side imaging sonar issue

[Chrisper4694]

maybe someone here has experienced this and has an easy solution...

my side imaging and down imaging are really blurry and pixelated. if i switch from regular sonar to side imaging the view it shows prior to me switching it looks fine, but immediately starts the crappy scanning and you can clearly see the difference. I took a picture of it to post. the red arrows i drew on there show the point when i switched the screen from regular sonar to side imaging.

I talked to humminbird already and they weren't much help but i'd like to avoid sending it in if possible. I'm going to try resetting to factory settings to see if that fixes it. The guy kept telling me maybe it was how i had it mounted but i've always had it the same way and i've only started experiencing this the last couple of trips.

[ScowardNJ]

Voltage issue? Maybe try connecting to an independent fully charged battery and see what happens? I sometimes get interference from other electric systems on the boat.

[Mikey topaz]

Thats a question for the greek, best bet send him a pm hes about to become a dad anyday now and super busy but he will def kno for sure

[acabtp]

settings might be called different in the bird, but ping speed is maxed out and scroll speed is set to normal?

[Chrisper4694]

scroll speed is set higher than normal to match my speed (that's what i'm supposed to do as i understand it but idk) ping i'm not sure i'll have to check it.

It is hooked up to its' own personal battery not shared with anything else.

[acabtp]

yeah i'd try setting the scroll speed back to normal. it looks to me like it's just scrolling too fast and scrolling at 1x when you aren't viewing that screen.

[Chrisper4694]

Ok I'll see if that helps

[jimmythegreek]

looks like interference to me at quick glance. if you have it on its own battery try your trolling motor at full speed and see what it looks like. then shut motor off after gaining momentum and see what it looks like with motor on. Trolling motors have pulse width modulation to save battery and you can get interference from just being near it, and it can happen randomly too. If you determine its got nothing to do w the trolling motor at all set the display to show you battery voltage and make sure you are close to 12v or higher (11.7 and lower starts problem with humminbirds) and if thats OK too its a transducer issue most likely, its rarely a unit issue. If you registered the unit go and download the latest update and update the unit, if you didnt do it now and update it w latest software. It is wierd that its clear until you actually change the view to SI then starts to do that. not sure how the helix frequency is I run the big units but you may be able to switch 455 for 800mhz see if that does anything. sending unit in isnt worth it you can reload software yourself from SD card. your transducer will still be under warranty, the helix has the compact SI transducer not the HD one so you will never get pics like you see on the net but even those are hard to come by. let us know how you make out Chris

[Ken Lyons]

I get what is obviously TM interference because it shows up when I switch the TM on. It often goes away after that but not always. ThE FF is on a separate batterY too. I' m wondering if the wire tompoweR the FF' being parrallel to the wires that power the TM could be the problem.

[jimmythegreek]

Ken you can get interference from the TM just being in the boat with other electronics, all depends on your setup. If you have universal sonar in the TM you almost always get interference. I use the ferrite ring trick on all units I wire up regardless of the setup to avoid it, cheap insurance. Ive gone as far as to open up the TM and add a seperate ground wire to the hull if aluminum and that is a guaranteed fix but some ppl worry about warranty on new stuff. Hbirds are worst than lowrance, lowrance is pretty good with their shielding on the transducer wires. You can always turn up the noise filter and you will eliminate any interference, but I like many wanna see every blip and baitfish possible, I run my sonar raw with no filters, after a while you can tell what everything is just takes some time to play with it and learn it.

[Chrisper4694]

If that statement about voltage is true I'm going to be pissed. They told me I could run the ff on a 10amp battery and there is no way it's holding that voltage very long. I really hate technology honestly, what a part n in the ass. I just want to fish and now I spend money on this crap and have to fiddle with it forever to try to get my worth out of it.

Thanks a lot jimmy, I'll test/try the things you say. Appreciate the info.

[Rich196]

Chris, I assume this is the only one your running at one time? On my buddy's boat, he was picking up interference with another system we were running, and also had interference with the trolling motor, it was also a hummingbird. Hope this helps.

[Ken Lyons]

I don't know what unit you're running but a fully charged 10 AH will run a pretty good sized unit for a long day before it gets down to 11.7 but not two days.
I forgot about the ferrite ring trick. Will try it .
I have seen videos where they dealt with the problem by simply grounding the TM housing.
My first unit gave Humminbird its name with its sound. Now I have a transducer that's 9 inches long. What a country!

[Rich196]

Chris, I'm posting this because this never happened on my boat before, Tuesday after work, I hit the Squan as always, half way through the night, I noticed my down vision, and side imaging were very pix-elated, and hard to read, long story short, I have my Lowrance HDS 7 on the 12v strter battery, and always keep it charged, well for some reason the other night, the battery must have drawn down, not low enough to kill anything, I went home, and gave it a overnight charge, and yesterday it worked PERFECT. When I checked the voltage before charging it was at 11.1 Volts... Just a thought.

[Ken Lyons]

The FF itself needs 8 volts to run. They all have voltage regulator circuits that reduce whatever the battery is putting out to 8. What can be confusing is that the voltage reading across the terminals with no load is always greater than under load. If your getting 11.1 with no load you really have nothing left. The relatively small load imposed by the FF could easily drop the output voltage under 8. Most of the time the FF jousts quits when this happens.

[Chrisper4694]

I have two newer 9ah batteries. I've tried them both. Right off the bat fully charged, it's still pixelated on either one. So I don't think that's my problem. These batteries last about 7 hours or so, not all day. Helix 7 si gps is the unit.

[Jigman13]

Toss it overboard and use a paper topo map. Less aggravation and cheaper lol...

[Chrisper4694]

Tell me about it

[jimmythegreek]

you should be able to run the unit of a ice battery no problem for at least a few hours if its fully charged. You didnt say if you were having the issues all the time or if you tested w TM on or off. Do that and reply back here. Im not gonna be in the boat for a few weeks yet so I couldnt rly help to test your unit on my transducers, that is the best way to check, maybe you know somebody that has a Hbird with down or side either ducer will work to check with. Make sure in you transducer selection you have the right one selected, you dont want to pick HD sidescan if you have that option you have the compact sidescan w the Helix

[Chrisper4694]

didn't even know it was an option to choose the wrong transducer...i really don't have the slightest clue when it comes to this technology...

[Ken Lyons]

There are those of us that can no longer last beyond 7 hrs. Sorry, I didn't apply my usual compensation for age:) when you have so many things going on in the unit there, is that much more than can go wrong.
I now have a Lowrance Elite 5 TI. I bought it because of the free mapping application on Insight Genesis but that hasn't worked in a month.

[Chrisper4694]

i forgot to check running it with the TM not hooked up, i'll try that and see.

[acabtp]

I bought it because of the free mapping application on Insight Genesis but that hasn't worked in a month.

uploading direct from the unit via wifi still isn't fixed, but you can still do all the insight genesis stuff via the computer. just put the sd card in your computer and use it to upload your sonar log to the insight genesis website. let it make your map, download the map onto the sd card, and use it in the lowrance.

[Ken Lyons]

Thanks much for that. An indoor task on a too hot day. This is what makes these websites worthwhile.

[Ken Lyons]

Upon further review... The individual files from each trip show up and presumably can be downloaded but the merged uploads show the lake with no map at all. Lowrance says this is due to the problem with migrating from one system to another. The individual maps are really not extensive enough.

[Chrisper4694]

Ok, so I ran the ff with the trolling motor off. Didn't help at all. But when I reduced the scroll speed it seemed to get a little clearer. I wonder if there is a chart that shows what the best boat speed/scroll speed is for side imaging.

It's 1-10 and 5 seemed to show a clearer scan at 3-3.5mph than 7 did, but it seems much slower than I'm moving.

[NJSquatch]

make sure jigging mode is turned off....jigging mode changes the transducer ping order and will mess up SI....


It's 1-10 and 5 seemed to show a clearer scan at 3-3.5mph than 7 did, but it seems much slower than I'm moving.

7 is way too fast....you want to match the scroll speed to your boat speed....the si images on my Helix 7 are only good when running <4 mph and having the scroll speed at 3 - 4....set the range to 40-60', sensitivity to 10 and contrast to 8-9..play with the contrast to get things to pop-out....if still not working lets take the unit out on my boat and test to see if its the unit or the transducer...

[Chrisper4694]

see i thought 5 looked too slow as i was moving at 2.5-3 mph. so i guess that's the issue i want to go even slower scroll speed...kind of weird. i feel like i'm going over things faster than i'm seeing them.

it's also kind of sad that the tech guys as humminbird couldn't offer this to me as a possible solution :confused:

i think that's the issue though, thanks.

[jimmythegreek]

a good rule of thumb is to use 1 scroll tick for each half mile an hour on side imaging. so trolling at 1.5 mph use scroll speed 3. on regular 2d its 1 for 1 as a general rule. while anchored max ping is preferred just like ice fishing. all the scroll speed does is show you the returns either faster or slower. doesnt change the units function or the internal software just changes the shape of rocks/bottom, the slower scroll speeds will elongate things.

chris it sounds like you either need to check w another units transducer to see if it is your ducer, or at the least check your software version and update it to latest, its easy

[Chrisper4694]

It's updated. I get what you're saying about the scroll speed, but once I reduced it, it's coming in clear now...worked great today on spruce. I could pick up the bait balls and everything.

[Ken Lyons]

I think I have to devote an outing to getting this thing dialed in. When I first got it I called Lowrance while on the water. They were very helpful.