Quote Originally Posted by jos3ywales View Post
Ok I got my new elite 5 today I have one ? Until I get it hooked up on my boat whats the easiest way to hook it up in the house with out damaging it to play with it and try to learn all the settings?
That would be somewhat like I do, which is to plug in the power cord & connect the pos/neg wires to a 12V battery. In my case that's a portable jumper battery (which is cleaner/easier than lugging a marine or car battery around the house).
I was fortunate enough to receive two power/td cords from the member I bought the unit from, so I can still hook the unit up & "play with it" at home. Once you have a micro-sd card & reader, then you can take screenshots of your settings or pages where you're having problems or have questions about ... and it's easier for us to follow along.

I would also recommend printing out the Operations Manual (about 45pgs) so that you can use it as a reference guide ... highlight some of the info, or pencil in notes of your own. Helps with the learning curve !! ( http://www.lowrance.com/Root/Lowranc...0153-001_w.pdf )

And, should you happen to obtain some GPS coordinates of interest .... you can manually input them into your unit, and when you go to them "on the water", they'll be as accurate as if you had input them while you were on the water. And if the coordinates don't "fit" ... say for instance they're in "Decimal Degrees" ... then go here -> GPS Coordinate Converter, Maps and Info and convert them over to the "GPS" coordinate numbers that the Elite 5DSI uses.

I have successfully done just that ... manually input over 100 waypoints. And every one of the ones I've gone to, have been dead on the mark. You just have to understand that you will have to be moving close to 0.5mph towards the waypoint, in order to stay on course and center your boat icon over the waypoint icon. You can't really "drift" to them, due to the lag time of the GPS signal and boat drift (from wind/waves) possibly causing you to go off course and miss your mark.

... cp