Lightening and Boat Electronics

[Sportfish1850]

Here's a question guys. About a week and a half ago we had one whale of a storm up in Alexandria. Lightening was striking everywhere and thunder claps where right over our cabin. Next day my GPS antenna stops working....."GPS MODULE NOT RESPONDING". I tried a few tricks recommended on here and no go so I bought a new module and its was working fine. BUT now my GPS restarts everytime I crank the motor (it used to stay on all the time once the power button was pushed).

THIS weekend I noticed my sonar unit shuts on an off irregularly (spontaneously) and cycles through the brightness levels all on its own but otherwise works fine.

Anyone ever experience anything like this ? Recommendations ?

You think its related to the lightening ? During the storm the boat was out of the water on the dock lift.

[EBass]

Cripes - if the ground is good call the manufacture. Sorry to hear about that. That's gotta be a headache.

[Sportfish1850]

They are both Lowrance products. 6 months out of warranty.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Quote:

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They are both Lowrance products. 6 months out of warranty.

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story of my life!

[Valv]

Call your insurance company, if electric storm is the cause, which I cannot see why not, they will issue a claim. It could be a lightning did strike in the vicinity and damaged units.

[Chris Haley]

Something happen to your battery? It sounds like it's drained down and thats why it shuts off with the extra load of the starter, and shuts off as the power drains while in use.

[Finlander]

You should be able to display the current voltage on the screen of your locator by enableing the screen display menu.

That way you know when when to give your starting battery a charge.

[Sportfish1850]

Battery is fine. It recharges from the OBM while running. Voltage display is a constant 13.7 V as its always been.

24V system on the trolling motor works fine to, just the gadgets on the 12V battery is acting strange. I should have checked my Marine Radio and my AM/FM radio to see if they were effected. Just too many coincidences the day after a big lightening storm right over head with many close by strikes IMHO not to be related to the storm.

Any way to tell if the system took a surge so I could file a claim ?? I crawled under the console and couldn't see any burn marks or melted insulation.

[Chris Haley]

Did you check the in-line fuse for corrosion?

[wplatehunter]

I hit a big wave the other day and my GPS stopped working and said the same thing. GPS module not responding. After about 30 mins and me turning the unit on and off a number of times it started working again, I have had the boat on a lot rougher water and never had the problem before. I have used the boat a few times after this and everything is working. Also if you have the LM 334 and it will not let you change pages just turn it off and push the power button and zoom in and out at the same time, and the unit will reset its self.

[Chris Haley]

That's a good idea. Go to the lowrance web site and click on the support link. You type in your model and read how to do a "soft reset" this will not affect any stored info. DO NOT try a "hard reset" unless you have saved all data to a MMC card. Also click on the updates link to see if there are any updates for your unit?

[marine_man]

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Also click on the updates link to see if there are any updates for your unit?

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Be aware of this issue with updates:

Post Update Performance

marine_man

[Chris Haley]

Yeah I guess try the "soft restart" and see where you're at.

[shamrock7]

We suffered a similar incident last summer. The bolt of lightning hit a tree 75' from our house. Took out most electronics. Took out 2 cars parked with-in 40' of the tree. Both had to be towed to the dealer. Close to $10,000 later, they were both on the road again. We had 2 laptops that were doing similar things like your depth finder. Just weird stuff but still working. Our adjuster told us to get a letter from a computer tech stating that the computers were more than likely damaged by the lightning strike. They replaced both once they had the letters.

My advice to you is call your agent and file a claim. Check everything electrical in your cabin, boat or anything else in the area. Once you know what works and what is weird, get a list to your adjuster. Hopefully, your company will handle things as well or better than ours.