I am on my last leg hoping that someone will have some additional suggestions on things to try to help me eliminate my interference problems. I started out with my old Motorguide Tour 82 which was a 2005 model when I added my Helix and Mega 360. Had bad interference with that setup and tried many things to eliminate to interference to no avail. I was able to reduce it some but not totally. As a last resort and from suggestions gained from others on this forum regarding the potential root cause maybe being wear on my old trolling motor causing the RFI issues, I decided to buy a new MG trolling motor (bought a new MG Tour 82). Once everything was installed, I found the RFI was as bad or worse than before. I have tried everything I can think of to eliminate the issue but have had no luck. Here are the things I have tried:
**Added ground wire from skeg to negative TM battery ground post-- (A little improvement but not much)
**Added ground wire from skeg to negative electronics (starting battery) battery post-- (no change)
**Tried running ground wires from skeg to various other places such as spots on the trolling motor foot pedal--(no change)
**Tried running ground wire between trolling motor battery ground to starting battery ground--(made RFI allot worse)
**Made sure transducer cables and electronics power cables ran down trolling motor bracket and not with trolling motor power cable
**Cable management--made sure to figure 8 excess transducer cables inside bow
**Added choke provided by HB between onboard charger and starting battery--(no change)
**Unhooked onboard charger wires from starting battery to test it--(no change)
**Added TM1 choke on trolling motor foot pedal power supply wires --(no change)
**Added a quantity of 5 240-mix 77 ferrites to the Mega 360 transducer cable --(no change)
**Added a quantity of 6 240-mix 77 ferrites to the SI transducer cable (transducer that came in box with HB 12)---(saw a little improvement but not much)
**Added ferrites provided by HB to various electronics power cables--(no change)
**Tried powering Bow HB electronics from separate stand alone battery outside the boat--(no change)
**Tried wrapping the various cables inside the bow in aluminum foil to shield them--(no change)
**Tried all the various noise filter settings on my HB Unit--(saw a little change but not much)
**Been on the phone with HB for countless hours trying to solve to no avail--last thing they told me is that they think it's my trolling motor and suggest I call MotorGuide
**Called MotorGuide, and explained all of this and begged for help.........they had no suggestions beyond what I have tried and told me to call HB.......LOL
Also noticed that the RFI issue gets exponentially worse while on the water vs testing in my garage. I have also tried trial and error testing on the water trying to solve this issue.
I am literally at my wits end having spent hours and hours and days trying to solve this issue and am at the end of my rope. The interference is so bad that it renders my mega 360 useless. It is so frustrating to spend thousands of dollars on electronic equipment to have an issue like this that makes them unusable.
I am hoping that someone will have some other suggestions of additional things I might try to solve this issue. Would really like to be able to use my mega 360 as intended.
thanks in advance.