Raymarine Fishfinder turning off

[Stu-SP]

Hi Raiders,

I installed a raymarine dragonfly in my coast runner about 9 months ago. But lately when I start the engine after drifting or being at anchor the fishfinder turns off. I was curious if anyone else has experienced this issue before? Could it be because my electrics and motor all run off the one battery at the moment, and start up draws too much current? I have a spare on board and I'm in the process of setting up a dual battery system, as I had an incident at the boat ramp of two flat batteries on launching. Lesson learnt so I now fully charge it before every trip.

Cheers and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Stu

[Croydon]

Hi Stu,

It's a fairly common problem and I've had it in my boat on occasion. I needed to replace my earth wire from battery to the helm as it had corroded over the years.

It sounds like the voltage is dropping on start up to a point where the sounder is turning off to protect itself from damage. I'd be making sure all your terminals are clean and tight. That the wire you've used for the installation is large enough to support your sounder's power needs. The longer the distance from the battery to the head unit, the greater the chance of voltage drop. What's the condition and age of your battery? Are the terminals clean and tight? I'm no expert but a few things to consider. Good luck..........

Dave

[Testlab]

Dave has some good advice. It is caused by the voltage drop when cranking and the sounder turns off or resets. The condition of your battery is very important - the less charge the greater the voltage drop. Also the location of the battery is important and the length of the cables (and condition) between the Dragonfly and the battery.

You can easily fix this by using a voltage controlled relay and a dual battery setup. It is also possible to do it cheaply using a selaed lead-acid (SLA) located near the sounder, a less expensive smaller switch and a blocking diode. The SLA keeps the electronics powered up by eliminating the drop during cranking and the diode charges the SLA but blocks it from supplying power during cranking. It's not ideal but it works as a budget solution.

[brad_tate]

I had this problem with my sounder a few years ago and it ended up being the canary in the coal mine. As above it was due to a voltage drop, but the deeper problem was that the battery was on the way out and finally died on me. The sounder cutting out was a warning sign that the battery wasn't holding sufficient charge.

My advice is check your battery - water levels and charge holding capacity. In my case the real root cause was me not servicing my battery regularly and letting it dry out, and I then needed to replace it. Battery water top up is now a standard part of my maintenance regime to extend the service life and reduce the risk of being without power on the water.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Stu-SP]

Thanks guys that is all great advice! I'll check water levels and if no good I'll grab another new battery. I don't want to get stranded as I run a few solo sessions. I did purchase a new battery a few weeks ago but that is my spare just siting onboard. So I will change it over and see how it goes. It all makes sense that it is definitely not hold charge as it should be.

I will go ahead and get the dual batter set up sorted very soon. Would you install a VSR with a isolation switch or just a 4 position switch (1,2,both or off) and manually switch between batteries as needed? I pretty much want a starter battery and the second to run all my electrics.

[Jewhunter]

I had the same problem, even when I bought a new battery.

I changed my old battery to a marine pro 560. It was still happening.

I then changed up to a 720. Problem solved, so get a bigger crank battery & it should fix it.

[Stu-SP]

Changed over the old battery to my new one (bigger crank) and it didn't turn off once! Thanks for everyone's help, looks like problem solved!

Cheers,

Stu

Edited September 18, 2016 by Stu-SP