Lowrance HDS 5 gen2 depth malfunction

[makobob]

Cleaner THEN lube.

Originally Posted by Bruntoj

I'm confused. Should I be lubing it up with dielectric grease or using this contact cleaner?


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[45user]

Yes what makobob said
I clean with the cleaner then lube it with dielectric grease
I usually do that after couple of outings
I don't remember if I did that before my ff acted up
I should have given that a try before asking
A lot of good help and wealth of information on this forum!
45


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[kaya_one]

I sent you a pm.
I have a transducer you can borrow to test.

[Sheephead]

I've had multiple problems with lowrance FF, specifically HDS models, and have figured out the primary trouble shootings. I've had the battery cutting out after 2-3 hours many times and depth inaccuracy once but never both at the same time. From my experience, depth inaccuracy can be caused by moving over water deeper than your current sonar setting (freshwater, deep water, shallow water, ect.) NOT 10ft, 30ft, 200ft, 1000ft, DISPLAYS for short durations. Also, spending longer than 30min in that zone and then coming over a ledge into shallow water might make it "stick" and keep reading inaccurately. 2nd reason for depth inaccuracy i've noticed is that sometimes it just goes wack. If it does just go wack change from sonar/ downscan to the full screen map display then change it back, it should reset it.

For the battery cutting out there's 1 of 2 possible reasons i've encountered. First reason, your battery is over 6-8 months old and you did not store it properly or you just use it a lot. Use an electric current reader to check your charging cable to see if that's the problem or its your battery. Second reason, and definitely the most dreaded, your sd card slot is starting to corrode. Even if you babied the sd card hatch to protect it, water WILL GET INSIDE! This has been my problem 3/4 times. The beginning stages are power shortages, 1-3hr battery life decreasing to 1-4 minutes over a week or two. Also, when your battery starts shortening to 1-4min your screen might look like a broken tv when you try to turn it on. Now lets say you put dialectric greaser inside your sd card slot? Remove all of it with a pin/ toothpick then brush out the rest. It's possible your grease might have crystalized. Then test FF? battery life again. If it still doesn't work, get a sd card of 2-8GB and put it inside your FF sd card reader. If your FF cannot read/ pick up your card you FF is shot! You'll have to send it in to get it replaced but before you do copy all your waypoints! Hope any of this helps! Let me know what problem it turns out to be, im curious!

[YakDout]

The biggest problem Ive had were the connectors on the wires to the battery. They move around a lot and FF would turn off even while it seemed like the connectors were on. Soldered in a wiring harness and have not had a problem since.

[Valek]

Great info here.
I just upgraded from 50/200 stock transducer to a chirp TM150M for my HDS gen3 and it's not reading any depth at all, neither in the harbor or at 200'+
Shows water temp only.

[GregAndrew]

Did you select the right transducer in the settings?

[45user]

Originally Posted by GregAndrew

Did you select the right transducer in the settings?

That was my first question..

Anyways here's the update on my ff. So I cleaned all the terminals and lined them with dielectric grease then headed to San Vincente last Friday
It worked well. It just needed a good cleaning and relube...and maybe I ran into the deep canyon in La Jolla as well
Thank you all for helping me
I will have to test it in the ocean to be sure next time
45


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