Vexilar flx28 auto range stinks in 13'

[fishwater]

My vexilar is toggling back and forth like a politician right now in 13 feet. I can get it to startup in auto 15' every time I turn the dial to auto if I bump the gain up over 5, but if I try and bump the gain any lower while running it wants to revert to 20' range. It stutters back and forth with the gain turned down. My 3mm jig is looking rather thick. The thing works great otherwise, especially in 30' of water with my 3 sinkers spaced 30angeltits apart.

Seriously now, is there gonna be a software update to fix this?

[DTro]

I guess I would just toggle over to the 20ft range if its doing that. Either that or try messing around with your transducer placement.

[fishwater]

It is working.

[fishwater]

I've done everything except run up to the cabin and get a new ducer to try and make it stable on auto15. I really like the 15' mode, smoke 'em if ya got 'em type deal. It really is the best bang for the buck over the fl22 range options. A 5' range isn't practical and over 20' chit doesn't matter. I want my $2!!!

[fishwater]

I've been purposely working depths of 10-14' to see how this unit works in various conditions in the auto15' range. What I'm finding is that it isn't stable at all. In my opinion, a simple circuit should be deployed to have the unit default to the higher resolution 15' range after a couple of flops by the auto mode. This is an engineering fail IMO, there's no reason the unit needs to continually auto set itself without a drastic depth change.

Worse, the unit in 20' fixed range works fine, but the zoom in the 20' setting is 200% useless in the 5' setting, the 2x zoom isn't much better. For some reason the zoom doesn't act at all like that on the fl22 and only gives you at best a 1/4 dial of depth, so maybe 2 feet in 5'zoom.

I'm still happy with it, but the honeymoon is fading.

[DTro]

I don’t quite understand what you are saying about the Zoom thing.  Isn’t it a choice between a 6ft zone or a 12ft zone?    Did you mean in the 6ft zone it is worthless?    What makes it worthless?   

 

I haven’t used the zoom a lot, but it seemed to work fine for me the times I have, or at least how I expected it to work.

 

I agree with the switching between scales.  To me, something like that should not be happening.  It’s happened to me also, but at that point I chose to just move it to the next highest setting on the manual mode and didn’t worry too much about it.   It’s unfortunate that you lose the 5’ scales in manual mode though, I get that.

 

Just remember if that if you are on a fairly sharp break, any movement of your transducer can make a big difference on what the unit determines as bottom (think of the large imaginary swinging pendulum your cone is in 15 feet of water). That sonar is always going to return the shallowest spot reading that cone is in.

 

I plan on using the auto mode only for the initial check on depths and for hole hopping. Once I’m settled in, I’ll just use the manual mode.  10ft increments is fine for me

[brian6715]

I plan on using the auto mode only for the initial check on depths and for hole hopping. Once I’m settled in, I’ll just use the manual mode.  10ft increments is fine for me

The auto mode on my LX-7 can get annoying too, more often than not I end up in manual mode as well. Look at it this way, 10' increments is still better than 20' increments of the older flashers.

Sigh, first world problems.

[fishwater]

I don’t quite understand what you are saying about the Zoom thing.  Isn’t it a choice between a 6ft zone or a 12ft zone?    Did you mean in the 6ft zone it is worthless?    What makes it worthless? 

Here's a pic of the best I could get it the other day. This was after tweaking it and messing with all options. As you can see, the fishable zoom area is very limited. Right about the 6' and 12', I messed up on that.

[fishwater]

The auto mode on my LX-7 can get annoying too, more often than not I end up in manual mode as well. Look at it this way, 10' increments is still better than 20' increments of the older flashers.

Sigh, first world problems.

Lol. I could care less about how crappy my Lx7 performs, I know eventually another update will come out.

[DTro]

Are you on a sharp break? That doesn't look right....

[cbrunick57]

I've seen that happen before on both my 28 and 20, seemed to happen most often if I was hole hopping while still in zoom. Usual just turning the unit off and back on seems to reset your bottom back to zero while in zoom.

[brian6715]

Lol. I could care less about how crappy my Lx7 performs, I know eventually another update will come out.

You have both?

[fishwater]

It's a flat I was fishing in in this picture. Turning the unit on and off, resetting the zoom, moving the ducer, messing with the gain before turning the zoom on/off, switching ducers and mentally kicking it didn't help. I might need to have a professional look at it.

Yes, I have too many flashers.

[CaptSpike]

How did you get a picture of the flasher with anything showing on the screen? Every time I take a picture the screen is black in the picture?????

Spike

[fishwater]

How did you get a picture of the flasher with anything showing on the screen? Every time I take a picture the screen is black in the picture?????

Spike

Lucky? I have better luck with a samsung than an iphone. Either eventually works if you take enough pictures.

[Corey Bechtold]

When you say "flat" are you referring to a mud flat?

[magicstix]

My first guess would be hole hopping with zoom on but it sounds like that's not the case. Lifting ducer out of hole with zoom on?

It's fish stacked up on the bottom!!

I'd call Vexilar see what they have to say.