My fish finder blew up on sat. It's in for warranty repairs but I was wondering if anyone had any advice on this.

I hooked the fish finder (Lowrance X-51) up to an accesory plug on the throttle & starter control for a 1985 30hp Johnson OB. This came with the boat I just bought. When I tested it in my driveway without the engine running it worked fine. However, on Sat when I started the engine on the water the finder immediately started flickering and acting strange. After a few minutes of running it shut down entirely.

I turned the unit off for the rest of the day. When I got home, I hooked it up to a 12V lantern battery and got nothing. Took it to the shop & hooked it up to the simulator but still got nothing. The 3 ampin-line fuse looks fine.

Anyone heard of anything like this before? When it comes back from Lowrance I am planning to wire it directly to the battery but now I'm worried I am missing something. Might the same thing happen even direct to the battery? It looks like a fairly standard dual-purpose battery.

Thx, Sideoff

I just bought the Eagle 320Df and I hooked it straight to my battery. No problems. Its been in for over a month. Had my last finder, Hummingbird, hooked up the same way. That was in for 6 years. Hope this help.

Erndog

check your ground wire. make as short as possible.

(theory)Try hooking up a volt and or amp meter to the same place your fish finder was wired, some of those accories places may be desinged to be hooked up to a amp meter or voltage meter and when starting the motor shows the negative draw, which could of taken power away from the fish finder damanging it?

For all of my electronics, VHF, GPS, 2 fish finders, AM/FM/Cassette, accessory plug, etc., I put in a fuse box because there never was one on the boat. This way you have only two or three wires at each terminal on your battery, not the 8 I had when I got the boat.

I forget the size of the wire I ran to the fuse box, but it is about 1/4" in diameter, pretty heavy stuff, but it was recommended by the instructions.

This makes adding new accessories or chasing down electrical problems quick and easy, and fuses are all in th same spot, just like your vehicle.. 12 volt wiring is simple, but study up a bit if you have fancy wiring, and don't just rip everything out, then try to fix it.

Send the fishfinder back, get the warranty work done, get a marine grade fuse box, place the fuse box out of the weather, accessible, but out of harms way, and start over.

I can take a picture and post it if you need help.

One other note, whenever you buy screws, go stainless or silicon bronze.

Andy

Great stuff. Thanks guys. I am going to go with the fuse box as I may add some other accessories as well & I like the idea of just running one wire to the battery. Will pick one up tomorrow at West Marine. Still can't understand how I could have blown the old one with an inline fuse but based on the above it sounds like the problem is with the control wiring, which I would just assume not mess around with... Thanks again.

sideoff

you have a charging system on that outbourd?

I would want it checked before I pluged anymore expensive electronics into the curcuit.

The manufacturer will hopefully give you an idea what went wrong.Being that it works fine untill you introduce the motor i.e charging curcuit into the loop I would suspect the charging curcuit is at fault.

just a thought.

I would also recomend staying away from crimp conectors on boat wiring and solder and heat hrink your connections.

Cleo,

If there is a problem in the charging system and I go straight to the battery--i.e. skip the accessory plug on the starter controls--is there any risk of damage to the electronics?

This is an older boat and as long as the charging system is keeping the battery charged up, which it appears to be doing, I would be happy to just let it be even if it's not perfect. If, however, this could cause a problem for my accessories when directly connected to the battery then I guess I will either have to check it out or just run the accec. off a seperate rechargeable 12V battery. Thx.

I would wire the boatup just like you plan.

Next trip out [can you run it in the driveway?]leave the fuse out on the sonar unit.Take a meter with you and connect it to the two poles of the batery.Check the voltage at the battery with the engine runnning at differant rpms.I am not amiliar with the charging system specifics on an outbourd but I would suspect that your meter should not show any voltages higher than 14.5VDC.Idealy around 12.5vdc-13.vdc.Anything above14.5vdc would indicate a bad regulator.

I am no expert this is just what I would do.

I can run it in the driveway with earmuffs. The unit is supposed to arrive today and I am planning to fiddle around with it this evening. I'll throw a voltage meter on the list of stuff to pickup on the way home (spark plugs... new downrigger.... new gas tank... does it ever end?) Thanks again for the tips!

The only problem running straight off the battery would possibly be if your charging system is over charging and it is getting too much voltage. Unlikely, I would think but possible. I run my depthfinder from a seperate battery, actually a jump starter with a cigarette lighter plug on it. Handy if the battery is dead, too!

Thanks for the advice everyone! Last night I hooked up the newly replaced unit straight to the battery and very cautiously (i.e. one hand on the plug) started the engine in the driveway. It seemed to work fine. No flickering or other symptoms that happened right before it blew up last time. On the water tomorrow will be the real test but so far, so good!

Steve, as you might have guessed from the above, I just upgraded from the inflatable. A late 1970's 15' Livingston center console with a single V-Hull and a 30 hp Johnson. Considerably more comfortable than the Avon and not as many strange looks :-) See you on the water!

Oh yeah, and a quick plug for Lowrance for the quick warranty turnaround. I shipped them the broken unit on Monday and had a new unit by Thursday morning. That's some seriously good service!

Excellent, Pete! Glad to hear it, the strange looks were more looks of concern, I am sure! I'll look for you, you will blend in much better though, so if I don't recognize you give a shout. You looked like a guy standing in an innertube anyway!!

Gee, now you'll have to pay launch fees!