Motorguide Xi5

[Genofish]

Does anyone have any input on the Motorguide Xi5? 80lb 24volt, Lowrance connect

Looking for strength of motor and Lowrance communication

Currently have a Minnkota powerdrive 80lb 24 volt Ipilot, not sure if its worth changing to Motorguide for the Lowrance communication.

Thanks

[CaptainMusky]

There are probably very few people other than pros who have actually used the Pinpoint Gateway so your best thing to do is search out videos. There are a few that the next bite has done with Keith K and Chase Parsons.

I bought the xi5 last year and will be getting the gateway connect and NMEA 2000 backbone to connect my HDS units.

If you just want to view sonar it comes with the lowrance sonar plug on it already so you just plug it in, but if you want to control the motor from your GPS, etc then you need the Gateway kit and the NMEA network.

After a season of use the xi5 was probably my best upgrade I have done to my boat. It is so quiet, powerful and a very low amp draw when compared to the Terrova (38 Amps max vs over 50 Amps max).

Another buddy of mine bought one as well and he absolutely loves it too.

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

I would agree with CaptainMusky.... Not to many people other than pro's that have used it so far as it's still pretty new.

My dad just ordered a ZV21 with the Xi5 with Pinpoint Gateway. He doesn't get into a lot of the electronics controls like I do, but I think he will like it a lot over his Minn-Kota.

I have his Pro V now with the Minn-Kota and I have HDS 3 touch units. I am really tempted to sell the Minn-Kota and put an Xi5 on it. But with me looking to move soon, I may have to wait.

A few things I like about it are that the anchor (spotlock) function seems to be much better than Minn-Kota. I have seen some screenshots of the accuracy between kota and guide and the movement lines are pretty wide on the kota compared to the small blob of lines on the Motor-Guide.

Also with the touch HDS models you can control the Xi5 through the screen instead of the remote. I have heard it is much quieter as well, but I have not witness that first hand yet.

I do wish the Xi5 had a contour following function like Hummingbird's integration has. The Xi5 you can kind of do it with waypoint placement but that seems cumbersome. I would assume (and I am hopeful on my assumption) that Motor-Guide/Lowrance will release a firmware update to make it more like the Hummingbird/Minn-Kota contour function.

[CaptainMusky]

The follow contour feature is coming just not quite ready. Personally I think following a previously defined track is more beneficial to me because the mapping of many of the areas I fish is a bit suspect. Following the contour on the GPS could have me all over the place when I already know where the desired trolling path is. That has been my feeling since day 1 when Humminbird announced it. Nice feature and when it is available I am sure I will try it, but I prefer using my own tracks.

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

The follow contour feature is coming just not quite ready. Personally I think following a previously defined track is more beneficial to me because the mapping of many of the areas I fish is a bit suspect. Following the contour on the GPS could have me all over the place when I already know where the desired trolling path is. That has been my feeling since day 1 when Humminbird announced it. Nice feature and when it is available I am sure I will try it, but I prefer using my own tracks.

That's a good point, and never thought about that.

[Jmnhunter]

just an FYI you can follow your own tracks with ipilot link and create your own. seems like alot of people think you can not with minnkota's setup but according to the Minnkota's site, you can

[Genofish]

Improved spot lock and communication with the lowrance would be great, I wonder if the Ipilot accuracy can be improved by Minnkota

[CaptainMusky]

I would imagine it could be improved. To me its more of a position refresh type thing. I am sure they have a wait period built in and they would just have to update this, but I don't know how you could update the firmware on an existing unit. It is something that could be improved and then rolled out on new units I am sure.

[delcecchi]

I assumed that it was part of the algorithm/process that the device uses to decide when to activate the motor, how far, and in what direction.

The objective would be to maintain position in the face of fluctuations in the GPS accuracy and position, variable wind, etc. They also have to be careful of overshooting the correction.

For all we know, later production could have updated software compared to older units. I have been pretty satisfied with my ipilot, but I have nothing to compare it with.

[CaptainMusky]

I thought I would post an update since I have purchased and installed the motorguide Pinpoint Gateway and connected my HDS units to the NMEA 2000 network.

First of all some advice to those who want to do this, get the Lowrance NMEA 2000 starter kit and not the Motorguide NMEA starter kit. I had assumed (I know what that gets you) they were the same, but they are not. The Motorguide one has only a 6' backbone cable while the Lowrance one is 15'. I ended up purchasing the Lowrance starter kit as well because of this, but it wasn't a waste because I needed more T connectors, etc since I have 3 HDS units to connect.

I did have some problems initially once all of the network was setup and the HDS was updated to 4.0, then updated the xi5. I lost Anchor and Track creation. Basically if I tried those features I received a "No Autopilot Computer" error. I couldn't even try them from the remote let alone the HDS unit.

I was discouraged. I called motorguide to see if I could get it back to factory SW version just so I could use it like I did last year and disconnect the network for now to which they sent me a dongle to plug in.

I received it yesterday and reset the xi5 last night without issues. I tested the motor with the remote and network disconnected and everything worked as it did last year before the Gateway kit.

Not wanting to give up I decided to give the update a try again thinking I had nothing to lose since if it didn't work I could reset it back right away. Well, it worked! I didn't get any errors the first time I did the update so not sure what was up, but it works now.

I especially like the anchor features from the HDS. You can highlight a waypoint or just have a cursor location on the screen and tell it to set anchor and it will power over to the spot and anchor. That is so nice!

Setting speed is simple too just enter the speed you want on the screen and off you go. Before it was a few button presses on the remote to get it dialed in, but I am really going to like using this more in depth.

I am heading to the lake shortly to give it a thorough test because I am really limited as to what I can do in the garage. :-)

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

We have fished with the Xi5 for a couple months now and all I can say is that I am impressed! Anchor mode is soooooo nice even in windy conditions. We ran this thing all day and the battery level never dropped off green. At one point we were 150 - 200 yards off of a waypoint and wanted to get to it so we hit anchor, chose the waypoint and hit go and it took off for the spot. Nice not to have to deal with an anchor!

One thing I don't like is the foot pedal is horrible... Very slow response (could be the batteries). I used the remote all day and it was sick fast for response and maybe even in some cases to fast. I will say that this thing is VERY quiet as well. Using the autopilot touch commands through my HDS 3 was super nice as well.

I want to get rid of my Power Drive V2 with CoPilot and get an Xi5....

[CaptainMusky]

Yeah, they certainly could update the footpedal. I have heard complaints from several guys that use footpedals religiously and they do not like them. Motorguide does have a better foot pedal with like directional arrows and its almost flat, but unfortunately it doesn't work with the xi5. I have never used my foot pedal so its not big deal to me.

Hopefully for the guys that prefer to use a pedal they come out with an improvement.

The integration with Lowrance now is awesome and I am loving the purchase more every time I use it. The cool thing with the anchor is you can use your side imaging to identify fishy spots, rocks, weed edge etc, then put a cursor there and have it anchor you right on the spot. That is tremendous.

Some of those funky turns and such they have pre-programmed in will probably not be too useful to me, but I might try them just to say I did. LOL

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

I did end up using the jog feature as well quite a bit. I would hit anchor and it would hold but found out I couldn't cast up on a shallow area and work down so I jogged closer using 1 or 2 clicks to get in the zone.