Front Sonar Question

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Dungee Fishing said:
Update, sitting here at Jordanelle as we speak waiting to load up, there is 50 million people here so I have time... I bought the Humminbird adaptor for the front sonar, I ran the transducer cable with the adaptor to the unit at the console and ran it just to see what would happen. Seems it’s confused... when plugged into the front it would read the depth way deeper than it actually was but the water temp was accurate. Also hard to tell about interference with the depth being so off. It was constantly reading about 80’ when it was only like 15’.

If that made sense to anyone does anyone have any input for that? It made me come to conclusion to have it professionally installed at the very least, and maybe to just bag the idea?

BTW, fishing was good.
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OK, I just put a small motorcycle sealed battery up front to run my 4" sonar and used the minn kota motor transducer. That would run the small sonar for two or three days with no problem. Now I upgraded to a new minn kota motor and it does not have a transducer, so I am not sure what I am going to do now.

Just wondering how the fishing was at Jordanelle. Looks like you caught at least one. Nice fish. Did you catch a lot of fish?
 
I have the DI GPS Helix 5 just like you do, and I wish I would've bought the 7. Side by side tied up with my buddy's boat who has the 7......from the swim platform I can't see mine good enough, his I can see clearly! I am thinking of upgrading the difference is so huge. By the way, the transducers ARE compatible with the 5's and 7's, as long as you are getting the same DI GPS model.
I keep waiting on a sale on the 7's, then I'll just swap, and sell my 5 with the new uninstalled transducer that comes with the 5 :cool:
 
Not Yet You Bet said:
Just wondering how the fishing was at Jordanelle. Looks like you caught at least one. Nice fish. Did you catch a lot of fish?
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Jordanelle has been great this year. It’s slowed down in July but up through June you could catch a good bag of smallies along with some nice browns and rainbows.
 
Not sure why your depth would be so far off.were you running both units at the same time? I had a lot of trouble in my Stratos with interference between my console and bow units while running them at the same time. I think it has to do with the transducers interfering with one another.
 
Meatwagon said:
Not sure why your depth would be so far off.were you running both units at the same time? I had a lot of trouble in my Stratos with interference between my console and bow units while running them at the same time. I think it has to do with the transducers interfering with one another.
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No both transducers weren’t running, maybe running the transducer cable to the unit at the console creates more interference though? About every ten seconds or so it would seem to jump to an appropriate depth reading. But then go right back. Another thing is, maybe the unit at the console which is DI, and GPS along with sonar confused it? Maybe just plugged into a sonar only unit is what’s needed?
 
Might Try Peeling Back The Casing And Taping Off The Bare Wires To See If It Helps. Could be a short. Something is definitely not right. I have run 3 units at once in my Triton, 2 lowrance hooks 1 off the trolling motor and 1 thru the hull and the Hummingbird off the transom all at the same time with very little interference. Hope you get it figured out, it's a huge benefit when fishing with a boat load of fisherman like you guys tend to do.
 
I know that you can have two cranking batteries and a perko switch to change from one to the other keeping them both charged up. Would it be possible to have battery “A” as the starter battery, charging, while “B” is dormant and running your finders. Then when you switch to “B” for cranking and charging, battery “A” is running the finders? Is there or could a switch be configured to do that? No interference as Doug stated and a “isolated” battery for the finders. Someone got a setup like that?
 
I did have that spot taped up previously. Not sure why it’s struggling so bad hooked up to the console... Still planning on getting a sonar unit, maybe even the DI unit now, and just putting the transducer it comes with on the trolling motor with the adaptor. DI unit is only $50 more...
 
BarzArz said:
We run the Helix 7 with SI on the console and right now a Lowrance Chirp 7 at the bow. The console is on all day and the bow finder is on most of the day. The Lowrance is a 1.1 amp draw and the Hummingbird Helix 7 SI G1 is 800 ma. so together less than 2 amps draw. If your battery is decent it should not be a factor. with only one finder, less than an amp, running 10 hours straight in the bass boat with only a cranking battery running everything, we have never seen pull our battery below 80% capacity. If your battery is in good shape and you charge it each night, or from your big motor alternator if you have some good runs during the day, you should not need to worry about your Fishfinder impact to battery capacity on a daily basis. I generally have a digital volt meter installed on anything with a battery and watch it, so I can monitor its condition, an OCD thing...
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Saw the low voltage warning sifting through the menu options. What voltage would be too low to start the motor? 11? 12?
 
Dungee Fishing said:
Saw the low voltage warning sifting through the menu options. What voltage would be too low to start the motor? 11? 12?
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I'm thinking these Helix 7s draw more than they say, I've seen the voltage dip below 11 after a few hours and the battery tests good before I run the sounder at 12.6. I still can start 60hp merc 4 stroke, but it is not how I want to do things.
 
Dungee Fishing said:
Saw the low voltage warning sifting through the menu options. What voltage would be too low to start the motor? 11? 12?
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Preston,

Generally it's held that the batteries (at least deep cycle) will last best if not drawn down below 50% charge, around 12.3 v, based on a full, at rest charge of 12.6. I set my low voltage alarm in that area, but the voltage drop on starting always momentarily drops below that which sets off my low voltage alarm. Each boat motor is likely different, but don't like to see it below 12.0.
 
My Hummingbird Helix 12 also shows low battery voltage after each start but as soon as I clear that the voltage on the screen shows proper voltage. I would not be concerned unless the voltage after the start shows low!
 
I have the seven at my console and the five on the bow hooked into a terrova, I had issues with everything you have experienced until I bought a dedicated battery for the two units, they both work excellent now, I have a hummingbird charger that is hooked in to recharge when I fire the main motor.
I hope that helps
 
Reeltor said:
I have the seven at my console and the five on the bow hooked into a terrova, I had issues with everything you have experienced until I bought a dedicated battery for the two units, they both work excellent now, I have a hummingbird charger that is hooked in to recharge when I fire the main motor.
I hope that helps
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How do you like the five at the bow? Can you seem to see it just fine etc?
 
Reeltor said:
I have the seven at my console and the five on the bow hooked into a terrova, I had issues with everything you have experienced until I bought a dedicated battery for the two units, they both work excellent now, I have a hummingbird charger that is hooked in to recharge when I fire the main motor.
I hope that helps
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Post the name or the charger model. It sounds like what i would like to plumb in to my batteries. Does it work off a perko type switch?
 
These are the Minn Kota chargers. MK-1-DC for a 1 battery 12 volt system, MK-2-DC for a 2 battery 12 or 24 volt system or a MK-3-DC for a 3 battery system. They work great, but only got 3 years out of my first one. 3 year warranty from the mfg. Sq
 
Squirrel said:
These are the Minn Kota chargers. MK-1-DC for a 1 battery 12 volt system, MK-2-DC for a 2 battery 12 or 24 volt system or a MK-3-DC for a 3 battery system. They work great, but only got 3 years out of my first one. 3 year warranty from the mfg. Sq
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Could the 3-dc have two leads to a 24 v trolling battery system and the 3rd lead to the “house” or finder battery, or is the 3-dc designed for the big 36 volt trolling systems with all three going to those batteries?
 
Been reading a lot more on this issue, my next concern would be if our cranking battery can run two units at once if needed and never worry about running the cranking battery too low. Ive seen here and other places recommend adding another battery but I dont really want to do that. Has anyone just upgraded to a group size 31 cranking battery? Ive seen that suggested with good results as well.

For reference I think a majority of the time if we switched to a size 31 crank the front sonar would be on while also running a couple of go pros? The only time we'd run both finders is if we were spooning? We are generally pretty cognoscente about not just leaving stuff on and or turning the engine on if stuff has been charging or running a while.
 
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