My fishing partner has a new Ranger RT 188 with a Lowrance Elite 7 chirp at the console & an Elite 7 chirp at the bow. Both units were factory installed. Both have terrible noise when the TM is activated.
Are any of the Ranger owners having the dreaded interference on your units.
Any help or ideas that will eliminate the noise will be appreciated...
Well there are different things you can do and none are guaranteed, but often can be worked out. Running power to the depth finders directly from the cranking battery and not the buss wiring of the boat, contact the trolling motor manufacturer and getting a wiring RF filter known as a ferrite choke. If you have a trolling motor mounted transducer, contact the depth finder manufacturer and get a ferrite choke for the transducer cable. Follow your transducer cables and make sure that they are not ran parallel to power cables for long distances and that they are not wrapped in tight coils anywhere. And there are some more exotic solutions depending on the trolling motor you have that include running ground wires from the trolling motor foot or internal electronics. It can be a pain to run down because different problems require different solutions. You might get more specific help in the Lowrance forum.
In addition to Skeeterbait's advice, I offer the following:
What trolling motor do you have? If it is a Minn-Kota Maxxum or Fortrex, there should be a ground wire that runs from the commutator plate in the motor housing through a fuse in the head to the ground side of the circuit. This wire is there to prevent the interference you mention so check the fuse to be sure it is not blown.
Minn-Kota also has an inline RFI filter that is installed in the 24 volt circuit before and as close as possible to the input to the foot pedal. I think the part number is TMC-1. This can be used regardless of the trolling motor brand you have. You can aso help the situation by turning down the sensitivity on the Elite
This is a complex subject so don't expect a singular or quick fix.
I try to drive as if my 16 year old Grandson is following me
Speak as if he is listening and act as if he is watching
I had some issues a while back with my HDS units. My trolling motor down scan would somehow interfere with both units. I rewired my HDS units as mentioned above and that did not help. What did help was rerouting all of the transducer cables and trolling motor wiring. Basically I separated them as much as possible under the front deck.
This solved my issues. Like mentioned above, lots of opinions and thing to try, but this worked for me.
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