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[Spawn Sack]

Hoping someone can give me a trouble shooting tip(s) that I may not have thought of...so far can not figure this out...

 So last year bought a new Hummingbird Helix 5 Sonar/GPS. Paid to have professionally installed. The shop did a perfect job. Unlike the 2 previous fish finders I had on the boat that would always cut out (lose bottom) once I got on plane, this one always had a lock on bottom even at wide open throttle. The only exception would be flying over shallow water (2 -3 feet) at wide open it would lose bottom for a second or two but get it right back once in deeper water. We boated quite a bit in the Fraser, Harrison, and assorted lakes last year and never had any issues reading depth at all speeds.


 Then last fall the GPS stopped working. I contacted Hummingbird and they said to bring it to the authorised repair center in Abbotsford. I brought it in after boating season was over and the boat was shut down. The shop said they ran a diagnostic on it and replaced the part that was broken. Unfortunately, before I was able to test it out this year both the manufacturer warranty (1 year) and warranty by the repair center (3 months I think) have expired.

 So this year I've had the boat out a few times. The fish finder is doing something bizarre and I can't figure out why. So I put the boat in the water and turn on the FF. It fires up no problem and gets a lock on bottom right away. Once I putt putt from shore a bit and let the engine warm up then I get up on plane, hold at wide open for a bit, then back off to cursing speed/RPM.

 Initially the FF appears to be working fine. Say we are in roughly 50 feet of water the depth reading will rapidly flicker 50ft, 51ft, 49ft, 48ft, 50ft etc. Even if I keep it wide open (30mph +/-). Even in Harrison Lake it would not lose bottom at cruising speed in 200+ feet of water.

 However, now when cruising it will suddenly lose bottom and read "1ft" or close to 1ft. A few times I did not slow down and a few seconds later it sorted its self out and regained a lock on bottom. But other times it would stay stuck on 1ft and would only acquire the proper depth when I let right off the gas. And when were out the other day a couple times it STILL stayed stuck on 1 foot even after I turned the motor off. The only thing that would work if this happened is powering it off/on.


 I contacted the repair center and more or less said my FF was working fine before the GPS repair, now is it doing this. Is there any chance something went wrong when you fixed the GPS? The shop wrote back and said "sounds like the transducer, but bring the power head in and I'll run a free diagnostic on it." I plan to drop it off sometime this coming week.


 If I get it back and they say it is fine, so it must be something else, not really sure what I'll do. The transducer does not appear to have been bumped/moved or damaged in any way. And if the angle had been moved a bit it should still have no problem locking on bottom - especially with the engine off floating in the middle of the lake (!)


 The transducer cable is hidden between the stern and bow and would be a nightmare to uninstall it and try a new one. Plus I'd have to buy the transducer which is probably $200 +/-. I would consider this my last resort.

 The only thing I have noticed which I doubt is an issue is the battery seems to be running at a higher voltage than normal. Is this even possible? I'm just going off the dash gauge. The battery is 5 years old but I have not replaced it yet as it still starts the boat fine and I carry a booster pack on board JIC. I'm thinking of taking the battery out and getting it tested just in case it is screwy.


 If it were an older GPS I'd just buy a new one and accept it as the cost of owning a boat. However this one is just over a year old and it was not cheap

[arimaBOATER]

Ours did the same. Times had to shut off & put on.
We'd just lived with it. As long as it worked ok when fishing... Knew the local waters so was not a safety issue.
Worked ok 90% of the time.
But know the feeling. Drive ya. "Nuts" sometimes. 
This would make a good story for tv's B&W 60s Twightlight Zone. Sci Fi

[doja]

How are the actual connections? That's where electrical issues usally are found. Give them a good cleaning to remove oils and make sure it's all fitting tightly as it's a low voltage system making it vulnerable to voltage drops or open circuits.

The fact they hard to do a "repair job" all ready is not a warm feeling and I'd like to know what was replaced and what led to it need replacement....

[Al P.]

If its losing its bottom reading, make sure you check your Max bottom depth setting. Not the bottom depth setting adjusted on the first menu. You will need to make sure you set your user mode(set up menu) to advanced. Go to your Sonar menu, scroll down to Max Depth  and set to auto or whatever depth you think will be your max. If you run over water deeper then this is set to, you display will act exactly as you've described. One trick here to take note of, the shallower you have this set to, the faster the screen display will scroll, giving you More information faster. Up here in the interior we are typically fishing shallow. Keeping this setting set shallow instead of on auto, will really speed the unit up. The Helix 5 is a great unit!
Hope this helps,
Al Patton
Tunkwa Lake Resort

[Spawn Sack]

I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties with the FF.  "Intermediate Problems" are the hardest thing to diagnose. You can't just narrow it down to one thing.  Very Frustrating.

I'm one who does not believe in coincidence... so in pecking order:

1. Sounds like whatever the "Fix Was".. they may have caused further problem
2. I think it's YOUR BATTERY. It's a hassle ... but voltage/amps really can cause "Weirdness" with the FF.
    I'd try using a new battery (With Steady normal readings) and see what happens. This could be the Quick fix your looking for.
3. The odds of it being a Short in the Transducer wiring a pretty minimal

GOOD LUCK!


I just purchased a boat about a month ago ... so i know the reality of going through these type of situations.

Thank you, good suggestions. I don't want to accuse the repair shop of anything, especially since they are offering to run a diagnosis on the power had for free just in case there is anything screwy with it.

I don't know enough about batteries to argue with you, it just seems odd that it could be the battery. It starts the boat up fine and the FF operates "fine." But like I said it will all of a sudden glitch out and read 1 foot deep and just stay locked there, not even remedied by shutting the motor off and floating for several minutes. The only way to fix it is to power on/off. But it will happen again.

I will bring my battery in for testing and possibly replace it.

[Spawn Sack]

How are the actual connections? That's where electrical issues usally are found. Give them a good cleaning to remove oils and make sure it's all fitting tightly as it's a low voltage system making it vulnerable to voltage drops or open circuits.

The fact they hard to do a "repair job" all ready is not a warm feeling and I'd like to know what was replaced and what led to it need replacement....

Honestly I'm not 100% sure. When I put the battery back in the boat 6 or so weeks ago they were snugged up fine with a little dielectric grease rubbed on the battery terminals and connections. I will check them but I am guessing they are good.

[Spawn Sack]

If its losing its bottom reading, make sure you check your Max bottom depth setting. Not the bottom depth setting adjusted on the first menu. You will need to make sure you set your user mode(set up menu) to advanced. Go to your Sonar menu, scroll down to Max Depth  and set to auto or whatever depth you think will be your max. If you run over water deeper then this is set to, you display will act exactly as you've described. One trick here to take note of, the shallower you have this set to, the faster the screen display will scroll, giving you More information faster. Up here in the interior we are typically fishing shallow. Keeping this setting set shallow instead of on auto, will really speed the unit up. The Helix 5 is a great unit!
Hope this helps,
Al Patton
Tunkwa Lake Resort

Thank you but I don't think it's this. I never had farted with any of these settings and it worked 100% fine before it went in the shop to have the GPS issue fixed under warranty. I'm pretty sure they replaced the entire "brain" of the FF as when it is powered up there is a different image now, sort of a cool mean looking hummingbird that was never there before.

The depth settings are all on auto. I changed a few settings like depth in feet, temp in F, etc. Just to be sure I didn't accidently change something important I did a factory reset to bring all the settings back to default. Unfortunately it still does the same damn thing...

[doja]

Honestly I'm not 100% sure. When I put the battery back in the boat 6 or so weeks ago they were snugged up fine with a little dielectric grease rubbed on the battery terminals and connections. I will check them but I am guessing they are good.

Actually,  I was thinking where the transducer connects to the unit. Also a tightly ran wire is not good if the boat flexes and this isn't taken into account and allowed for. I also wonder if the brain died or was killed by another faulty part....

The battery is probably fine by the sounds of it. A slightly higher voltage is normal for a charging circuit. If it falls below is when things get unhappy (more than 5-10%)

[Spawn Sack]

I don't think the quality of the wiring install is an issue. I paid to have the unit professionally installed. Does not mean they may not have buggered something up, but I think the likelihood is small.

On the balance of probabilities I think something is buggy with the head unit and/or transducer. Was this caused by the repair center than fixed the GPS last year? I can't say for sure, but everything was working 100% fine before if went in for repair.

I dropped the head unit off yesterday at the repair center. Staff said it sounds like a buggy transducer, but they will test the head unit out and see if it is fine or not fine. If it comes back fine they also offered to test out my transducer if I wish. This would suck as I'd have to uninstall it and it's all hidden/snaked, from my stern to bow. But I would do this before I bought a new transducer hoping this may fix the problem.

Also, I bought a new battery yesterday. Old one failed the load test and whatever other test the shop did where I had it installed last year. Staff said that there is pretty much a 0% chance that the battery is causing the FF to glitch out as once the boat is running the battery is being charged constantly. I figured meh, I need a new battery anyway so might as well get one, and in the off chance it fixes the FF issue then added bonus!!

Plan is wait until I hear back from the Hummingbird repair center. If head unit comes back "fine" then I'll try the boat out again with a new battery. If the issue persists then I'll uninstall the transducer and take to the repair center and have them test that too. If that also comes back fine I'm not sure what I'll do. I doubt Hummingbird will be of any help as the package is past it's 1 year warranty. I'd likely get the shop who installed it to take a look it everything and see if they can trouble shoot it. If no luck then unfortunately the final solution would be to rip the whole thing out and buy a new FF

[Spawn Sack]

Well, things have finally concluded with this fish finder fiasco. So after I got the head unit back with the new mother board I took the boat out on the water. Same problem as before! Called authorised repair center in Abby and guy said well the only other possibility is your transducer, so you can bring that in and I'll test it, or you can just buy a new one ($100ish). I decided to uninstall my transducer and bring it in for testing. Guy hooks it up and it tests FINE. Wtf?!!? So I was like...so you are telling me that everything is fine, but the unit behaves like a POS when in actual use. Great. Luckily the guy loaned me a tester transducer to try out in place of mine.
 So yesterday I take my boat out on the water and have the same problem with his transducer as I did with mine. I even tried powering the unit off a different battery with both transducers and it did the same thing. As a last ditch attempt before I throw the whole thing in the garbage and buy a new one is call Hummingbird Tech support. The office is in the states, Alabama I think? The tech guy I got was pretty good. Got me to try several different things (restore to defaults, etc), none of which worked. Finally he said well looks like your head unit is glitchy even though it tests fine on the diagnostics at the repair center. Unfortunately since my warranty was up he said there is nothing more Hummingbird will do. I asked if he could get his manager/boss to call me and he said someone would get in contact with me. I figured no one would call and was prepared to go out and buy a new fish finder. To my surprise a manger called about an hour later. She said she appreciated the lengths I had gone to trouble shooting my Helix 5 and Hummingbird would replace it at no charge. Alright! I was pretty happy to hear that. The only down side is they are shipping it to the repair center in Abby then I need to go pick it up in approx. 2 weeks. Kind of sucks having to wait right in the middle of fishing season but I'd rather wait a couple weeks instead of pay 5-600 for a new unit.

[skaha]

--mine only seems to quit when I need it most...an area that I am not familiar with or trying to find a drop off... the other 90% of the time it works. Worked whole week of pre fish for a tourney no problems then intermittent ... day of the tourney.
--went through all the same stuff...  transducer & unit sent to warranty... nothing found.
--Tuff to bite the bullet and buy a  new one.

[doja]

Are the wires for the transducer ran with any other wires? Mainly large current carrying cables like for 12v battery's or a charging system?

[BNF861]

Glad to hear they are keeping the customer happy.


Good point by doja. In other instances I have seen electrical interference on a bunch of different electronics before due to being near a main power wire even with shielded wire.

[Spawn Sack]

Well, I doubt the issues I was having with it were due to a botched install (electrical interference) as it worked totally fine for all of last year's boating. And when I was trouble shooting with my transducer, and the loaner transducer, I had the wires laying on my boat floor just in case there was something going on where it was ran next to other wiring. The issue of it freezing up never went away. I'm no expert on electrical but I'm going to hazard a guess that if interference is going to come into play it will happen after the initial install, not a year later. IMO the head unit was f**cked after I had it in to get the GPS fixed under warranty. It was never the same after that despite having a new mother board put in.

Since it did the same thing with the loaner transducer the only logical conclusion is the head unit was buggy. And it tested totally fine in the repair shop. Awesome

Honestly don't think Id buy Hummingbird again. Guy at the repair shop more or less said this kind of thing is not uncommon with Hummingbird. Weird ghosts on the water, unit tests fine in the shop. Guy trouble shoots until the brink of insanity, then just buys a new one. Maybe other brands are no different? Down the road I think I'd try another brand.

Anyway fingers crossed for the free replacement! If it does the same thing I'm going to sell the boat and take up paddle board yoga

[doja]

Interference can be an immediate problem but induced voltages can shorten the life span of electronic parts (without any notice of problems)  or change the way they work.

Very possibly not the problem but it's odd it worked for a year then odd problems. Either the repair isn't right or the true problem hasn't been addressed. Should know with a brand new unit.... And a couple of years use, lol

New mother board but screen display or other components....