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| I have a 2001 Lund with 75hp Merc. Boat has performed great until last year. Now the cranking battery has been dying after some various use out of nowhere! I've switched batteries, then a new battery. It did it again yesterday! The only thing I can put my thumb on is the New Lowrance HDS 8 I installed last spring. Since that time it has gone dead on me three time. Does this unit draw down the starting battery that much? Anyone else have this problem?
Thanks,
Larry |
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| Put an in-line power switch between the locator & battery - that should solve the problem. GPS units sometimes like to keep searching for signal even though the screen may be off.
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Posts: 134
Location: Central Wi | This is something that you want to get figured out as soon as possible. Certain companies had problems with motors for a time frame where the Regulator Rectifiers went bad causing the battery to drain. The issue was drawing power somehow and they end up overheating also and can cause fire. I was on a boat where this happened. The battery on the boat kept going dead; the individual just thought something must be draining the battery so he kept charging it. Then one time out on the water the outboard caught fire. After doing some research I had found that this had happened to several others.
I don’t know if this could be a similar issue in your cause but I would still recommend figuring it out. I would suggest un hooking all electronics from the battery and just leave the motor hooked up, and then maybe hook them back up one by one to eliminate where the problem could be starting. It’s never good when the battery is draining. |
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| Its the HD unit....the 8 draws more juice than the 10. Have it happen when working long casting runs of great distance |
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Posts: 298
Location: Not where I want to be! | Not buying it's the HDS. Most units are fused with 5 amp fuses or sometimes less. If it used 5 amps per hour it would take 10 hours or more of steady drain to kill your battery. If it is drawing more than that you would be blowing fuses. Something else is wrong. |
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| My brother is having that same problem with his HDS 5 that is mounted on the bow of his boat. His 2006 Alumacraft has a Yamaha 90 OB. His starting battery is only getting drained if the HDS 5 has been on for a period of time. |
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Posts: 183
| You have something else draining it, I run 2 HDS 8 and never had an issue with draining the battery. Do you have Structure Scan or a NMEA 2000 buss? Have you had your batteries load tested? |
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Posts: 1316
Location: Lebanon,Mo | Do you have seperate hot wires for the depthfinder and gps?? I had the same problem a few years ago and found out the gps side was hot all the time.Ended up putting the gps on a switched fuse and never had problems again. |
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| It's the HDS. I had the same problem with an HDS7 two years ago.
I have to unplug the power cord from the back of the unit to solve the problem. I do have a switch that I haven't installed yet.
I was told the GPS continues to search for signal even when it's powered off.
No other explantion makes sense for you besides the HDS drawing power and killing your battery.
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Posts: 66
Location: North Central, Indiana | I would say call lowrance and see if the gps is always searching even if the unit is off. That would eliminate 1 piece of guess work |
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Posts: 298
Location: Not where I want to be! | It's possible that when you are powering off you are JUST pushing and holding the power button. That is not how it is recommened. If you push the power button and release it, the dialog box indicates it is in standby. Curser down (I think) to the power off field and it will shut down properly. I'm not positive that is the cure but....
I have a HDS 8 and a HDS 5 in my boat and not having any problems with battery draining.
Edited by wavridr 3/20/2012 7:39 AM
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Posts: 1310
Location: Washington, PA | I've been having the same issue. My lowrance is an older unit. I bought a switch to install, but have not yet. Sunday I put the boat in the water and smoke was coming from the transducer, so i'm guessing it's a short somewhere.
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Posts: 243
| Had to put a switch in mine because of the same issue. Hopefully that's an easy fix to your problem. If you don't want to install the switch without knowing, just unplug your unit the next couple of times when you're done and see if that solves it. |
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| Interesting a few posts ago. Maybe we are just putting the thing in sleep mode and not turning it all the way off.
Will have to check that out when I get my boat out of storage.
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Location: 31 | It sounds to me like some of you are unknowingly putting your unit into sleep mode. I'm glad I decided to have a Perko disconnect switch installed on my boat after reading this thread. Another option besides unplugging the unit at the head (good idea) is to just disconnect the positive battery leads between trips once you isolate the problem. |
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I'm not sure I buy the sleep mode theory. I hold the power button down and I get a screen that says 'Powering Off in 'x' seconds'. To me that means it is powering off, and not going into a sleep mode, but it will be interesting to find out if I am wrong. Owning Lowrance for years, I always disconnect the power to the unit on my smaller boats, and hit the main power switch on the Ranger. Its habit now, as I had the gps drain issue years back.
Interesting thread, as I was just thinking to myself the other day, that I might perhaps be able to leave my HDS unit plugged in, knowing it has internal gps. I'm still not convinced it doesn't completely power off, as my unit seems to search for sattelites once I get to the landing, after its been plugged in all the way to the river from the house. My older models with separate puck would remain position locked unless I disconnected the power source.
Sounds like certain people are seeing certain things with certain models. I have an HDS 7, and am going to dig a bit deeper into this as my charger for my river boat just took a dive. Its a 2 bank, and if I find the hds is drawing that much, I might have to go to the three bank(never needed a three bank in this rig before, though I do charge the starting battery about once per week). I'd like to stick with the 2 bank identical replacement for space/footprint/price. |
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Posts: 1716
Location: Mt. Zion, IL | My HDS is plugged in all the time to a battery and I hold the power button to turn it off. I have never had one problem with the HDS unit. I would check into something else draining the battery if I were you. Use a multi meter to check battery voltage and disconnect each item one at a time. You should be able to tell which is causing the drain if you have a decent multi meter. |
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Posts: 202
Location: Rhinelander | Locators can do this. My LMS 334 was draining the starting battery enough to cause it not to start. I switched the locator to the trolling motor battery and the problem was solved. |
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Posts: 298
Location: Not where I want to be! | Hodaghawg,
How could switching batteries solve the problem? You must still have a drain.
Edited by wavridr 3/24/2012 6:25 PM
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Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I did a retest today and plugged the unit in on the way to the ramp and it position locked immediately contrary to what I posted above. Makes me think it is searching for satellites with the unit powered off. With that said, I plugged the unit in at home and didn't turn it on at all so it wouldn't've had anything to do with the type of power off method I had used last fall, as that was the last time the unit was used, then unhooked completely. |
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Posts: 64
Location: Stockbridge, WI | My lowrance 520 was doing the same thing because the gps antenna always draws power. Put a master power switch in and the problem is solved. Very easy to do and never have to worry about a dead battery. |
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| Its possible the alternator on the motor is not sufficiently charging the battery. So, the HDS uses some juice, the motor uses some juice starting, etc and anything else you have on there like lights, livewell, etc.
If you can check amperage/voltage, try checking amperage with and without the motor running to see if there is an increase while the motor is running. There should be.
Otherwise, a master power switch is really needed. Still not buying that the HDS is the sole problem, but a master power switch should exist regardless if it doesnt already. |
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Posts: 349
| I have this problem with a merc 60 4-stroke. I'm running a vex and an H20 and need to charge the starting battery about once every 5 days on the water or it will die on me. |
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Posts: 5874
| As muskie anglers tend to long periods of working structure on the bow mount, followed by relatively short runs on the main motor, the alternator really does get much charging time througout a day of fishing.
So here's a few suggestions.
#1 Measure the current draw when everything is powered down. There should be very little. mA's at most. If you are drawing 2-300mA or more, eliminate the draw by removing potential loads and observing which load draws the most. FIgure out how to fix or isolate that draw.
#2 Charge your batteies, including your starting battery immediately after you get home/docked/parked.
#3 Consider a dual purpose Deep Cycle/Starting Battery.
Edited by Shep 3/30/2012 12:21 PM
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Posts: 202
Location: Rhinelander | wavridr-
If my locator drains my deep cycle during a day on the water I am able to start the outboard to make it home. Being larger, the deep cycle runs the locator longer too. When I had the locator on the starting battery, it took about 3 hours and I was not able to start the outboard. |
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Posts: 315
| I am not battery professional but I will tell you is that if you leave your unit hooked up and you do NOT have circuit breakers in your boat to turn off your unit will drain power even if it is turned off. I am extremely surprised at how many of you guys leave your expensive units plugged in on your boats. I did not spend spend roughly 4 grand on electronics to beat them up on the water and furthermore beat them up on the trailer ride home. Just throwing it out there, I put my graphs on at the launch and put them back in my truck when I get back adding around 3 minutes extra per trip. I also switched to a deep cycle battery for the cranking battery giving me 3 deep cycles but thats mainly in case another deep cycle fails but it can be beneficial. I really do agree the units are probably draining the battery if they remain plugged in afterwards because just once I left my unit plugged in and didnt have the boat hooked up over night and my boat didnt start at the end of the trip...just lucky I was fishing in to the launch that night. One more thing...not sure if its true but I heard that you are never supposed to hold power button down on HDS...I just made it a habit of pushing power button once and arrowing to power off. |
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