sonar blackout

[captn-tin]

went out today to try out my new ,self installed (oh..oh) lowrance 332c. gps worked great, but the sonar only gave me black and blue with horizontal striations. i checked the transducer position and it looked good. the instructions say to route the transducer cable away from other wiring. can someone please tell me how far away is. is it just so the cable isin't touching any other wires or do they have to be separated by a certain distance? all the units wires and cables come up thru the same hole in the dash anyway.any thoughts as to what else might be happening? ......... thanx...Bill

 

[Boatist]

Re: sonar blackout

I do not think your problem is likely to be and interference problem. To check it get out on the water and shut everything down. Turn the engine off, blowers, VHF Radio, ect. Just turn every thing off. With every thing off if it still the same then it not and interference problem. If with every thing off it works then turn one device on at a time till you find the problem.<br /><br />Is the LMS 332C a new unit?<br /><br />Does it work when your dead in the water and not work when your moving?<br /><br />Check all the connections, make sure there no plastic over a contact. Even if every thing looks good disconect and reconnect. Check the cable from end to end and make sure it did not get cut while pulling it in. Since it Coax make sure does not have any sharp kinks. Check the power connection and the battery voltage, tranducer needs a lot more power than the GPS module. Try changing the sensitivy settings. Turn the sensitivity up slowly till you see the bottom signal turn red and see lots of false signals. Go into the menus and try reseting to defaults. Call Lowrance. Dont expect the unit to look like all the fake demos you see. Could just be a defective transducer.<br /><br />Come back and tell us what fixed the unit or what Lowrance says.

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

the 332c is a new unit. unit worked when at anchor with all other power off, even showed depth and temp. the screen is not black as in turned off black, but like covered with black dots {like inteference)? checked for bad and kinked wires and cables but found none.i had the sensitivity set at 85%. i'm going to put in the water sat. and play with it some more. i'll re set all to default values when i put it in the water and tinker with it tomorrow. question..i fused the power cable and connected directly to battery as per book. the book did not say to or not to fuse the gps module, so i 3amp fused it for safety. could this cause a problem? i'll let you know if i figure it out tomorrow, if not, i'll give lowrance a call monday.... thanks for input...Bill

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

forgot to mention. i powered the gps module thru the acc. switch on the dash, as per book....Bill

 

[Boatist]

Re: sonar blackout

Great Idea to run everything thru a fuse. Since it worked with all the power off it could be interferance problem. As far as interferance sources the TACH wire and the wire to the coil I would supect as most likely sources. Also engine alternator. These would only effect unit when motor is running. Again turn one thing on at a time until you find the source of any interferance.<br />I do not know how hard it is to pull the wires back out and just run acrossed the deck to get them away from other wires to help isolate the problem. Interfearence can come from the power cable or the transducer cable. Sometimes a ferite bead on the power cable will eliminate high frequency interfearence.<br /><br />My unit I ran the power and transducer cable right along with the 30 or so other wires and had no interfearence with my depth finder. My depth finder does cause some interference on channel 72 of My VHF radio.<br /><br />Also try turning the sensitivity down. <br /><br />Just for information for others, how easy is it to read your color screen out in the sunshine?<br /><br />I wish I could get out this weekend and do a little Sturgeon fishing but I on call for 2 weeks.<br /><br /><br />Good Luck

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

i have'nt had the unit out in sun yet but i'll let you know how it shows when i do......Bill

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

is it possible to tell the difference between turbulance and electrical interferance on the sonar screen ? thanx bill

 

[imported_Curmudgeon]

Re: sonar blackout

Turbulance is irratic, and usually on the surface. Interference is usually full screen and vertical in nature. Both can be lessened with a gain reduction (to a certain point).

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

I havent't got it going right yet, but want to take a moment to thank all of you for the input. I'm jottin it all down and aiming to go out today(weather [permitting)to see what happens. Thanx again....Bill

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

just looking at the wiring diagram for the 332c. it shows both the hot and ground wires going straight to the battery. when i hooked mine up(i'm speaking of the sonars power cable)i hokked the ground wire to a common ground on the fus box. is this o.k. to do? could i be picking interference through the ground? thanx..bill

 

[imported_bjs]

Re: sonar blackout

sensitivity may be set to high play with that to.also you need to hook up at the batt.like the book says.

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

took the boat out today. it seems by running the ground wire directly to battery (you know, like the manual says) my problems for the most part are solved! <br />by the way the 332c shows up very well in the sunlight we had today.<br /> to all who helped thanx alot....bill

 

[Boatist]

Re: sonar blackout

Good job in finding the problem and thanks for the report on how it looks in the sunshine. I think Lowrance is still the best in the sunlight for a color units.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: sonar blackout

I am getting used to a Lowrance 48 sounder. I have operated it several times in cold water. I found that if I leave it on AUTO it sets the gain way too high and just covers the screen with stuff; course I am in shallow < 20' of water. So I have to go to manual and back off to about 50% and it works much better.<br /><br />I Had Lawrence when they first came out and after that always had Hummingbird. This came with the boat and I'm not sure I'm pleased with it. I liked the bird.<br /><br />On interference, if you killed everything and it was ok and wasn't when you powered things up you are suffering from electrical interference problems, as compared to mechanical bubble problems.<br /><br />Your question about the common ground could be valid. Depends on how much trash is being sent back to the battery from other things.<br /><br />If you find that that's the case, 2 things would help:<br /><br />1. Return the sounder's ground directly to the battery - terminal. May be a pain.<br /><br />2. Go to Radio Shack and get a 50 cent 0.1 microfarad ceramic disc capacitor rated at 50 volts or so. Will physically be smaller than 2 dimes together. Install it, solder it in across the power lines to the sounder, ) as close to the unit as you can with leads as short as you can get. Leads, either power or capacitor, act like little antennas and can pickup interference. Course if your interference is "conducted emissions" picked up from other cables while running side by side, the lead length is not that important, but still important.<br /><br />The capacitor acts like a short circuit across your power lines for high frequencies, but does not affect the dc power.<br /><br />Your boat's ignition is the main culprit. To fire the plugs it puts out 10's of thousands of volts in 40 millionths of a second. That amounts to a lot of noise potential. Radio's and things usually have well filtered power lines, but the boats wiring can act as an antenna and can pick up interference from the radio's antenna.<br /><br />Still thinking. Another option may be to route the engine's cables directly to the battery and everything else run off your remote buss. And don't tie the engine's power cables into a bundle with other cables. When you run cables bundled up together the bad ones can talk to the good ones.<br /><br />HTH,<br /><br />Mark

 

[captn-tin]

Re: sonar blackout

TEXASMARK... when you speak of "gain", are you speakin about sensitivity? Maybe I need sensitivity training.<br /><br />thanx...Bill

 

[cuzner]

Re: sonar blackout

Kinda late for to jump in....2 years ago after instaling a matrix ff, I had a simular problem. The first season I tried almost everything to fix it, nothing worked.Last year I ran all new wires to a new fuse panel I mounted just for electronics ( The origonal on the boat was in a spot that made it unaccesable). and it works like it should now. Must of been getting interference from somewhere?... Glad you got it figured out!<br /><br /> Jim

 

[Texasmark]

Re: sonar blackout

Meat man.....grin.<br /><br />Yes. Gain...sensitivity. <br /><br />Trying to read between the lines, but OEM's build stuff for all of us; well that could mean that I am off Alaska trolling for halibut in 300' of water, or in Lake Bonham, Texas looking for Crappie at 10. So they have this depth finder that a consumer bought expecting satisfaction.<br /><br />How they do it I dunno......<br /><br />Mark