Help with lowrance issues?

[Dahitman44]

First of all i bought the LCX-27C and had it up and runny before the opener. I did not use it very much but it seemed to be working.

I hit the opener and had problems right away. No GPS problems but many others.

I will try and cover all of the things I saw and see if you guys can put it all together for me.

First of all, when I put power in I brought it to the dealer and they "snipped" it in for me. I couldn't tell where hook it up direct. (The boat is a 185 trophy).

I will try to explain this the best I can. It can keep the bottom signal pretty well. At least as far as the depth. It don't get very much information when we are in deeper water, however.

Like when it goes to below 20 feet it "loses" bottom detail totally. Just a little bit of "fuzz" Forget about finding fish -- no chance.

We also had problems in shallow water and started out by doin all of the obvious -- checking the skimmer, shutting the power off, and blowing on and reconnecting the cables.

This seemed to help a little bit just for a while -- like minutes then trouble again.

Since we did not know what to do I fiddled with stuff to see what did what. It seemed like if I ran the power trim on the motor I lost the bottom totally then it was back. When i ran the trim I checked the power on the unti in the display and it said 11.7 volts and then dropped to 11.3 ish. I also ran the motor just in idle position and it seemed to work better. (weird).

It seems like an electrical problem, but I don't know what to do. One suggestion from a sports store that I bought it from was to wire it direct to a different battery. I didn't think I should have to do that.

One more thing -- I have a ladder mounted on the same side -- is that causing some weird water swirling?

Thoughts?

Any and all experiences, thoughts or gut feelings would b great. It makes me very mad, as you guys would guess.

[Dahitman44]

I know this one is a tough one, but has anyone seen this or have any thoughts?

Thanks.

[marine_man]

This is kind of a tough one to trouble shoot...

Do you have another depth finder w/a transducer mounted near the rear of the boat, or is this the only one?

If it were me I'd try and figure out where they connected the power leads to... hopefully it's to the main fuse panel in a accessory slot or something along those lines and not tied to the motor...

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

Marine --

Yep it is a very tough one. Keep asking me q's and I hope we can figure it out.

It is hooked to one of the main accessory switches that is for sure but it is spliced into a wire hanging there. It only works with the access. switch on so it must be wired in ok -- just don;t know why it is "spliced" into a wire, I guess.

Hope that made some sense.

[marine_man]

If it's connected to the accessory switch you should be ok there.

Do you have any other transducers on the back of your boat?

Any issues with battery voltage or a dead / low battery?

marine_man

[Fishin' Addict]

Hit, didn't see you on Big P. Sat. Dad says you got a new boat. As for your lowrance, Take the splice out and solder on a couple female paddle connectors to connect the unit directly to the fuse panel (there shoud be male ears on it). That splice sounds sketchy - kinda like your getting electrical "noise."

Your owners manual should show you how to do it

[ChuckN]

I have a LCX-25C which is very similar, and I wouldn't worry about the voltage readings it's giving you. Mine reads around 10V while fishing and running so many electronics at once. No problems with the performance.

That is strange, and frustrating I'm sure.

Transducers do funny things. It could be a fualty transducer?

Opening morning I was on a lake where one graph would not work at all for me (had to turn the gain way up, and still not reading bottom well) and I assumed the transducer failed or ?? I moved to another lake and I had zero problems from there on for the rest of the weekend. That one lake was churning good with the wind and a lot of weeds and dead reeds floating around, however. I have noticed sometimes water quality, debris in the water and bottom content can do strange things.

How are your settings on the graph? Are you in auto mode or manual? Sensitivity, ping speed, etc.. go thru them and see if anything looks unusual.

Hope you figure it out.

[Dahitman44]

Marine --

One thing I forgot to say --

I did KILL my main starting battery down to ZERO -- Like zippo and had to charge it back up.

It was not my fault, however. the dealer left the switch on the control panel and then covered it. Then it snowed for a week in early april. Ick.

Then I had to re-charge. Could that hurt it?

No other depth finders, yet. May have to add one up front with the US on the Terova.

[Dahitman44]

FA --

Yep new boat -- and guess what the "Wife" wanted it so the boys could do more fun stuff like skiing and stuff like that. Pretty cool. Nice that a local buddy bought my old boat -- BIG help. The old one was only an 03.

Yeah -- I would like to hook up direct, but it is a mess under there and it is NOT labeled -- Should I bring it back to them? Make them hook it up right?

[Dahitman44]

Chuck --

Yep a pain in the ...

It is all set to auto still and I have not messed with the ping.

Keep the info flowin', fellas and we will figure this out.

[marine_man]

I don't know for sure, but I do know that locators tend to get flakey when they don't have the voltage they require.

Do you have a vexilar battery you could hook the locator up to and see if that helps the problem?

If it's not that I'd guess it's in the transducer and might need a replacement.

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

Yep I do have a vexilar battery I could try.

I hope it is not in the transducer.

[croixeyes]

I switched to a new starting battery this year,Last year my battery worked but when i went to start the boat my x25 would power off.Ive got my graph hook directly to my starting battery which also runs my live well and bait well and bildge pumps.Ping speed on your graph needs to be turned up when your running,this helps you read bottom better when your cruising.However you should be able to read bottom when putting along.This sounds like an electrical interference problem to me.I do have a friend that is on his third transducer for his x111 though,so dont count that out.

[marine_man]

Quote:

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Yep I do have a vexilar battery I could try.

---

That's what I would do. That would eliminate any power issues, which is what it seems like to me is the issue.

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

Marine --

So you thin I should just hook up the vexilar battery to see if that is the issue and if it is then what? Keep using the vexilar battery?

[marine_man]

No, hook up the vexilar battery. If it works correctly then you'll have to dig in a little more to resolve the issue, which, at the worst case, would involve running a seperate power wire from the battery for your locator. But find out if the vex battery resolves the issue first.

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

Do you think it is likely that when they snipped it into the aux switch wire that it just hanging there that it is also hooked into something else?

Giving interference?

Seems to make sense but why does it run on the aux switch when nothing else does. Seems to be right? Right?

[marine_man]

I think that when they connected the locator they're connection is fine. I think your battery might be suspect, but until you try a different battery (and since you have a vex battery it'll be easy and cheap) it's tough to say for sure.

marine_man

[Cliff Wagenbach]

I have had the same problems before!

I suggest that you turn off the Auto mode. Increase the sensitivity to close to 100%. Increase your ping speed to 100%. ( this gives you the best performance from your unit, especially at higher speeds and in deeper water.)

You should wire your depth finder direct to your starter battery,(be sure to put an in-line fuse on the positive wire!)

If this does not cure your problem, you may have gotten a bad transducer!

Cliff

[Dahitman44]

Cliff --

Thanks for jumping in. Why should I set the auto mode off? What does that do?

Have you had a fuzzy weak bottom in 30 feet of water of less. No detail etc?

[Dahitman44]

I was just thinking -- If i hook up the power to the unit direct to the battery that should be ok -- but not the power to the GPS -- that is working fine and needs to stay on a switch or it was stay on all the time. I think I read that someplace.

[marine_man]

That's fine.. I'd leave the GPS module alone in regard to power - that very likely isn't causing the problem.

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

NOW I AM REALLY STUMPED.

Finally got the chance to run the power on a separate battery and all looked pretty good -- then all went to heck, again.

The same deal -- I lose detail and it is very upsetting.

Now that the power is run to its own separate battery cand that is NOT it now what other ideas do people have?

This is really getting me mad.

Help?

[fishinalot]

I would return the unit, or bring the boat back to the rigger and have them trouble shoot it.

I had a so called professional rigger install a unit for me, and I ended up rerigging it myself so it worked properly, after I spent $200.

[Dahitman44]

I wonder if it is the adder that the dealer mounted -- Has anyone had any "bubbles" from a ladder that caused problems with unit signal?

[marine_man]

Transducer or transducer mounting. Do you have any friends that have a similar unit (or same plug ins ) that you could verify the unit on?

marine_man