Humminbird Helix shuts off when starting motor.

[Smokey]

I purchased and installed one of these this spring. Previous unit was a Humminbird Wide 100 (20 years old but still working).

If I have both units powered up, the old Wide 100 will not show any info, but the Helix is fine. If I shut off the Helix, the Wide 100 will then start to show the lake bottom. I assume that is caused by transducer interference, and I am not worried too much about that.

The annoying problem that I have is that, every time I start the engine, the Helix immediately shuts off. I then have to turn it back on, push a few buttons to get back to the view that I want, and wait for the GPS to synch up.

The Wide 100 never had this problem, and still does not have this problem.

Is the Helix much more touchy on voltage sags than the older units? Is there some sort of filter capacitor/diode that I can buy to put on the power feed to the Helix to keep it alive while I'm starting the engine?

The starting battery is a 5 year old Interstate, the engine is a 3.0 OMC I/O. It's always taken a few seconds of cranking to start, but it always starts right up. The funny thing is that it seems as soon as I turn the switch to the "start" position, the unit goes black. I though that perhaps the boat was wired in such a way as to shut off all auxiliary circuits while cranking, but just looking at it visually it doesn't appear to be that sophisticated, it's a 1995.

[Deet]

This isn't a solution, but maybe a work-around.

Turn your brightness all the way down on your graph before starting your motor. That's the only way I can keep my graph powered up while my motor cranks. If someone already mentioned that, sorry for the echo.

[Smokey]

The store said that the battery was "charged and ready to go", I just put it in and went out fishing.  To be fair I should put it on the charger and make sure that it is fully charged before trying anything else.  I did talk to a tech who rigs boats at the big C store (where I purchased the unit). He said that it the voltage drops below 12V, the unit will shut off.  He also suggested running the wires directly back to the battery with an inline fuse, to a separate battery.

My plan is to: make sure the battery is fully charged, check the voltage while the motor while cranking, decide from there.

Unfortunately this will have to wait a couple of weeks because of other things going on.

 

[Smokey]

I meant to say:

He also suggested running the wires directly back to the battery with an inline fuse, OR to a separate battery.

[knoppers]

I have the same unit on my pontoon, and have one of the alarms set to go off if the volts get to low. when I start up the motor, this alarm will go off as the volts drop below my setting. this battery is just starting its third year. it just goes to show you that there is a good amount of power needed to start the motor. the unit never shuts off.

[h8go4s]

Ok I'm back, this weekend, I purchased and installed a brand new marine cranking/deep cycle battery (group 24).  The previous battery was purchased in 2009 and was a marine cranking only, so it was time.

The first time I started the engine (3.0 L I/O), instead of the unit immediately shutting off, the screen kind of flickered a bit and then shut off.  To make matters worse, it would not power back up until I unplugged the power cable from the back of the unit for a few seconds, it was obviously getting itself confused during the brown out.

As I said earlier, I was using the supplied 6' power pigtail that came with the unit, after closer examination, it appears to be 22 gauge wire, at least that is the size that I need to use on my wire stripper to correctly strip the insulation on it.

I ran 5' of 14 gauge stranded wire directly from the power lead coming in to the fuse block and clipped the HBird pigtail 1' from the end and soldered the wires together.  I turned the engine blower off before trying to crank the engine, there is nothing else drawing current, this is a very simple 1995 boat.

Same d___ thing happens.

I think I either have a starter that is pulling a LOT of juice, or a defective sonar unit.

 

​So you ignored the advice to upgrade to a Group 27 or 31 battery on a 3.0L I/O that takes "a few seconds of cranking to start". What did you learn?

[Hoey]

I moved my Lowrance HDS10 system to a newer boat this spring. Did not have a problem with the old boat, but now the unit shuts-down like described here.

 

Since I purchased the boat from a dealer, they are dealing with it. I had the dealer initially wire the unit through an auxiliary switch. The dealer has indicated it has to be wired directly to the battery.

 

I will let you all know what they come up with. Seems fishy to me. I suspect a weak, on-its-last-leg battery problem.

​OK - I picked up the boat on Thursday and used it Friday and Saturday, my problem solved.  They moved the power source from the auxiliary power feed/switch to a direct connect to the main power, and problem solved.  

[Joe's Bar]

nevermind...

 

Edited October 4, 2015 by Joe's Bar