Fish finder maintenance

seaslug · #1 05-10-2007, 05:37 PM

After flooding my kayak various ways I find my fish finder (Garmin 160C) lights up, simulates, etc. but does not read anything.

I have cleaned, scraped, dried, sprayed with WD-40, etc. and still no go on 2 trips. Has to be in the cable or the power. I know when the battery gets low the FF still shows up but does not read fish.

Since the transponder is permanently mounted inside the hull it is not possible to take the whole cable and finder to another area to try.

Never knew there were so many ways to fill a Hobie without taking water through a crack in the hull.

Steve

PerryC · #2 05-10-2007, 08:15 PM

Steve,
Did the actual head of the unit ever get doused? Does the power connection to the battery have spade lugs that slip onto flat connections, or are they a ring connection that goes around a battery terminal? Is everything finger tight at least?

Backing up though, make sure you don't have something like the depth range set for 400-600 feet of something like that, or the sensitivity set to zero, or some setting way off. See what happens if you turn everything you can to "Auto" mode. Have you visited their website for a troubleshooting section?

Most ff units if they don't see the puck will warn you, so that may not be the problem. If it's power related, it more often a bad crimp or splice or corrosion that does not let all the available amps in the battery reach the unit per say. If you have terminals/splices and the tools, you may cut off the battery connections and see if the actual power wire has corrosion in the strands. Corrosion will leech up the actual wire inside the insulation several feet and make it unusable.

Or, it could be the harness is bad also. With so much coming in from China and who knows where, wiring harnesses are being made abroad in abundance and we used to see alot of bad ones at work. Hope this helps,
Perry

seaslug · #3 05-10-2007, 10:42 PM

Perry:
Head of unit not doused but connections all doused. I have the unit in front with the cable going all the way to back for power. I will look at pulling the cable to the back as far as it goes and shortening the small gauge wires going to the battery (via spade lugs). If that does not work I will take a separate battery to the front for the FF.

I believe I have tried all of the resets to factory and other tests to the settings. The large plug on the unit back was getting corrosion and I cleaned that up and was working fine for a few trips. The small connector in the bottom of the yak (I thought it had a fuse in the connector) turned out to be a 5 or 6 pin plug. It has sat in there totally immersed during several trips and I had never opened it. After I had the malfunction I finally opened it. It was quite corroded.

Cleaned it up but made no difference. Cleaned again after next trip. I will find out tomorrow if it worked this time.

Incredible · #4 05-12-2007, 05:43 PM

Hey, SeaSlug sorry to hear the fish finder is not working. Perry is right about the corrosion on the cables and connections. Salt water can do a number on that stuff in no time at all. If that turns out to be the problem try switching your connections to two post water proof trailer plugs for the power connections. I have the plug soldered directly to the terminals on a 12 volt 7 amp hour battery. Then give the connections a good coating of some marine grade silicone to seal them. Do the same thing with any splice connections in the circuit. This is how we used to keep our comunications and underwater electronics working in my offshore days. This will save you the worry if your system takes a dunk in the future. Hope this helps a little.

seaslug · #5 05-13-2007, 07:00 AM

Thanks Perry & Incredible. I mentioned elsewhere that Garmin is sending me a new cable. That leaves only one small connector that I have cleaned as well as possible. If this doesn't work I will have to send the unit in for trouble-shooting.

Talking to Garmin I found out that the beam should be set at Narrow for shallow water which is counter-intuitive.

seaslug · #6 05-22-2007, 09:16 PM

New cable came in and works fine on land - hope to see it working soon on the water.

Steve

seaslug · #7 05-28-2007, 06:24 PM

Out of Coast Guard this am with new cable. Reset, adjusted, reset, changed settings, etc. Finally worked beautiful for three hours. As I was coming back in it went off settings again. Who knows.

Garmin was great sending me the new cable free with no hassle at all.

Did catch one very small spottie across from CG Station. Saw a few caught including one decent sand bass over by the mooring area.

Sea dogs in the water and on the docks.
Steve