Topic: Install issue...

[Vlad T. Impaler]

I bought a 798ci SI about a month ago - I installed the 'ducer on the back of the boat, used the wiring from the previous sonar (Eagle X50) and everything is working just fine.  I then went out and bought a new trolling motor (Minn Kota PowerDrive V2 w/Universal Sonar and iPilot) and then bought a new mount for the front of the boat so that I can put the sonar on the bow when trolling around.

The wiring from the TM 'ducer is pre-rigged, I just had to buy the adapter from the sonar cable to the Humminbird hookup - no problem with that.  The only thing left to do was to hookup the power.  I have a tilt button for the main motor on the bow which constantly has power to it, so I tied into that to provide the power.  I hooked up the head and powered on the unit and everything worked as intended.

The next day, I took the boat out on a local lake where I cannot use the main motor (HP restriction).  After launching and puting the trolling motor in the water, I hooked up the head and powered on the unit.  Again, no problems... I cycled through several screens with no problems, everything worked the way it should.  However, after about 15 minutes, I look down again at the sonar and the screen is off - I figure it's the pins on the power cord (I had the problem on the original mount, too), so I just power the unit back on and am surprised to hear a continuous "beeeeep" and the screen is nothing but horizontal lines of black and white.

Paranoid that the unit is suddenly trash, I hookup to the original mount and everything powers up just fine, everything works as it should.  No matter which mount I use, the power comes from the same battery (in other words, I am not tied into the trolling motor batteries which runs 24v), so I'm kind of confused about why it suddenly stopped working and hasn't worked right since.

Any suggestions or ideas what the problem could be?  Thanks in advance for any input.

Wayne

[Vlad T. Impaler]

 

No ideas?

[sonar2000]

for start, check all connections very carefully. Including the transducer.  You might try a bench test in the garage. Just a battery and the unit. See if it comes up in demo mode.

Chuck

[Vlad T. Impaler]

Well, I found the problem - it seems the wire I tied into for the power to the 798 is only supplying around 8v, although I cannot explain why.  Both the console mount and the bow mount are connected to the same battery, I can't figure out why the console mount works perfectly, but the bow mount is only getting 8v to it.

Any ideas?

[Wayne P.]

Where did you get the negative ( - ) connection? The tilt switch has only one positive 12V+ wires to it and no negative 12V-. The other two wires on the tilt switch are to send that 12V+ to the trim relays for up and down.
If you used one of the relay wires for the negative you are getting a resistance to negative ( - ) thru the solenoid coil.

[Vlad T. Impaler]

Well, that's the problem... I need to get a proper ground.  Thanks for the info - and now that I know what I did wrong,  I'll get that fixed ASAP!