interference with humminbird helix 12

[shovelhead83]

I have a 2016 Nitro z21 and have just put a helix chirp on front and a helix mega at steering wheel and as soon as I step on my new ulterx trolling motor I get bad interference I have placed the rings on both my power wire and transducer wires , humminbird replace the board in the foot pedal and motor and brushes I have run different ground wires put units on one battier and still get interference as soon as I touch my foot pedal . I pulled the transducer off the trolling motor and held it away from the trolling motor no interference as soon as I get about 3 inches from it interference again have no idea where to go from here any help would be great thanks

[Sparky292]

Im interested in this too. Seems like a very common issue. I have the same thing with my helix and fortrex and just bought an ultrex and was hoping it would solve the issue.

I havent seen too many responses other than putting a 5amp fuse in place of the 3amp but I never tried that

[Wayne P.]

If you use an on-board battery charger for the trolling motor battery/s and starting battery, disconnect the starting battery and check for RFI.

[noenvybu]

I bought my Ultrex in July, same problem added ferrite choke..no help from Minn Kota..Have posted on here many times..same when I depress pedal or use REMOTE??

[shovelhead83]

I have unhooked everything from my battier except the helix and no change maybe I should unhook the charger from the trolling battiers and see if it helps think it's the only thing Iknow I haven't done but don't see where that would help .I believe it is strictly in the trolling motor but could be wrong

[shovelhead83]

Humminbird worked with me for about 2 weeks with no changes then they replaced the motor and brushes and then took it back to them and they replaced the board in the foot paddle and still no changes and they said they had no idea what's causing the interference and I don't fill like I am the only with this problem . About $8,000.00 in new equipment and is good for trolling only and maybe depth. It seems to me to be in the trolling motor but I don't no.

[ntslam]

how are the cables routed, the depth finder cables and trolling motor power cables need to be far away from each other as possible. You can also look through this link and may find something useful. There many many many reasons for rfi.

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/fishi...-interference/


these people may be of some help also

http://palomar-engineers.com/

[shovelhead83]

My power wire is run through the right side and the tm wires the left side and I have completed un hooked inboard charger and perko switch and no change with both units still hooked to one battery by them self no change changed power cables to 18ga shielded wire and pulled my hair out

[wmitch2]

Have you tried running a wire from the ground wire connection for the Trolling motor to the ground wire connection of the Graph unit ?

[shovelhead83]

yes sir from tm ground to tm and from power battery as suggested from HB then they told me it was not necessary to do this with new tm because improved the tm to take care of this but was still the same

[H-D Dad]

Have you checked to make sure you have selected the correct transducer? I'm not familiar with hummingbird, maybe somewhere in the menu to select a transducer. Good luck.

[shovelhead83]

I have had the guy from hummingbird that is tech support for fishing tournaments helping me till he said he had no idea where to go now so I just figure he knows the equipment is correct and he also put a new transducer on and still the same thing and also took both units into hummingbird have them checked so if he can't figure it out I was just hoping someone else maybe had already thanks for the suggesting hopefully someone will come up with something I haven't done please keep the suggesting coming

[Jonestrollingmotor]

Is the interference on both units, or just the bow unit. Are you only using the US2 transducer for the front unit, or do you have a separate transducer and not using the US2. I'm assuming the fuse in the head of the unit is good. Why would Humminbird change the brushes, control board, and motor (which motor) when these are MinnKota products? Have you tried it without steering, just turning the lower unit on?

[TroyBoy30]

how are the cables routed, the depth finder cables and trolling motor power cables need to be far away from each other as possible. You can also look through this link and may find something useful. There many many many reasons for rfi.

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/fishi...-interference/


these people may be of some help also

http://palomar-engineers.com/

I used to think this as well, but my solix units have zero interference with the cables run down the trolling motor cables or down the mount. your best bet is to call humminbird and work through things 1 step at a time. what works for others may not work for you and may make things worse. i have nothing installed on my system to fix interference

[Jspell]

Had the same issue but I found my problem. Under my front deck my trolling motor power wires were laying against my power wires for my hummingbird unit. I tied all the wires up away from each other and my issue was solved....

[TroyBoy30]

you can try bundling access wires in a figure 8 instead of coiling them

[TXZ21]

I had the same issue as well with my Helix/Ultrex set up. Not sure which of the two things I did fixed it since I did them at the same time. I re-routed the transducer wiring under my front panel where I found is was running on top of/across the 36v power/ground wires going to my TM plug. I also switched my transducer to Humminbird's TM mount XTM 9 WIDE DI 20 T as they said it has more shielding from interference than the transom mount style transducer I had been running.

I'm in the process of switching over to console and bow mounted Solix Mega units, so I hope I don't run into this problem again as HB does not offer a shielded mega transducer that I know of.

[TroyBoy30]

im running the packaged solix transducers on the hole shot plate and the trolling motor and have no interference. humminbird will walk you through fixing it if you do.

[Jeff from Iowa]

I have unhooked everything from my battier except the helix and no change maybe I should unhook the charger from the trolling battiers and see if it helps think it's the only thing Iknow I haven't done but don't see where that would help .I believe it is strictly in the trolling motor but could be wrong

ditto....

minn kota did the repairs to my tm to try and fix it and it made it worse.. I started getting the dreaded locking pedal so they sent me a new one now Ive yet to install it.

Ive gone so far as to hold a ducer out over the side of the boat in my hand. So that ducer cable went from the helix to the water, nothing else near it.
I wired my tm and helix to two separate batteries sitting on the deck so I know absolutely positively that the interference is rfi and not a wiring cross talk issue.


My fingers are crossed. I find it interesting that multiple people have the exact same issue, minn kota claims this has never happened. In dealing with this I was dealing with humminbird and minn kota, they both kept blaming the other and I finally put them on a group email when sending pics, videos etc. That seemed to get something happening finally, so far Id say I have about 100 hours in re routing and re routing and re wiring etc.