Lowrance confusion?

[Scott.Burke]

My HDS 10 has just recently stopped finding the bottom. The down scan works great. Does the sonar portion of the transducer go out? Should i feel ticking in the transducer when on sonar?

The second question is about time. My graph now doesn’t have the time, it displays three dashes. In settings under display i have box checked for time. So I’m confused?

Thanks

[MichaelB]

Might try a post here:
Lowrance Forum at Bass Boat Central
http://www.bbcboards.net/forumdisplay.php?f=136

[Ken Sauret]

Hello Scott,

As for the Time issue. Go to the System menu and find Time. Here you can set your local time and make sure the settings are correct.

Your traditional sonar or Broadband sonar is a separate ducer from the Structure Scan transducer. The Broadband ducer is likely glued into the bilge area of the boat if the location of this unit is at the console. I will assume this is the case for now, let me know if this unit is on the trolling motor.

If the Broadband sonar is not finding the bottom after having worked fine in the past, it is likely the transducer has failed or just worn out. Remember, a transducer is a man made crystal encased in an epoxy case with a couple very fine wires connected to it to make it jump or "ping" every time a very small charge of electricity is sent to the crystal. This movement of the crystal creates the ping or sound that travels out and bounces off targets that get shown on the screen. This continuous movement can create a small cavity in that epoxy encasement and the moving part can eventually fail. This is when it is time to install a new part or in this case a new transducer.

One tip here is when you get ready to install the new transducer, you will need to pull the new ducer's cable up to the console to connect it to the unit. The old ducer is bad so cut the puck off the cable and use the old ducer's cable to pull the plug end of the new transducer up to the unit. This is a built in pull cable. Something I do is get a 12 or 15 foot piece of 12 to 14 gauge wire and pull it up at the same time. Just wrap the wire off at each end just in case you need to pull something else up there and don't have something you are pulling out at the same time.

Hope this helps.

[Mitch]

Sounds like the transducer has come loose if it's in the bilge. Mine did that and that was the problem. Epoxied in a and no more problem

[Scott.Burke]

Thanks, When I get home I will look into this right away. I really appreciate the help. I thought I posted on Lowrance forum. (rookie move)

Scott

[jeff bradshaw]

The time on both of my HDS8 Gen 2's stopped working also and just shows 3 dashes- checked settings reset local time and can't get the time to display on either graphs no matter what I do even tried resetting to factory default still doesn't display the time......frustrating

[Ken Sauret]

Jeff Bradshaw, have you gone into the "Edit Overlay Data" and deleted the Time, then go back into Edit Overlay Data and reinstall the Time on each screen. Any overlay data that stops showing sometimes needs to be deleted and reinstalled to work.

[Marc]

The time on both of my HDS8 Gen 2's stopped working also and just shows 3 dashes- checked settings reset local time and can't get the time to display on either graphs no matter what I do even tried resetting to factory default still doesn't display the time......frustrating

Go here for your answer: http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=938187 but be sure to read all the replies especially toward the end. The good news is that the problem should fix itself after April (it is a programming issue by the GPS chip manufacturer). This seems to only affect Gen 2 units.