Lowrance

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GB87

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Had a great boating season but boat (1987 V20)has been tucked away and shrink wrapped for a couple of months. It was so warm in RI this fall that I hated to take the boat out of the water.
About mid-season, my Lowrance HDS7 started to act up. GPS worked fine but sonar would not work in shallow depths. Figured that I would send it back to Lowrance over the winter. Just called and I was told that that it was out or warranty and they don't do repairs only replacement and then only if the unit is still in warranty. Does anyone know of anywhere in RI or MA that I can get this unit checked out?
GB87
 
Maybe check with boe marine. They sell and do installs on alot of units, and seem to be very knowledgeable everytime I've talked to them.
 
when you say sonar wont work in shallow depths what exactly do you mean? are you losing bottom? is the screen just blank? what is happening. What settings are you running on the unit? What kind of transducer do you have and where is it mounted?

Could just be a transducer problem, that would be the first thing i looked at....
 
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The unit works fine at depths greater than 20 feet. As soon as I go to any depth 20 feet or less it loses the bottom. As soon as the depth increases it works fine again. I have a transom mounted 50/200 kHz transducer. No problems until this year.
 
Do you have the correct transducer selected in the settings on the head unit?

Not sure of the depths you normally fish, but if you're in shallow water putting the head unit in shallow water mode helps out as well

if you're on facebook search for the walleye 101 public page, The guy that runs that organization knows about all there is to know about lowrance products and will help out as much as possible

I had an issue similar to yours, i would just lose bottom and sonar and the finder would flash either 1.7 or 2.3ft. i replaced the transducer and its worked great ever since
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I did try both a soft and hard reset but neither worked. I also downloaded and installed and update that Lowrance suggested when I spoke to them while the boat was still in the water. My unit goes to 2.5 feet when I lose the bottom so it seems like the same problem that Jamesbalog had with his. I did check the Boe website. It looks like the place to get Lowrance parts. Once I took the boat out of the water, I was hoping that Lowrance would check out the electronics and if that was fine, I would buy a new transducer. It’s starting to look like a new transducer is the way to go. Problem is that I won’t really know until the boat goes back in next spring.
 
If you get a new transducer, it will have a plug with power wires. So, all you need is a 12v battery and a dock to test it????

If it doesn't work, you have an extra transducer for your next Lowrance...
 
GB87 said:
Had a great boating season but boat (1987 V20)has been tucked away and shrink wrapped for a couple of months. It was so warm in RI this fall that I hated to take the boat out of the water.
About mid-season, my Lowrance HDS7 started to act up. GPS worked fine but sonar would not work in shallow depths. Figured that I would send it back to Lowrance over the winter. Just called and I was told that that it was out or warranty and they don't do repairs only replacement and then only if the unit is still in warranty. Does anyone know of anywhere in RI or MA that I can get this unit checked out?
GB87
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My Brother and I were researching chartplotters this past spring as we were in the market for a new unit. One thing that was glaringly clear was that Lowrance was not very helpful with respect to helping us determine the differences between several units we were considering. Poor communication, poor attitudes and lack of knowledge from the several people we spoke to.

Spoke to Garmin, complete opposite. I have always purchased Lowrance units in the past. This time bought Garmin and won't look back.

Customer service is based in North America and is outstanding. We had no problems with the equioment, but needed some help with the install (specifically linking the unit to the autopilot). The CSR was friendly and knowlegeable, he even sent a replacement part that I damaged at no charge. They even covered shipping.

The unit is a touch screen and is simple to use, much easier than any other units I have used in the past including comparable units on boats owned by my friends.

Do yourself a favor and check out the Garmin units, I think you will be happy you did.
 
My 1st experience with lowrance was back when navico 1st bought them. I had an lmf-200 with the ep-10 to monitor fuel usage on my hydra-sports. Had nothing but problems with the fuel flow senso, after the 3rd one went out in just a few months, they refused to warranty it anymore. Gave up on it, and boe swapped me out for a northstar unit. My new boat has a lowrance chartplotter on it that does nmea2000, but unfortunately it doesnt do the engine readouts, so I'm looking at an lmf-200 and an ep-20 engine interface, then I can hook the chartplotter into it and have a gauge to tell me oil pressure, engine temp, hour meter, voltage, fuel flow, instant econ, and some more. What a shock when I checked the prices. I bought the lmf WITH the ep-10 flow sensor for $200, they no longer sell it as a combo. The lmf200 is $170, the flow sensor is $200, and the nmea2000 starter kit is $63. So its now $433 for what I bought not that long ago for $200 because navico jacked the prices up. It's going to cost me around $330 to hook it up to the engine so I can monitor it. Thats not chump change by a long shot because navico jacked the prices up.
 
My take is what do you want it to do best. With a combo unit you can't get both to be great. I think garmin has the best gps, easy to use, very intuitive to use, but hard to get it to "talk" to other machines. Furuno has the best bottom machine, but u need a masters degree to work the gps and the base maps are a joke.
 
DiverDux said:
My Brother and I were researching chartplotters this past spring as we were in the market for a new unit. One thing that was glaringly clear was that Lowrance was not very helpful with respect to helping us determine the differences between several units we were considering. Poor communication, poor attitudes and lack of knowledge from the several people we spoke to.

Spoke to Garmin, complete opposite. I have always purchased Lowrance units in the past. This time bought Garmin and won't look back.

Customer service is based in North America and is outstanding. We had no problems with the equioment, but needed some help with the install (specifically linking the unit to the autopilot). The CSR was friendly and knowlegeable, he even sent a replacement part that I damaged at no charge. They even covered shipping.

The unit is a touch screen and is simple to use, much easier than any other units I have used in the past including comparable units on boats owned by my friends.

Do yourself a favor and check out the Garmin units, I think you will be happy you did.
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Ditto on Garmin customer service. I once called from the middle of Raritan Bay while fishing and a service tech walked me through the fix. Worked perfectly in minutes and was happily on my way.
 
From the responses that I received I plan to purchase a new transducer. It seem like the best way to go. My HDS7 came with a 50/200Khz transducer but since most of my boating is in less than 200 feet I wonder if a 83/200Khz would be a better choice.
I was surprised at the lack of customer service at Lowrance. My last unit was a Lowrance Loran/sounder combo (a long time ago)and the service was great. That's one of the reasons that I went with Lowrance this time.I guess things change an sometimes not for the better.
GJB
 
My only dealing was right when NAVICO took over, and it was poor to say teh least. BOE stepped up and took care of me, and swapped it out for another brand. GARMIN is top notch in ANY book, and my next unit will be a GARMIN. There fishfinders aren't the greatest, but there customer support is good, and there GPS's are AWESOME! I'm STILL using my old GARMIN GPSMAP76 that I bought 13 years ago. Had a software issue about 6 years ago, well outside of any waranty or support time frames for outdated software, and they went out of there way to help me, and get me going again, as well as gig up some outdated software and emailed to me to get me up and going. Also have one for the bURb the inlaws gave me. It was outside it's covered time frame for map updates, but they still gave me the updates via email, and refunded me for the maps because it was no longer supported.
 
I went to the Boat Show with my son and grandkids. I couldn't get over the prices of the boats.(there were some that actually looked like boats) I didn't see anything that I would like to have over my V20.
I did get some info on transducers and bought one from West Marine. Once it gets a little warmer I will get busy installing it. At least the boat isn't covered in snow this year.
GB87
 
toofast928 said:
I have the Elite 7 HDI. Large screen and easy to use. Touch screen would be nice.
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I have the same unit on my skiff. It seems OK, but it is very slow. Anytime I change screens, it takes several seconds before it responds. Wish it would do the NMEA2000 fuel useage display on the screen, but the HDS started that.
 
New Transducer

I have been meaning to get back to everyone with an update. Lowrance gave me the incorrect P/N for the transducer. Once I went down to the boat, it was obvious that the one I bought wouldn't fit. I returned to West Marine and they had the correct one in stock. Installed it in the boat and the HDS7 is finally working fine. Boat is in the water and sitting at it's mooring in Jamestown RI.
 
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