Topic: 898c shuting off and screen going dark .Not a month old yet !

[hang_14]

I have not had my unit a month yet and it has acted funny since the second time out , 1 st time it shut off was when I had it zoomed in on the right side of SI and went to slide over to the left side to look at a log , It just powered off . then like 5 days later it would work fine then I would look at it and the screen would just go dim and you could just barely see anything . I would have to power it off then back on to see anything . You could not turn the light up cause it showed to be on 10 still . Now the unit will come on sometimes and then sometimes it will not come on at all. I am going out to day and check my fuse box for any bad connections . Should the unit be ran strait to the battery using a 3 amp fuse or leave it wired to my fuse box in the boat . Is there a update needed on my unit , like i said it is brand new from tackle warehouse.  thanks for any help or insight to a cure. Sure hope I didn't mess up going with HB always had good luck with them before.

[ITGEEK]

This sounds like a power issue.

Going straight to the battery with an inline fuse is a more direct connection that
is easily diagnosed.  Also, it has been suggested on this forum that you should use
the spade type automotive fuses, rather than the round glass type.
The spade type have beefier connections.

Also, make sure your battery is fully charged, and load tested.

A quick power check would be to hook the unit to a known good battery,
like a car, for instance.

[hang_14]

Thanks for the reply , That is the fuse  I am using and I am going to run new wire to the battery and check that out . Then if that don't work it looks like i will be sending it off lol . Hope that fixes it Cause it would be a shame to pay $1500.00 for some thing to mail back and forth to be fixed . I really need the thing in my tournaments but things happen .  thanks again for your help and hope some one else may have some info on this . it shows to have the 6.180 file on it. I was testing it in the garage a few Min's ago it stayed on for about 10 Min's before shutting down then i turned it back on and it stayed for about 1 min then off again . it is on its own fuse and nothing else running in the boat.

[ITGEEK]

If the unit is shutting off in a garage (without the boat moving), this
leads me to believe the battery is bad.
Intermittent problems are often because of power issues.
Also, the connectors on HB units are rinky dink.
Sometimes, slight movements will cause the power to be interrupted.

You can try bending the metal tabs on the power connections out a little
for a better connection (DO NOT BEND BOTH OUT AT THE SAME
TIME ON THE HOT WIRE OR YOU WILL BLOW A FUSE).

I wouldn't send the unit back until you've thoroughly tested
the power connections and battery.

Also, I don't care how new your battery is or if "you know it's good".
If you can't load test it yourself, then take it to advance auto,-trak auto,-pep boys,
and have them test it for you.  You first want to make sure it's fully charged.

Good Luck.

[hang_14]

Thank you for your reply .I am going to buy a new battery just for the unit to be safe , but will low power cause the unit to just go threw the shut down on its own . I kinda thought if it was losing power it would just go off like turning off the power to it. the unit is hooked to my starting battery now and it always show full volts for a 12 volt battery. My boat is a 192 SP procraft with the 150 OPTA .

[ITGEEK]

So,
You're saying that the unit goes through the shut down sequence?
I might have misunderstood the problem.
A bad battery will allow the unit to boot-up, then periodically
the unit will just go black, and have to be re-booted again.

There may be some other issues with your unit.
I would say to first make sure you don't have any power issues or
loose connections. Once the obvious problems are eliminated, then.
you can continue checking.

One quick check would be to hook your unit up to a car battery.
You may not need a new battery.

A fully charged battery should show 12.5+ volts.
That only means it's fully charged, it doesn't mean the battery
is actually any good.  It may not be able to sustain a load.

[hang_14]

When it shutsdown on me it goes threw the shutting down sequence like if i was holding in the power btn. I think unless some thing is jacked up in my fuse box that there is going to be an issue with the unit . I'm going out this evening when the 105 deg weather breaks and hook it up to its own battery and give it a run threw to see how long it will stay on .It has kinda not been 100% since the day I got it but from the reviews on the 6.180 program (that it came installed with) I was hoping for a new update soon figured that was the little bugs that I had with the unit. It has done some crazy shutdowns before by just moving to cursor over to zoom in and thing like that and a few times the screen has gone dark and you could see the unit was still on but very hard to see the images had to reboot to fix the brightness . thanks for your help and I have talked with them at HB and told them what was up and that I am going to try a new battery just for the unit and if that don't fix it I will be sending it to them . I'm going to hope for the new battery fix but with my luck it don't look good , The fish are deep here now and when i need it most its shutting down lol .

[Bob B]

ITgeek is right, intermittent problems are VERY often caused by a power issue.....when you said the battery showed 12V, was that the voltage reading on the 898 itself?  If it is, you are probably OK with your power.

There have been some software problems reported, but none like you are describing that I know of...If your new battery doesn't resolve it, give HB customer service a call.......but not Monday AM, they are very busy then.

[hang_14]

Well I just came in after rewiring it strait to the battery and Not threw my fuse box in the dash of the boat, and it worked fine for 1 and 1/2 hrs of playing with it watching recorded video's that I had recorded and no glitches or shutdowns at all , thank goodness lol . I am going to use it as much as i can over the week end and Monday to give it a good testing but as of now it seems maybe to have been some problem with the section of the fuse box that I had it hooked to . Maybe when I was running the boat it would lose contact or gain it and cause the unit to shut off not sure if that's possible but that seems to be the only logic that I can see unless it just had a good spell and didn't crash yet . I will update back Monday if it keeps going good or if she crashes I'll update then . thanks to every one here for the info and help . A great bunch over here Thanks again and hope that fixed it .

[ITGEEK]

It's possible you have some corrosion or loose connection
in the fuse box, that after some time heats up the wire.
This would cause the voltage to drop.
Also, you may have something else on that circuit running
that you are not aware of (clock maybe), that could add to
the wire heat.

Now, it looks like you are all set.
Just put an inline fuse on the hot wire of the unit (3 amps), and you are good.

[hang_14]

   It seems to be all good no problems with the last 2 trips out . thanks again to all the help guys .

[Bob B]