Humminbird 998si power issue

[harvey lee]

Friend of mine put this unit on his boat this spring.

Everything worked fine but now, when he has the unit on and starts the outboard, the Bird unit shuts down. Once the motor is running, he can unplug the unit, plug it back in and it works great until he shuts the motor off. Then when he restarts the outboard, he has to unplug the unit again to get it to power up.

I should not say the unit turns off but it goes from a screen with info to only black lines through the screen. Then reboot it while the motor is running and all is well again. Seems like a lack of voltage while the motor starts as in to much draw for the outboard with a weak battery status.

I looked in his manual and it said the unit needs 10 volts to operate.

My question is, if he has a battery that is under power or say a bad cell, could the starting of the outboard draw so much that there is less than 10 volts to the bird unit so it shuts down?

He has the unit hooked up to his battery that runs everything else in the boat including the outboard motor. The starting battery in the boat is 12 years old.

I told him I would check the voltage to the unit when he starts the outboard to see what there is for power to the unit while it is on. I also suggested to have the battery load tested to see if it is a weakened state.

Anything else I could check or am I looking in the right place for the issue?

Thanks

[MN Mike]

My 798 did that in my boat from the beginning, exactly as you describe. I put new batteries in and it hasn't done it very often now.

After the first couple times it did it, I just learned not to start my electronics until the motor was running although that doesn't help when you're out on the lake starting and stopping your motor.

Mike

[reddog]

Voltage drop. Check and clean all connections. Bring up the voltage in the view and see how it reacts to turning the key on and starting

[B-man715]

Starting battery is 12 years old......????? hmmmm....... I wonder what the problem is?

[harvey lee]

He had the battery load tested this spring and it was fine then, not to say it could not have lost a cell since then though. He has only used the boat twice since then so he did not believe the battery was the culprit.

I told him I would have it load tested again.

[h8go4s]

Seriously? I wouldn't even consider having a 12-year old battery tested. Replace it. Now.

[harvey lee]

Well, he does not fish that much and why purchase a new battery if you do not need one?

I would agree the battery is more than likely the culprit but like I said, It was load tested just fine a few short months ago.

[highlife4me]

I would check the voltage at the unit while the motor is being turned over. Could be he has an excessive length of wire or too small of gauge wire and the voltage is dropping below 10 volts while motor is cranked over.

[TruthWalleyes]

If i run my starter battery very low i can make my radio and other electronics blink when i start the motor - that takes me about 3 days of solid fishing for me to get the battery that low. Did he do a load test of his 12yr old battery?

If all symptoms tie to the starting of the outboard, and we know that draws some major amperage, i would change the battery as it is most likely the culpret.

Also, make sure the voltage is displayed on the screen when you start it next time, the drop should be noticable right before the unit shuts off.

[BLACKJACK]

My starting battery was low this weekend, accidently had one of the navigation light switches on, when I turned on the Humminbird it came up with a low voltage message and shut itself down.

[TSchultz]

Often times if he has the bird hooked up through a fuse block or similar underneath the dash the boat mfg will not have heavy enough wiring feeding it and when you go to start the battery it will drop the voltage enough that the unit will shut down. If the battery is good wire the unit directly to the battery. Problem solved.

[bowhunternw]

Mine does the same thing, when the battery connections are less than perfect. Clean them up good and that fixes it.

[Cheers]

I had similar issues with a Lorance . Problem turned out to be wrong size battery . I had gone to the auto parts store and bought a new starting battery and didn't know enough to pay attention to the specs of the battery. It had 650 CCA . My optimax needs 1000CCA to satisfy the electronics on the motor and the new battery couldn't put it out thus causing a voltage drop and therefore causing the fish finder to shut off. I got a stronger battery and the problem was gone !

[PerchJerker]

I had an annoying power issue affecting my graphs the first year I had a new boat. It wouldn't happen very often, but occasionally when I was flying across the lake all my graphs would shut off at the same time for no apparent reason. I checked and rechecked and re-rechecked everything multiple times. Nothing.

I eventually realized it was only happening in rough water when the boat was bouncing around a lot, but I still couldn't figure out the problem.....

One time when they shut down I finally noticed that the oil reservoir for my Opti had moved a bit. It was still in its bracket but it was less than 1/2 full of oil and had shifted positions a little. I pushed and pulled on the reservoir tank and noticed there was enough play to BARELY brush against the main power breaker.

The main power breaker had never tripped, but too make sure the oil reservoir couldn't touch the breaker I wedged a pair of sandals between the oil reservoir and the wall where the breaker was mounted. Voila' .... no more graph shutdowns!

After running it that way for a couple months with no more problems I remounted the oil reservoir to the other side of the compartment and got my sandals back.

It shows how touchy and sensitive these electronics and boat wiring systems can be .......