Lowrance X15MT Sonar problems

[lindys gal]

We are a dealer and have installed the combination GPS/sonar units on several Lund boats being used by tournament fishermen. These guys have had very bad experiences with the sonar part of these units. All have upgraded software to version 1.9.0 per Lowrance. Lowrance service reps tell us it must be an interference or installation problem. Anybody else having problems or have anything good to say about the sonar function on these units? We are tired of having egg on our face when the customers call us complaining about the reliability of these units. GPS works great, sonar goes wacky and reads way deep (jumps from 20 feet to 1500 feet). Lowrance told one of these guys to reset their unit by holding the page down key while turning the power on. This customer had purchased $400 of Navionics charts which were wiped out when he performed this reset function. Be warned not to have an MMC card in the unit when resetting !!! Would appreciate any feedback from anyone out there using one of these units.

[JIM MN]

MINE DOES THE SAME THING. WORKS FOR A WHILE THEN JUMPS ALL OVER AND CANT FIND BOTTOM. IT INTERMITTANTLY GOES IN AND OUT. I EMAILED LOWRANCE WITH A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM AND THEY EMAILED ME BACK ABOUT TWO WEEKS LATER. THEY SAID THE UNIT HAS A HARDWARE PROBLEM AND MUST BE SENT BACK TO THE FACTORY FOR REPLACEMENT OF SOME NOISE FILTER. I REALLY LIKE IT WHEN IT WORKS. I HAVE FOUND THAT IF YOU SHUT THE AUTO SENSITIVITY AND RANGE OFF AND MANUALLY ADJUST IT NEVER HAPPENS UNLESS I'M IN LESS THAN 5 TO 8 FEET OF WATER. I DONT WANT TO GIVE IT UP LONG ENOUGH TO SEND IT IN. IT'S FISHING TIME.

GOOD LUCK

[AquaMan]

LG, do a seach here on WC for all the post regarding the X15. There were several very good strings about the problem and the solutions. I believe eyeguy had it down???

And NO, You are not the one at fault according to the solutions that were discovered. However, once the problem was fixed all the owners were happy with the units.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel. It just takes some finagling with Lowrance. ;-)

AquaMan~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.·´¯° --- "It all begins and ends at the water's edge"

Eric@crowncomputerinc.com

[reddog]

I have sent mine in for the hardware upgrade, I got it back last Thursday. While fishing with it on Saturday, it did the same thing. I did the resets, and it worked. Then again on Monday, I had 1 free hour to fish, so I headed off to the lake 8 miles away. After about 35 minutes, it started acting up again, and no amount of resetting would fix it. Now Im realy PO'd. I monkeyed around with alot of different settings, and finally, after shutting off the autod depth it finally found bottom again. Now, mind you that I am in very shallow water, usually 6 feet or less, but I wont buy any excuse like that, and they better not try to use that one. I use it to keep off rock bars as much as fish location and trolling speed. I got 2 hours of fishing in tonite, and it worked flawlessly. I think the main problem is the auto depth range. If you are in shallow water, definitly turn it off. Needless to say, the hardwaree upgrade didnt do anything for me, but they were very prompt about getting it back in a timely fashion, 5 day turnaround.

[PJM]

LAST EDITED ON May-30-01 AT 08:39PM (CST)[p]Reddog was the software upgraded to 2.1.0

[water_wolf]

My LCX-15 has been great. Got an MMC card from Lowrance with update 1.9 because I dont have interface kit (sonar only no GPS pkg). The only time mine did anything weird was: I was docked at the bait shop and sonar went to 1,834 ft (actual depth was 2 ft.). When I started back out to lake I turned unit off then back on...back to correct marking. I have also had my boat as shallow as 1.8 ft according to sonar without false readings. Excuse me while I find some wood to knock on.

Rich Ferguson

[reddog]

PJM, No, they didnt upgrade the software to v2.1 while they had it in there. That ticks me off. Like they just developed this upgrade between last wed, and this Tuesday. what happened to 2.0? Did it get bypassed already? Maybe they developed 2.0 and 2.1 in the time frame when my unit was in the shop. Very distracting situation. I would guess that there are alot of fisherman spending time on the phone and computer at work so they can fish in their off time. Maybe they should make their hotline 24/7 till this deal is cleared up.