Problems with my fish finder and my batteries.

[ngt]

Here’s the whole story…I took my boat out a couple of weeks ago with all of my equipment (FF, DR, TM) hooked up to the battery that came with the boat. I had charged the battery overnight before going out on a 5 amp per bank charger. I went out and everything was fine. All of the stuff was working 100%. About half way through the morning the fish finder starts really acting up. The regular side is not accurate, the depth is jumping around from time to time, and the down imaging goes out completely. Or at least turns a dark blue. My FF is a Humminbird 898c HD SI Combo.

So I come home and wire up my two optima blue tops in parallel. Charge them and the other battery all night long. Each 5a bank of the onboard on one battery that is in parallel, and another charger on the older big battery. My fish finder is still acting up in the garage. I’m going straight to PC Connect. I take it out anyways and fish for a few ours. The depth is ok, still bouncing around from time to time and the down imaging is still messed up (dark) I change some settings and get a bit of a bottom picture from the Down Imaging, but no detail at all…just a white line for the bottom of a lake that I know is full of trees down there. As I troll, when I go to 9 ½ speed, then drop to 9 and down to 8, the image changes. Lighter and lighter and lighter, but still no detail on the bottom.

I get home and test the voltage on my two optima batteries and they’re at 11.3v, like they never took a charge all night. The bigger older battery that came with the boat, after charging all night long, was at 12.5, but registered at 25% on my battery tester on my trolling motor. I disconnected the wires connecting them in parallel and charged the individually on the two banks. They got up to 13.3v this morning but my fish finder only registered them as 12.6v. I checked the wire going into the fish finder with a multimeter and it said 13.3v, so nothing was getting lost on the way over. I turned on the fish finder and it popped on 100% like normal.

I went to work at 7am and came back home at around 5. There was nothing running on these batteries, but the two that were hooked back up in parallel before I left this morning were now down to 12.9v and my fish finder was reading them at 12.3-12.4v and yet again my fish finder is going straight to the “PC Connect” gray screen and it took 2-3 shutdowns and restarts before it stayed on.

So that’s where I’m at today. I don’t know what the problem is…

My batteries?
My charger?
My fish finder broken?
How do I factory reset the whole fish finder? Not just back to default settings.
If I do go back to default settings, all problem still exist with the fish finder.

With all of this in mind, what do you think my problem is? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Eric

Here are some pictures:

When the problem first started:

The second time out: In the first shot, we're at about 75+ ft on the depth The 2nd one is a shot of the screen once while dropping in power on the trolling motor.

Any help would be appreciated!!

 

[UncleWillie]

...I get home and test the voltage on my two optima batteries and they're at 11.3v, like they never took a charge all night. The bigger older battery that came with the boat, after charging all night long, was at 12.5, but registered at 25% on my battery tester on my trolling motor. I disconnected the wires connecting them in parallel and charged the individually on the two banks. They got up to 13.3v this morning but my fish finder only registered them as 12.6v. I checked the wire going into the fish finder with a multimeter and it said 13.3v, so nothing was getting lost on the way over...

Is the 13.3 while charging or with the charger shut down?
Batteries will not charge at all unless the voltage gets over ~13.5v. 14.2v or more is way more typical.

The trolling motor should be on its own batteries, and the house electronics on their own battery.
Are these the same batteries that are user to start the engine?

 

[ngt]

Is the 13.3 while charging or with the charger shut down?
Batteries will not charge at all unless the voltage gets over ~13.5v. 14.2v or more is way more typical.

The trolling motor should be on its own batteries, and the house electronics on their own battery.
Are these the same batteries that are user to start the engine?

The charger is disconnected when the 13.3v is taken. I can check the voltage with the charger on to see what it is then. The two parallel blue top batteries only run the FF and TM. The DR is on another battery and the starting battery and lights are on another battery. 4 batteries in all. One big one and the starter that came with the boat and the two blue top optima batteries that my friend gave me.

So I should put the FF, the lights, and the DR on the older big battery, the trolling motor on the parallel blue tops, and have the starting battery for the engine?

 

[ngt]

The batteries are at 14.28 while the charger is on.

 

[UncleWillie]

The charger is disconnected when the 13.3v is taken. I can check the voltage with the charger on to see what it is then. The two parallel blue top batteries only run the FF and TM. The DR is on another battery and the starting battery and lights are on another battery. 4 batteries in all. One big one and the starter that came with the boat and the two blue top optima batteries that my friend gave me.
So I should put the FF, the lights, and the DR on the older big battery, the trolling motor on the parallel blue tops, and have the starting battery for the engine?

Yes. Isolate the Troller to its own batteries.
Motors can generate a lot of electrical noise at partial throttle.

14.28 is a good voltage while charging.
The 13.3v reading is only temporary and means little.
The batteries will drop back to ~12.6 after a few hours.

 

[ngt]

Thanks I'll redo the setup and put the trolling motor on the parallel batteries by themselves. Thank you for your help. Maybe i can get our this weekend and give it a test run. I really appreciate the quick replies.