Questions about a Lowrance HDS 7

[uglyokuma]

I tried using my new HDS 7 for jigging today and it seemed to be picking up noise from the trolling motor. I have the transducer mounted to the trolling motor on the bow of the boat and I have the FF hooked to a battery in the back of the boat not the trolling motor batteries. It was driving me nuts, it wouldn't do it all the time but it seemed to do it at the worse possible times. Several times I would get a fish to chase and would touch the trolling motor to get back over the jig and the screen would go all pink when I touched the foot pedal. I was really missing my old unit today any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also does anyone have any tips on the best settings for jigging for lakers with these units? I had my L334c set up just they way I liked it and I am having some problems getting this unit dialed in. Thanks guys

[rshubuck]

Did you try setting your noise rejection on high? I think you have a lot of noise interference!

[uglyokuma]

Yup I did, I am wonderring if it was because I had it powered off the main fuse block. My old Lowrance I had running off its own small gel cell battery and it worked great but of course I forgot the extra battery in morning so I had to run it off the fuse block. Its weired though because I have a HDS 8 running off the fuse block and it works fine.

[Big Dave]

Try running a line with a fuse from the batt. That should take out the other interferance.

[uglyokuma]

I installed it with the inline fuse that came with the unit.

[Chromeslayer]

Im pretty sure Lowrance suggests you run your power wires direct to battery and use a inline fuse. Wiring to a fuse block can cause interference

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[ray koziatek]

My experence with Interference has been in the form of "dots" on the screen ...

Im not at all familure with the unit yer using, but most if not all have a "voltage drop protection" built in it really sounds like drop in power,to the unit despite a pretty good tolarence in voltage range (older units).I use 1 battery for everything on my boat with no ill effect .cept main engine at higher rpm 2500 and above(old 75 I/O with points and old style alternator) and no filters inline......maybe it the trollin moter is breakin down,or the new hd units are more sensative to interferrance...id check connections at "wire block" during problem with a hd unit in my future I (we) will be checkin post for final problem....Thanks

Ray K.

[Edd]

More often than not, your interference is due to the transducer cable routing. Did you run the cable alongside the trolling motor power cable? Or is it close to the TM motor? It's best to keep the transducer cable as far from other electrical sources as possible. A screen shot of the noise might help us better.

Edd

[excavr]

uglyokuma,

I have a MinnKota Terrova 80 with iPilot & built-in US2 transducer. I run a Humminbird 570 fishfinder off the trolling motor. My fishfinder is useless if the trolling motor is turning. I have called both MinnKota and Humminbird several times about this. MinnKota insists that if I wired it correctly (which I have) then the problem is with the Humminbird, not the trolling motor. Humminbird (who I agree with) tells me the interference on the screen is caused by the signal being sent to the unit from the trolling motor. That makes total sense since the interference only occurs when the motor is running.

It sounds like your transducer is physically mounted (by you) on the bottom of your motor housing, correct? You could try to remove the transducer and temporarily mount is on a broom stick or some type of pole. Run your motor and put your transducer in the water several feet away and see if the interference goes away. If it does, you know your wiring is good and your motor is causing the problem.

Let us know what you find.

[uglyokuma]

Well I went back through and rewired the unit simplified things and went to what and worked for me in the past. I shortened the power wires and ran them directly to a small gel cell battery with the inline fuse. Also I made sure that the transducer wires were well away from the trolling motor wires. After this I still got a lot of extra noise on the screen when then trolling motor was running. The only thing I found that cleans the screen up was to turn the surface clarity to high and I get a nice clean screen without all the extra noise/ clutter but then I can't see my jig on the screen. It is really frustrating to spend that kind of money on a unit and not have it work as well as a older somewhat out of date unit. You would think someone would have thought about this type of an issue and come up with a solution. I had a Lowrance 334c and that unit worked sweet but when I got a new boat I thought I would keep the old unit just for ice fishing well if this persist I may have to put the old unit on the new boat.

Does any have any experience with the different fishing modes on the HDS units?? There is general use, freshwater, deepwater, slow trolling, fast trolling, ice fishing and a few others. I have my unit just on general use, would one of the other modes help me?

Thanks for all the input guys I really appreciate all your help,

Jared

[mudflat]

Have you upgraded to 4.0 yet? There is supposed to be a fix in there to help with TM interference.

You might want to check out the Bass Boat Central's Lowrance forum ( http://www.bbcboards.net/zeroforum?id=13 )

The guys on there might be more familar with your setup.

[uglyokuma]

Hey guys just wanted to update this post

I downloaded the updated software, installed it on my HDS 7 and I still the same interference.

I have been reading a lot about other peoples issues with trolling motor interference and was curious if anyone has tried a Ferrite Data Line Filter?????

Here are some pics of my screen with the interference:

[uglyokuma]

Problem fixed....knock on wood

I moved the tranducer wire about 15" further away from the troling motor wires, insulated/ covered the trolling motor wires, and I think what really made the bigest difference was I turned the transom mount tranducer I was running around so that it actually sticks out a bit past the motor. I usually like to mount them the other way but after I did this it was day and night difference. I also got rid of the stainless steel hose clamp and attached the bracket with a large zip tie.