Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: Spawn Sack on June 25, 2017, 09:38:54 AM
-
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
-
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. ;D
This would make a good story for tv's B&W 60s Twightlight Zone. Sci Fi
-
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....
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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...
-
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%)
-
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 >:(
-
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.
-
--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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
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 :o
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 ???
-
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....
-
Modern thought is do not make quality product to last too long so people will buy & replace...
Fridges tv computer washing & dryer machine cell phone vehicle.... ( might as well throw in leaky condo ) outboards,reels....
-
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....
I hear what you're saying. Just to be on the safe side I'm going to have my voltage regulator and so on tested. Make sure there is nothing going on that could/will cook the replacement unit.
Modern thought is do not make quality product to last too long so people will buy & replace...
Fridges tv computer washing & dryer machine cell phone vehicle.... ( might as well throw in leaky condo ) outboards,reels....
Yup I agree. One thing that Hummingbird said blew me away. Part of the reason I got a new head unit and transducer. I quoted what the rep said to the manager who I later spoke with. Basically I said so you're telling me that it's not uncommon for a 600 dollar FF to crap out after a year as it sat in the box for a while before I bought it??? Manager was like....ahh yeah no we stand behind our products more than that...
Thank you for contacting Humminbird Customer Service.
Going by the date of purchase you listed in the questionnaire when you originally posted the email it shows Thursday, January 21, 2016 as your purchase date. Going by that no we can not replace a transducer at no charge when the unit is out of warranty by the purchase date. We do not go by the install date but the date your purchase it that's when your warranty starts. And I do understand your frustration and the inconvenience of it failing after a year. However this kind of thing is not rare or uncommon especially if the unit/transducer sat for a while before being purchased. So in the end if you have to replace the transducer then you will need to replace that we can not warrant a no charge replacement .
-
Another thing is boats are subjected to impacts, lots of sun exposer, water... It's not a easy life for them or their electronics.
You might also be a able to get filters to help clean the power supply as I belive I've heard of this option before from another forum if running it all from a same battery/power source but don't quote me as %100 correct on this... I've seen come crazy cupcakes from power surges destroying electronics and components of expensive things (fridges, coolers, etc), voltage issues causing things to be less than optimal for devices. I imagine boats have lots of issues as they are rode hard, and usally put away wet.
I always recommend going over the electrical parts and make sure it looks ok, is tight (check all the connections on the main lines (very important), are the battery's past due or other parts as the vibrations and impacts, and temperatures changes plus time will shake things up much faster. Problems on the water suck! Problems on the river.... Even worse...
I imagine the regulator is ok unless you notice any brightening of lights/dimming and such, but definitely check the battery and if it's old you can test it or just replace it.... Boat battery's are notoriously beaten on and not taken care of and it helps stabilize the power by providing a true DC current (and stable power supply) vs a rectified current which some devices may not like like my inverter (120v) and certain electronics that won't work on a modified wave (my one heating pad will, the other no) . Poor connections interfere with everything... And fairly easy to check.
-
Thanks Doja, good advice. I'll ask the shop about filters and so on, good idea. Also going to get them to test my charging system, make sure nothing is screwy. The battery in the boat is brand new. Old one was "fine" but failed the load test so I replaced it just in case. Guy at the shop said unlikely it is my charging system based on my description of the problem. But you never know and the last thing I want is the same issues with the replacement! So I'm going to have it all checked out. I spent several days farting with the original one, several trips from Chilliwack to Abby getting the head unit and transducer tested. Going on holidays soon, will have to leave boat with the shop and have them sort it out/install. Excited but nervous to get the replacement in and test it out :o
-
http://www.glanglerforum.com/forum/showthread.php?9777-fishfinder-noise-alternator-filter
Some interesting info here...
-
So, got my new head unit and transducer from Hummingbird the other day. Took just over a month. I was too busy to install myself, plus I wanted my charging system tested to make sure something on my boat had not buggered my last fish finder up. So I took my boat to the local river boat shop I deal with and trust. Told them please test everything that could possibly cause this new fish finder to glitch out (voltage regulator, etc) and install the new one.
Picked it up today. Took it out to the local lake for a test run. Much to my shock and disbelieve the replacement head unit and transducer does the EXACT SAME THING that the original one did! Sigh....
I could handle if it lost bottom and regained it right away when I slowed down, but it stays locked on 1 foot deep. Just like the original. Even if I slow right down and put it in neutral it stays locked on 1 foot. Even turning the motor off will not fix it. The only thing that works is to turn it off and back on.
So strange as the original FF worked 100% fine all last year. Yes if I went over shallow water at 30 mph it would lost bottom for a second, but would regain it right away as soon as I was back in deeper water. The replacement head unit and transducer stays sort of "stunned" as soon as it looses bottom. It will stay like this, reading "1 foot" for several minutes. Some times it will snap back and read the proper depth without having to restart it, other times it needs a restart.
WFT?!!
The only remaining idea I have is....maybe it's the power CORD. I have a brand new high end battery (AC Delco), brand new head unit and transducer. And I had the same shop install it who installed the original with flawless results. However Hummingbird did not give me a new power cable, so we reused the original one.
On the original install the shop cut the cable short and put a female connection on. This goes to a male connection under my dash. I have been told this is the "right" way to wire in a FF as it can not kill the battery if the key is not in the ignition when not in use. Could there be something glitchy up with this cable, or with my ignition system?
-
A friends finder is shyte too if you don't auto zoom to a specific depth and going under 5mph. Try that while going at a slower speed and see what happens
-
Well, it appears the issue has some how magically sorted it's self out. So bizarre. Took the boat out yesterday determined to sort this out once and for all! Brought with me an extra 12V battery to run the FF on. Also brought my newly purchased power cord as the original is set up to connect into my wiring harness and will not work with the male end terminals on the separate battery. Also brought my camera and mini tripod that you can strap to something; I affixed it to one of the bars on my bimini top and set the camera up to roll tape on my FF screen. I thought...the shop looks at me like I'm on crack when I tell them how it is glitching out...so I'm going to get some video footage dammit!
With the boat in the water I hit record and got up on plane. Expecting it to cut out and stay frozen on "1ft" it would not! It worked 100% fine. It's like it knew it was being video recorded so decide to be on its best behavior :o I got off/on plane at least a dozen times, did some sharp turns, etc and could not reproduce the results I have been having for months.
I decided, well, I brought this damn battery with me and bought this new damn power cord, so I'm going to at least try it out. Running off the isolated battery at first it glitched out like it was doing before. Suddenly lost bottom going about 5mph and stayed frozen on "1ft." But then it got bottom back and never glitched out again. I ripped around for about 30 min on this battery and it performed flawlessly aside from the glitch out at the beginning.
I decided why run 2 batteries if I don't need to, so I re-connected the power cord going to the main battery and ran it again like this. I could not get it to glitch out despite cranking some high speed turns, going on/off plane, zooming over shallow water, etc.
I'm happy as now it's working fine, but baffled as I did nothing to the set up powered off the main battery, and now it's magically working without issue. Oh well all is well that ends well. Just hope the damn thing stays like this and does not crap out on me when I need it most.
Thanks again to all that commented on this and tried to help me troubleshoot this POS. :)
-
This whole trend had the dramatics of a tv reality show.
Super it's working & your a satisfied camper.
( gee wonder if it will work next trip out )
If not then we can blame N Korea or China or Iran or Russia.
One of their subs in local waters.
You definitely put the boat thru it's paces try to get the FF screw up.
-
Haha yeah no doubt. Honestly I've lost confidence in the damn thing. Would not be surprised - as others have reported - if it let's me down when I need it most. Exploring in shallow water, trying to find just the right spot to anchor up for sturgeon, etc. I've always been a fan of Hummingbird but after my experience with their customer service department I would buy another brand next time. On the other hand if one does have issues the repair center is close by in Abby (Mike's Reel Repair), and I'm guessing the other brands have similar mediocre customer service.