X-75 dying?

I have a Lowrance X-75 on the bow of my boat (using the MK Universal Sonar transducer). For some time the display has been erratic... particularly if the voltage is below 12.5 Volts. Dark vertical bars appear, widen and sometimes cover the whole screen. The display also appears to shimmer when this is happening. Today it happened after the batteries were fully charged and the voltmeter display on the unit was showing 13-14 volts and the charger was still connected. It went away after the unit was on a few minutes. I suppose there could be a wiring problem but the voltage would have shown a drop, wouldn't it? The unit came with the boat so it is at least 5yrs old...maybe more. Ready to replace it with and Eagle 480 but don't want to do that if there is nothing wrong with the unit.

Check for corrosion on your connectors. You might luck out.

Agree. Check the pins on the connectors for the power and the tranducer as well. Clean them with alcohol and a pencil eraser if you find any corrosion. Do you have another unit you can swap to that position - as in a compatable unit at the console? If so, that would eliminate the head unit being the issue and might confirm it to the tranducer or the wiring.

Wannabe...

Try a soft or maybe hard reset. It helps sometimes.

How do I do a "soft" or "hard" reset on the X-75? Thought that was only for the more advanced units. Hmm... Manual whereabouts unknown. Maybe I can find it on line. If it is just a connection issue, I hope it isn't somewhere under the deck. Checked and cleaned all battery terminals and fuses. Cleaned pins on unit. Broke the little plastic "V" shaped locating pin but that doesn't seem to make any difference. Broke the one of my old X-85 too and it continued to work. Wish I hadn't sold it with the old boat... would try swapping it out. Thanks for the suggestions. One question, though... If it were a connection issue, would the unit continue to register voltage of 13+ while connected to charger (unit misbehaves while on charger too).

Reset Procedures | Lowrance

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Originally Posted by ShortStorie

How do I do a "soft" or "hard" reset on the X-75? Thought that was only for the more advanced units. Hmm... Manual whereabouts unknown. Maybe I can find it on line. If it is just a connection issue, I hope it isn't somewhere under the deck. Checked and cleaned all battery terminals and fuses. Cleaned pins on unit. Broke the little plastic "V" shaped locating pin but that doesn't seem to make any difference. Broke the one of my old X-85 too and it continued to work. Wish I hadn't sold it with the old boat... would try swapping it out. Thanks for the suggestions. One question, though... If it were a connection issue, would the unit continue to register voltage of 13+ while connected to charger (unit misbehaves while on charger too).

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Battery chargers are a noise source when it comes to electronics. I am not surprised.

Thanks, Cane Pole... I'll go try it right now. Wouldn't have figured it out myself. When I push the "menu" button, dark lines block everything in that part of the screen.

Noticed one thing... voltage is constantly changing slightly from 13.0 to 12.86 and all points in between. Significant? This is with the charger plugged in. I'll try it battery only.

Tried the reset. No change. Tried with and without charger plugged in. No change. Will try to find someone with compatible unit and see if it works on my boat. Hopefully, it will ... Then I can buy the Eagle 480 without worrying that it won't work because of a bad connection. :)

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Originally Posted by ShortStorie

Tried the reset. No change. Tried with and without charger plugged in. No change. Will try to find someone with compatible unit and see if it works on my boat. Hopefully, it will ... Then I can buy the Eagle 480 without worrying that it won't work because of a bad connection. :)

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Good idea. If that don't work, get a big hammer. That will reset it.

Good luck. This stuff is aggravating at times.

Good luck with that x75. One of the best graphs Lowrance made. I sold mine on Ebay and bought the X510c as an upgrade. I could have kicked myself. The new Lowrance sonars have shallow water issues. Stick with the x75 check Ebay for parts if need be.

Remembered that the display would often get better after the unit had been on a while so I left it on and checked in ah hour. Behold! It works...better, anyway. Can still see faint lines flickering in the background (No Doc, I don't hear any voices... but people ARE giving me ideas..).... Since I'm going fishing in the morning, I just left it on, left the charger plugged in ...Hope I don't forget THAT when I leave :( Kinda like having an old car with a bad battery... Don't turn it off or it'l never start.

One last thing - and I didn't mention it before because it didn't sound like the right answer, but could this be noise picked up through the wiring?

Does it get worse or better when you hit the switch on the TM?

Only sure fire answer I know of in that case is to run a ground from your TM foot to the Negative of your cranking battery, but I'd lay a temporary wire on top of the deck before I went through the trouble of snaking the wire.

Wannabe...

Seems unaffected by the TM... misbehaves in the parking lot with the TM unplugged. Will try the temp. ground just to see what happens... or doesn't.

Worked pretty good on the lake today... could read the display, though the dark bands would come and go.

Before I did that, I'd run down a loaner unit and plug it up and see what happens. If you're getting no differnece the TM on or off and even unplugged, I don't think noise is the issue.

Try it both ways, loaner plugged into your boat and your unit plugged into a buddy's boat.

Wannabe...

One other possibility is the transducer. They do go bad from time to time. Got a spare?

Wannabe...

Does the weird display thing even with the transducer cable disconnected.

Can you get access to a buddy with a 75 or 85 to substitute? From memory, I seem to recall there was a 45 and a 55 in that series that would match up with power and tranducer as well.

I'm beginning to want to bet that your head unit is going bad, but still there's a chance the wiring is the issue.

Wannabe...

You can find head units on ebay some are like new. I believe the X65,X75 and X85 work with the same transducers and power wires. These were good graphs the ones that helped build the good Lowrance reputation. Their new sonars while techically advanced don`t work nearly as good as these ones do. Get the x85 if you can find one.

If you deceide to pull the plug on your X75 and buy new, I would strongly reconmend going with either Humminbird or Vexilar.

I had an X-85 on my old Lowe. Let it go with the boat because the little plastic locating pin on the power cable broke off. Still worked, though. Now the same pin has broken on my X-45.... Hindsight :(

Why Humminbird? The general talk has been that, for regular 2D imaging, the Lowrance products were superior. I've had my eye on the Eagle 480 as a bargain unit with good power. Reviews were generally favorable but I'm listening to all opinions. I was also considering a Humminbird 595 GPS/Sonar combo for the console (using built in flasher now)... Cabela's has them on sale for $100 off and there is a $50 mfg rebate which brings the price of the combo down to $350. Bad reports on the 'bird's GPS made me wary... Alternative is to save for a Lowrance 520 for the console and the Eagle up front. Might reconsider the 'bird for the console if the upcoming upgrade will apply to the 595.... Your thoughts...anyone?

Ask a H'bird expert, but as I understand it the slow GPS boat postion correction issue only applies to the SI units. I suspect it's a processing speed/flash memory issue and not actually a receiver problem, but I'm just guessing. If you're not interested in the SI capabilities, I'd go Lowrance or Eagle - preferably Lowrance for netorking capability and interchangability. But that's just me. Keep in mind that Lowrance has known issues out there too. Specifically, they've gotten a lot of complaints and returns for the 520Cs power switch problems with the units powering up and down on there own.

Here's something I found interesting when comparing higher end Lowrance/H'bird Units.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/f...vin&id=3555443

Wannabe...

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Originally Posted by Wannabe...

Ask a H'bird expert, but as I understand it the slow GPS boat postion correction issue only applies to the SI units. I suspect it's a processing speed/flash memory issue and not actually a receiver problem, but I'm just guessing. If you're not interested in the SI capabilities, I'd go Lowrance or Eagle - preferably Lowrance for netorking capability and interchangability. But that's just me. Keep in mind that Lowrance has known issues out there too. Specifically, they've gotten a lot of complaints and returns for the 520Cs power switch problems with the units powering up and down on there own.

Here's something I found interesting when comparing higher end Lowrance/H'bird Units.

ESPN - Short: Sonar wars

Wannabe...

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Thanks for the link. That is very interesting.

I`d still go with a Humminbird or Vexilar
check this graph out;

)http://www.vexilar.com/pages/product...s_lc-507c.html