Graph problems x 85

[Walleye hunter]

I have a x85 mounted on my maxxum trolling motor and ever time the foot pedal switch is pressed the screen gets black lines on it and it will loose bottem reading occasionally.
I have made sure the power goes to the cranking battery and have had the motor into minnkota and totally rebuilt. also have tried fused ground link and different transducers but none of this helps
I have also tried switching counsels and still does not make a difference.
Just wondering if anybody would have an idea on what to do next.
Ready to trade up.

[bassman]

Did you try different frequencies? I had a cheap bottomline once attached to my minkota, and the same thing happened...that was just loose connections. Thats all i can say.

[Texeye]

Hunter,if you keep the pedal depressed will your graph line back out?Most of the time this is voltage related so you might want to examine the switch to make sure contacts are not worn and causing a voltage drop or arcing when you depress the pedal. Just a thought.

[Walleye hunter]

Thanks guys I tried the different freqiunces and had the motor over to minkota and they did find loose connections on the foot switch but didn't seem to help.
And Texeye the screen doesn't go totaly black just has lots of lines running vertically. Gets hard to see any bottem or fish. when you don't have the button depressed the screen reads just fine.
Well thanks for the insight.

[Mike Stack]

I had this same problem with my lms 350 the screen would go black and was just about useless.What seemed to fix it was to set the surface clutter to low or medium I can't exactly remember and then I mounted my transducer to the scag of the trolling motor.I had the high speed transducer.Know I have go quality screens 99% of the time.

[Heye5]

Have you tried insulating the transducer from the motor with a piece of bicycle inner tube or something similar?
Heye5

[Dave in Mpls]

If it is only doing this when the trolling motor is on, my guess is the sonar is picking up electrical interference from the motor. As another post suggests, try insulating the transducer from the motor housing.

Regards

[Walleye hunter]

Thanks for the info i did put on a noise filter from radio shack and seemed to help. But i will try insulating the transducer bracket from the motor with a piece of intertube.

[Dr Walleye]

Walleye Hunter I have the same problem. I contacted Minn Kota and they told me to connect the negative side of the cranking battery (which is power to the graph) to the negative side of the 24v trolling motor battery and install a 200ma fuse. I also installed a RF choke. When the ice goes off I will let you know how it works. Below is some info I found tonight from Don Lovino. It doesn't look good for the X85

A couple of things people have problems with, is their interference. Most of the transducers before this year had 192 kHz, but 192 kHz had the same radio frequency as the trolling motors with the pulse width modulation speed control in them. So when you turn the trolling motor on and the faster you went, the less kHz you had and the slower you went the more kHz you had. For most of us, when we’re fishing with a trolling motor we’re not going very fast. This year they came out with a 200 kHz transducer, which only works on their new sonar units, which is very unfortunate, but it will eliminate some of your interference. The ones that you had with 192 kHz especially create a lot of interference on your trolling motor if it has a P.W.M. rheostat, because the radio frequencies are the same. You hear a lot about the RF choke, which means the radio frequency condenser. It’s sort of like a condenser. What it does is, it tries to eliminate some of the interference. When you push your foot down on a pedal you get that black line. It’s really hard to eliminate that. A lot of it has to do with the wiring of your batteries. One thing you can do is you can always wire all of your grounds to the ground of your main battery. Don’t wire the grounds to the trolling motor battery. Put everything on the main battery for all the accessories. That will help some. The other thing is that when you set your sensitivity don’t set it too high, maybe around 70%.

[Dave in Mpls]

Question for Walleye Hunter and Dr Walleye:

Are you guys experiencing this problem with the PD series transducers (pod style) mounted directly to the motor housing or the HS (high speed) style mounted to a bracket slightly below the housing?

The reason I ask is that I have an extra NIB X-85 which I was planning on mounting at the bow on a MK AP-65 in leau of the Lowrance 2330 which is currently up front. I was planning on using the supplied HS tranducer and applicable mount.

Just wondering if I should be expecting the same interference. Is anybody currently running a Lowrance 192 KHz system with a newer MK AutoPilot or PowerDrive and NOT getting this interference?

The following article is very interesting for those who purchased the universal sonar series TMs to eliminate this interference problem:

http://home.attbi.com/~cwebb56/TM_Intf.html

Regards

[Toolman]

Dave,

I ran that exact set-up (X-85 w/HS transducer on a AP65) last year. I had no interference problems at all.

Tim

[Dave in Mpls]

Thanks, Tim! Words of Encouragement!

What bracket did you use for the transducer? I've seen two options available:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jhtml?id=0000962012684a&navAction=push&navCount=3&indexId=cat21380&podId=0000962&catalogCode=ID&parentId=cat21380&parentType=index&rid=

and

http://www.basspro-shops.com/servlet/catalog.TextId?hvarTextId=18071&hvarDept=200&hvarEvent=&hvarClassCode=1&hvarSubCode=10&hvarTarget=browse

Regards

[Toolman]

Dave,

The bracket I used looks like the one in the BPS link. I think mine was made by whoever makes Lowrance aftermarket stuff.

Tim

[Dave in Mpls]

Thanks, Tim

Regards

[Dr Walleye]

Dave, I have tried both the pod style and High speed with the same results. I also tried mounting the HS to the bottom of the skeg. As I stated in a earlier post I did connect the neg side of cranking and starting batteries together per instructions from Minn Kota. I also contacted Luke Morris from Lowrance and he told me to go ahead and do as instructed. I will let you know when the ice goes off with the results. My trolling motor is a AP65 I believe I purchased it 4 years ago.