Help with mega 360

[mtaylor17]

Just installed mega 360 on my ultrex yesterday and got everything hooked up per the directions. I have it hooked to a helix 9 MSI g3n. I’m out on the water now trying to get the height set for the pod and my helix isn’t picking up the 360. It says unconnected. My powers and all is good. I have a y cable installed for my other transducer and it is connecting to that transducer no problem. What could be the issue? Any help is appreciated. I keep my boat an hour away from my house so I’m trying to get as much fixed as possible while I’m out here.

[SLYDoggie]

A couple of thoughts...

1) Make sure you really do have power going to the Mega 360. Unfortunately, there is no power indicator on the Mega 360 itself and I don't know how you would verify without a multimeter.

2) I don't think it is a wet switch issue as the Helix would still recognize the Mega 360 even if the wet switch wasn't being activated.

3) Make sure there aren't any bent or broken pins in the whole path from the Mega 360 to the Helix... Including the Y-Cable.

Can't think of anything else at this point. Hope you get it figured out while on the water today.

[Wayne P.]

Try Restore Defaults with the MEGA 360 deployed and powered.

Is the MEGA 360 listed in the Accessory Test menu with its serial number and software version?

[mtaylor17]

Not really sure what the deal was. My helix 9 MSI is a g3n + model so I’m good on that. I installed the latest update for it yesterday and it looked like everything went good. I moved my helix 12 g4n to the bow to see if it would connect on that unit and it fired right up and started working so I have to look into it.
I did have an extreme amount of interference when I did anything with my ultrex including turning the head, spot lock, etc. completely lit up the circle to 100 percent white wash. Basically rendering the 360 useless. Not sure what to do with that. My electronics each have their own wire runs to a graph dedicated fuse box that’s ran back to my starting battery. I ran a 14ga ground wire butt connected to the drain/shield wire on the mega 360 back to a ground on my motor under the cowling. All wires run up the starboard side of the boat while my trolling wires run up the center of the boat.
I don’t have a charger hooked up so that rules that out. Originally had transducer wires ran inside a TH Marine trolling motor sleeve but I took them out and held them as far away as I could (3 foot or so) and that didn’t change the interference at all.
In the bow I shoved all graph related wiring as far to the port side as I could but that would be the only place the wires get close to the trolling wires. It’s a gambler so not a large bow panel. Graph wires enter and exit a thru hull grommet probably 2” from my trolling motor plug receptacle. Maybe that’s the problem? Not really sure what to do other than check fuse in the head of the motor but as of right now the mega360 is completely useless unless I’m anchored up. Not sure if it matters but I didn’t add a true ground to the graphs electronic circuit. Ran negative off battery to fuse block and positive off battery thru a dedicated on/off switch then to the fuse block. Maybe I should run a ground wire from my motor to the fuse block’s negative stud?

[mtaylor17]

I didn’t try changing the interference settings either so hopefully that could be an option

[tonybfishing]

The ground wire needs to be the same size as the power wire coming from your fuse panel, 14 ga seems small. The correct wiring is an important issue people over look until things go haywire. Best if you can use marine grade tinned wire of at least 8 to10 ga from the battery to fuse panel then to on/off switch for 360, also to the head units. The noise settings will really help but I'm not sure it will totally eliminate everything. I purchased my items at pacergroup.net, hope this helps.

[cubsfan02449]

Any update on your issue? I have about the same setup as you and I’m getting interference. I messed with interference settings and it didn’t seem to help. I need to check my 360 software . Maybe I need the update ?

[mtaylor17]

I updated my helix 9 and it now recognizes the 360. As soon as I turned it on after update it started working and had zero interference. Not sure if the update helped with the interference or not because originally it wouldn’t connect on my helix 9 so I moved my 12 upfront just to check and make sure I had power and all. 12 worked with the 360 but had horrible interference. I haven’t tried my 12 again since updated my 9. One problem I do have now after updating the 9 software and base map is my transducers will not connect when I insert my lakemaster card. If I have the map card in the unit it acts like there’s no transducers even attached. Haven’t been able to figure that one out so I just run it with no map card and deal with the contourless base map