I’ve recently installed a Garmin 140 fish finder. The specs for the fish finder state that it has a ‘low battery’ alarm. When the battery goes below a chosen voltage an alarm sounds. It is set for 10 v. While I’m underway the numbers indicating the depth start flashing. THis number flashing is a recent occurrence that started after a new battery switch was installed. The questions I have are :
- Is the depth finder actually sensing battery voltage and sends an alarm when battery drops below 10v?
- Is the flashing numbers the alarm??
- If 1 and 2 are yes, is this related to the battery switch or is it really the battery? I haven’t had any problems with starting or any other electrical issues.
The battery is two years old.
thanks
tom
there is an option to display battery voltage. i would guess that flashing numbers while running would be the xducer losing the bottom - has it been bumped into misalignment? if you have the alarm set it should give an audible alert and display the alarm.
dernflat is right
the flashing number is a transducer error
the low voltage alarm does read the voltage from the power wire going to the unit.
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Thanks! I just joined a local dry stack storage facility. It’s the first time I’ve been in one. Could the transducer have been hit when the fork lift was used to lift the boat?!! How do I re-align the transducer?
thanks again!
I am betting that the ducer is not placed in the best spot on the boat, where is the transducer at on the boat? If it is transom mounted when you get up to speed the transducer may actually be out of the water and thus not able to read the correct depth until you slow down and it is back under water. You can also change the voltage alarm to anything you want if I am not mistaken. I have mine set at 12.1
No one knows if YOU are THE village IDIOT or not until YOU open your mouth and speak!!!
Sea tonic,
Two things on this:
-
As others said above, the depth numbers blinking out is just the ducer losing the bottom because you’re running and air is getting under the boat (it’s not a low-voltage alarm).
-
If you want to make use of the low-voltage alarm, change the alarm to sound at some voltage level ABOVE 10 volts, because the unit’s operative voltage is 10-18VDC (i.e., 10 VDC is the minimum operating input voltage for the unit), which means that the unit itself will start to fail (shut down) at 10 VDC, so it can’t sound any alarms for you below that voltage anyway. In other words, if you set the alarm at 10VDC, the unit will likely shut down without any alarm being sounded.
OH, and P.S.:
“Could the transducer have been hit when the fork lift was used to lift the boat?!!”
Yes, if it’s an external ducer, but that’s probably not your problem if what you’re describing is only happening while running; I would expect a strike from a fork arm to do some significant damage to a plastic transducer or tear it off completely. Ducers losing the bottom reading while cruising is actually pretty common and does not mean anything is electronically wrong, necessarily; the ducer is just with not ideal, or ideally placed, for the planing characteristics of the hull, or it’s simply been “kicked up”. It can be kicked up when you fish shallow and scrape the bottom, etc. No big deal. The forklift could have kicked it up, though.
As was mentioned above, you may need to move the ducer to keep it reading while you’re running. But, if it was working before, and just started doing this, then it probably got kicked up or something.
“How do I re-align the transducer?”
Just grab it and move it so it’s pointing down.
Gotcha Covered,
Lee Strickland
Strickland Marine Insurance, Inc.
843-795-1000 / 800-446-1862