is that after a few second the active function is re-set to the default function, which was gain. Now when you go back to further tweak your noise settings you're now adjusting your gain. To correct the issue you need to re-adjust your gain, re-select your "noise" function and then make the needed adjustments within the allowed time before things reset back to the default function control. Are you kidding me?! Is there a way to turn that off? If there is that "reset to default control" should be set to "off" at the factory. Why wouldn't the selected function stay selected until it is changed by the user? If I'm working on tweaking the noise settings I'll tell the flasher when I'm done doing so. Every person I watched use the ICE 55 struggled with the way the controls functioned.

#12 Gill Pill in 24 foot of Water

To begin the actual performance comparison I headed for deeper water. I wanted to test the sensitivity and target separation in a scenario that is common to the way I fish. For me "common" would be 20+ foot of water and small jigs for crappies and bluegills. The jig I picked was a #12 gill pill from Custom Jigs and Spins (one of my favorites of late )and that jig would be used on the same rod and line in all tests going forward.

The test was started with the Humminbird ICE 55 in the wide beam transducer setting. Gain was turned up enough to return a bottom reading. That reading, if memory serves, was under 5 out of the possible 25 gain settings on the ICE 55. Once the bottom was established I slowly began to lower the jig. After the jig had been lowered approximately 7 - 8 feet below the ice the jig was given time to come in under the cone. After a wait of sufficient time with no mark for the jig showing on the ICE 55 display it was apparent that more gain would be needed.

The gain was turned up slowly with the jig held motionless. The jig did not appear as a steady return on the ICE 55 until the gain had been turned up past 15. Once the signal for the jig had been established at a gain setting past 15 the jig was again slowly lowered deeper. As soon as the jig started to move the ICE 55 unit lost the jig and would only display a very intermittent return on the display.

The gain was again increased to maintain a useable return signal from the jig. As we continued to lower the jig that gain had to be increased. At 20 feet the gain was at a setting of 25. Maxed out for this unit. As the jig was sent deeper to just above bottom in 24 foot of water the ICE 55 absolutely could not display a return for the jig. When the jig was raised back shallower than 20 feet the jig would again be displayed as a flickering return on the ICE 55 display. Clearly the unit has some incredible sensitivity issues in the wide beam setting. So much so that we opted to not attempt a target separation test in the wide beam as there was no way to substantiate performance if the unit was unable to display returns for the targets.

In narrow beam the ICE 55 did a better job. Once the narrow beam was selected the jig was immediately displayed and the gain setting could be turned down to a setting of 3 - 4 depending on depth. The ICE 55 did a acceptable job of tracking the jig as it fell, the signal was fairly consistent as the jig fell in the water column which allowed me to track the movement of the bait most of the time as it fell towards the bottom.

A target separation test was conducted using sinkers pegged to a line. I know, I know. Flashers aren't designed to mark sinkers, they're designed to mark the bottom and fish. I'll give you that, no doubt about it. But how do you get a couple perch to maintain a consistent separation while we test various flashers? So the sinker test is as good as it will get coming from us ice heads. Do know that the test was applied uniformly to the units tested.

Two sinkers were pegged to a line and that line was lowered to a depth just about the bottom in 24' of water. If the flasher being tested could not distinguish the two sinkers as unique target the line was reeled up and the distance was increased.

The distance between the sinkers was increased until the ICE 55 could distinguish the targets as "separate." In this test, in 24 foot of water and in the narrow beam setting, the ICE 55 consistently returned target separation results at 5". In comparison the MarCum LX5 was able to produce target separation results around 2 inches without the use of the Super Fine Line option on the MarCum LX5.

These target separation tests backed up what I thought I was seeing visually. The ICE 55 display did not seem to be very crisp and the sensitivity was very poor in comparison to some of the other units on the market.

After evaluating the ICE 55's performance in the wide and narrow beam modes I think it is important to point out how I think Humminbird has engineered their transducers as I feel that is playing a significant role in the capabilities of their unit.

First we need to talk about transducer crystals. I'm not an engineer so stick with me if some of my terminology is off a bit. I think the point I'm going to make will be plainly evident once we get past my feeble attempt as explaining how a transducer crystal works.

Inside every transducer there's a crystal. When power is applied to the crystal that crystal resonates at a known frequency. Cystals give off primary and secondary frequencies. Primary frequencies produce clean signals with minimal noise or distortion. Secondary frequencies lack in the sensitivity and noise department and are not often used by sonar engineers when the goal is to produce the most sensitive signal possible.

A MarCum LX5 has two crystals in the transducer, each responsible for producing a primary frequency. One primary frequency is used in the narrow beam setting. The other primary frequency generated by the second crystal is used in the wide beam setting. If primary frequencies result in clean signals with less noise it is only obvious to me that you're going to need two crystals to get the best performance out of the narrow beam and wide beams settings.

Humminbird uses one crystal in their ICE Series of flashers. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the secondary frequency is being used in the wide beam setting. And that's why the wide beam setting proved to have such difficulty displaying a return for that #12 Gill Pill in 24 foot of water when the MarCum could do so with ease.

Overview

The Humminbird Ice 55 is the newest player in the hotly contested flasher niche and bring a larger flat panel display to the market that will almost certainly force MarCum and Vexilar to offer units with larger displays in the near future. The overall quality and durability of the unit seemed to be acceptable, with a few minor reservations regarding the closure of the soft pack and the control knobs. Owners of this unit will find they're able to adapt the way they fish to accomodate the exclusive use of the narrow beam setting in deeper water and use the ICE 55 as a serviceable tool out on the ice.

What needs attention? In my opinion the user control interface needs to be improved. With that much space available for the placement of user controls shouldn't there be controls dedicated for each function? But the user controls aren't the heart of the problem. The real issue at this time is with the nuts and bolts performance of this unit. Sure, a big flat panel display is nice. But none of that matters if the sensitivity and target separation is compromised. And shouldn't the top unit in a product line that advertises a dual beam transducer offer a dual crystal transducer so the wide beam setting is actually useable at depths where most of us fish, which is to say at depths deeper than 22 feet?

I for one am excited to see where this product goes over the next couple seasons. I'm sure Humminbird will take this year one product back into engineering over the coming summer and address some if not all of the issues anglers will report to them over the ice season. For ice anglers looking for a flasher for use THIS SEASON I can say, without reservation, there's flashers on the market that bring to the table a better combination of performance and features than the Humminbird ICE Series of flashers offers at this time.