The HB "Max Depth" setting and better unit performance...

I knew the basic concept of what the HB manual said that setting the "Max Depth" setting to your maximum water depth experienced but I did not know good words to explain it myself...

I finally found a good explaination from RGecy talking about how setting the "Max Depth" setting to something other than "Auto" can make your unit perform better....

Quoting RGecy...

The units are designed to listen for sonar returns (aka Pings) in up to 2000' of water. If the unit loses bottom in shallow water it will slow down the number of pings its sending out so it can listen longer, thinking it may be in deeper water. This is why you may see some crazy numbers come up for depth when the unit loses bottom lock. Think about it, a ping in 2000' of water will take 100 times longer to return than a ping in 20' of water.

Also, since the Side Imaging transducers base their ping rate off the 200khz ping rate, it will slow down significantly and will only seem to process about 1 or 2 pings per second, thus causing the screen to scroll extremely slow.

So by setting the MAX depth to the max expected depth in your area can help the system perform better and even help if its losing bottom lock by limiting the depth or length of time the unit needs to listen for.

Rickie

I am dumb when it comes to this and even I can understand that explanation. Thanks for the info

Thanks!! Seems I learn something new every day!!

Just switched over to HB from Low. This electronics forum has been so informative and helpful. Thanks guys.....its almost addictive now.

So if the lake im fishing has a max depth of say 90 fow if I set max depth at 95 ft will it be ok to fish in all depths of the water column or do i need to go back in when fishing say 25 ft and reset max to 30 ft just asking thanks great info

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Originally Posted by gotta_fish

So if the lake im fishing has a max depth of say 90 fow if I set max depth at 95 ft will it be ok to fish in all depths of the water column or do i need to go back in when fishing say 25 ft and reset max to 30 ft just asking thanks great info

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I don't think you would see a noticeable difference in 90' vs 30'...

I set mine 20' deeper than any water I could possibly have my boat in....

That way the only time I need to go back to the "Max Depth" setting at all is after a "Restore Factory Defaults"...

Rickie

I set mine for 5-10 ft depending on how flat the lake is or ledgy. That way it maximizes the display as well


2003 Xpress X17
MinnKota V2 Powerdrive
Humminbird 998c
Cumberland Crappie Racks
BnM PSTs

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Originally Posted by rnvinc

I don't think you would see a noticeable difference in 90' vs 30'...

I set mine 20' deeper than any water I could possibly have my boat in....

That way the only time I need to go back to the "Max Depth" setting at all is after a "Restore Factory Defaults"...

Rickie

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+1:ThumbsUp

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Originally Posted by gotta_fish

So if the lake im fishing has a max depth of say 90 fow if I set max depth at 95 ft will it be ok to fish in all depths of the water column or do i need to go back in when fishing say 25 ft and reset max to 30 ft just asking thanks great info

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I don’t think that you will notice any difference as long as your unit is correctly tracking the bottom.

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Originally Posted by South65

I set mine for 5-10 ft depending on how flat the lake is or ledgy. That way it maximizes the display as well


2003 Xpress X17
MinnKota V2 Powerdrive
Humminbird 998c
Cumberland Crappie Racks
BnM PSTs

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South65, are you talking about the Max Depth menu or the Lower Range menu setting?

One thing you have to watch out for is when you set the Max Depth menu to a setting shallower than the water depth you are in. You will not allow the unit to listen to the sonar returns for a long enough period of time so it will not be able to correctly show the water depth or use its Si and Di sonar correctly.

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Originally Posted by Humminbird_Greg

... are you talking about the Max Depth menu or the Lower Range menu setting?

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Greg brings up a good point here that may need to be noted...

The "Max Depth" setting (under the Sonar tab) and the "Lower Depth" setting (under the Sonar express menu) are 2 completely different settings with completely different functions...

The "Max Depth" setting is telling the processor to only "listen" for the returning echo "ping" from the setting value entered before the unit sends out the next "ping"...(this is a processor setting)

The "Lower Range" setting is merely telling the unit to only show on the 2d display down to a depth equal to the setting value...(this is a screen display setting)

Rickie