Topic: First test run yesterday!

[Weekend Warrior]

Wow!  That's all that needs to be said!  What amazing technology!  I spent six hours on our small lake yesterday and caught enough yellow perch for a nice dinner, but I spent more time gawking in amazement at what the side imaging view shows!  I'm sure my ability to interpret what I was seeing will improve with time, but still.....wow.  Every rock, stump, creek channel, schools of crappie(I think) lol.  I want to take a week off work and do nothing but play with it.

My motor does block the si to port as expected, but such a small vertical line in the water column really doesn't bother me.  I'm really looking at the bottom anyway and it picks up the bottom and most of the water column fine if I tilt the outboard up.

I did have one very minor question/annoyance.  I set the low voltage alarm to 9.5 volts(I just picked a number) and the low voltage alarm kept going off even when the digital readout was telling me over 12 or even 13 volts???  Any ideas?

Oh, I almost forgot.  I made my first way point and navigated right back to it later. LOL   I was really pleased with the 898's performance.

Mark

[sonar2000]

Could you have any other alarm set?
Is this a visual or an audiable alarm?  Or both?

Chuck

[Weekend Warrior]

Hi Chuck.  Both audio and visual if I remember right.  Beeping and a single line of text across the screen that said "Low Voltage Alarm" or something to that effect.....  I ended up just shutting it off.  I had the "Off Course Alarm" go off too, so I turned it off as well.  I don't need that anyway.  I can see if I'm off course.  lol

[ITGEEK]

Your voltage may have dropped in a nano second, then
sprung back up.  Just long enough to trip the alarm.

Could be a sign of a weak battery and/or loose connections.

[sonar2000]

OK, could not remember is the alarm was the same for any alarm. 
Not sure of the issue but recheck the power connections. a slight bumping of the contact might signal the unit to alarm but the display might not catch up to the short drop..
Havent seen any anything on false alarm.... it has always been a sure thing when the volts got low....
Let us know if you see (hear) anything else..

modify posting:
Opppsss sorry ITG, we both posted at the same time..

Chuck

[Weekend Warrior]

Thanks for the info guys, but like I said, it's really not an issue to me.  I almost always have two other batteries and a trolling motor on board in case of a low or failing battery.  Walleye comes in next Saturday, so I'm going to try and spend a few evenings this week honing my fish finding skills.  Water temp was ~53/54, so it won't be long before the crappie start moving up into the shallow flats to spawn too.

[Humminbird_Greg]

It may not be a issue to you right now WW but it will be if the unit starts shutting down while you are really needing it.  Check those electrical connections and consider running a new set of wires all the way back to the battery you are powering your unit off of (don’t forget the new in-line fuse and holder as well).  A little preventative maintenance now will prevent a spoiled fishing trip later.

[Humminbird_Greg]

Forgot to post that ITG is correct in that the unit can detect a very fast voltage drop and cause the alarm to sound faster than what it can show on the displayed voltage.

[Weekend Warrior]

@Greg, would cranking the outboard motor over cause this briefly?  The HB is getting power from the fuse panel mounted in the console, and the wiring back to the battery isn't real heavy, but it's at least of the same gauge as the power supply cord.  i will keep an eye on it and run a separate heavier, fused power supply if I need to.

I ran my live well pump for a good bit during the day too.  I will pay attention to what's going on in the boat if it happens again.

Thank you.

[sonar2000]

WW, yes sharing a battery is not a good idea with the HB's.  We have seen a lot of posts on this forum that suggest a separate battery for the HB,. Mostly because of interference, but if you have a shared battery cranking amps from the motor could drop the volts enough for the HB to see a loss.
I would follow previous suggestions and put the HB on its own battery. Of course dont forget the fuse..
Shared batteries are susceptible to a lot of influence..
Chuck

[Humminbird_Greg]

I think powering the unit off the cranking battery is not a bad idea as long as are is no interference issues.  Just be aware that if you run the cranking battery down you could have this happen again or even have the unit shut off.  Get your cranking battery load tested.  Make sure that is a large enough battery to crank your motor with and power your accessories.  I would also replace that smaller gauge wire with something heavier if you had to extend the original power cable wiring.