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 wish -- it is a specail plug unit for 2007 -- or so I hyear. Plus it is back-ordered till mid June.

Yikes.

When I figure this out I will be an "expert" on this stuff.

I am going to call Lowrance right now

I will post info when i have it.

[Dahitman44]

called all day and the phone was busy -- 800 number. Then I called directory assistance and got the 915 number and have been holding for 32 minutes now and have not talked to a person.

I am sure they are just very busy -- the day after Memorial Day.

Not good. Will report.

[Dahitman44]

Does anyone else have any ideas of what is wrong with this -- soon to be expensive boat anchor.

[Cabela10]

Is this a in-haul transducer or is it on the outside of your haul?

From what it seems like, it could be a in-haul transducer that isn't meant to be mounted inside and it's causing problems at deep waters.

[orangestew]

I just got done trouble shooting the same thing with my locator, not the same as your locator but it sounds like a similar problem. Unit was only 2 years old so I didn't expect to have any problems yet!

Checked all the wiring ran it directly to the battery, cleaned all the connections, moved the transducer location and I was still losing the bottom signal after about 25 feet. Went to the store and check out the same on the display and started playing with that one and noticed the sound the transducer was giving off didn't sound like what was coming from the one on my boat. When I changed the ping speed at home didn't notice any difference in comparison the one on display, when I increased the ping you could hear the sound of pinging speed up. To end my story, I bought a new transducer and now everything is working fine again.

Definately play with the gain/sensitivity in the manual mode I have found that the auto mode can give you some false signals.

Hope you get things figured out, I know how frustrating it can be not being able to trust your locator!

[marine_man]

I'm still saying transducer.

It could be the mounting or interference, but I think both are highly unlikely. Unless the transducer is mounted directly behind a strake I think it's a transducer problem.

Refresh my memory, does it loose contact with the bottom at low speed, or while sitting still?

Can you snap a picture and post it of your transducer mounting location (so we can see where the transducer is with respect to the swim ladder and motor)?

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

Marine -- I will do that -- I have trouble putting pics on -- how do you do it again?

[Dahitman44]

UPDATE --

The lowrance tech guy thinks it is ducer-related as well.. I think he is going to send one out -- I hope -- can't get him to return my call.

I really hope it is ducer because the unit is back ordered till like the end of August.

That would not be fun.

[marine_man]

Send me the pic and I'll get it posted for you ([email protected]).

Otherwise, go to the photo sharing forum and click on the first thread - it has instructions on it.

marine_man

[Dahitman44]

Will do -- thanks.

[Dahitman44]

Good news -- the saga is over and I have a depth finder that works.

Skeels hooked me up with a new one and I tried it last night. I worked GREAT. Three transducers later, a hardwire to an independent battery and a lot of swear words it was the head unit after all.

Thanks to all that helped me on this issue.

Hitman

[marine_man]

Sorry to hear it was a head unit.. that's usually about the only thing you can count on being good

marine_man