Garmin Livescope Problem -Intermittent Dead/Dark Sonar "Cones"
Searched and can't find any similar problems to what I am experiencing. Not sure when this started happening, but it is a relatively new issue....
When I initially deploy my LVS34 it will have dark/dead cones in the view. This will last for about 20 minutes and gradually improve to what seems fairly normal. I feel like my images aren't as good as they should be even at that point, but that might just be in my head. This happens every time I take the unit out of the water, move to a new location and redeploy.
I'm running an Amped Outdoor NMC battery and the wires are also grounded to my cranking battery. I ran this setup last year without this problem.
I have switched settings, unplugged other electronics, etc. Trolling motor is an Ultrex, have gone as far as unplugging it, no change. Have an email in to Garmin but haven't heard back from them yet.
First shot is when unit is first deployed. 2nd one is as good as it gets after ~20 min.
Obviously these are perspective view. It has the same problem regardless of orientation, just much easier to point out the problem in perspective.
I had a similar issue with mine this past weeeknd. Fished a tourney on one lake Saturday and everything worked normal. On Monday I hit my local lake and when I turned on my LiveScope I had one "cone" that was black, and the rest of the picture looked normal. I tried resetting the unit to factory and dialed it in again with the same results. Check all connections and reseated them with no change. Then pulled the transducer up for a visual inspection. Everything looked fine. When I put the LVS34 back in the water the issue corrected itself. I did start to have some "ghost imaging" issues with what looked like a cross in that same cone area just above the bottom. The pic was usable though. When I switched locations, I turned the transmission off. Upon deploying the LVS34 again, I had the black cone area. Again, I was able to correct the issue by pulling the transducer out of the water and putting it back in. The ghost image remained though. After an hour or so on the phone with Garmin tech support, they told me that I had a bad transducer and that it was likely from a pinch in the cable. This made no sense to me as this set up is on a kayak, there are no hard turns in the cable routing, and no possible pinch points. The set-up stays installed on the kayak and just suddenly stopped working correctly. They offered me an "exchange" for $500 since my unit is out of warranty. I paid it and will check the new transducer this weekend on my next trip out. Hopefully that took care of the issue.
Update: I emailed garmin and never heard anything back so I decided to call the other day and got right through to a very nice customer service rep. After sending a few more pictures they are sending me out a brand new transducer. Sounds like whatever the "dead cone" issue is, it's pretty uncommon. I also recently started getting some mirrored images, which is a problem I hadn't had previously. So I have to say I'm happy with Garmin replacing the unit. Just wish I had called instead of emailing.
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