Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

[Backcountry]

Trying to install a 320c in the bow, but before doing so, figured I'd test the unit as it is used. Wired to a 12v source, and will not power up. Don't think I would have fried the unit by doing this without an inline fuse, but not sure. If I did, I'll feel like an idiot.

Anyway, pulled the plug out of the back of the unit to see if I could measure the voltage in the cable with a multimeter. Don't get any voltage reading from any of the female connectors on the plug. I do see a little rust/corrosion on a couple of them. Could it be a bad power/transducer cable? I should have seen some voltage reading if it was working properly, right? There are 6 connectors on the cable and 6 pins on the unit.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

BC

 

[Splat]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

Shouldn't have hurt it with no fuse.

You'll need to determine which leads on the cable are the negative and positive. if you have a multimeter with small probes you can hold the one lead on one pin and check the other one by one for voltage. If you read none, then move the lead on to the next pin, and check one by one again. Repeat till either you've checked all pins in series, or found a combination of two that had voltage.

If no voltage is found anywhere my guess would be the cable is bad.

Bill

 

[Backcountry]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

Thanks Bill. That's exactly what I did. I'll try again just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Is it common for these cables to go bad?

BC

 

[Splat]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

In general any of those multi conductor cables are meant to be installed gingerly, and left in place. They are not good for lots of removal and installation, especially with tugging and bending. There's a lot of little fragile wires wound together in there.

You know the other thing you can do is if your multi meter has a continuity tester, or can even read ohms. You can connect one test lead to the end of the cable where it would attach to the battery.

MAKE SURE YOUR CABLE THAT YOU ARE TESTING IS DISCONNECTED FROM THE BATTERY OR YOU"LL BLOW UP YOUR METER

you can then probe each pin on the connector one by one till you get either a audible tone(if your meter does that) or a 0 on the meter. This will indicate a connection. It you find neither you have a break in the cable. One you do one, then switch to the other.

This may be easier if the connector that goes into the FF is small and it's hard to get 2 test probes in there.

BIll

 

[Backcountry]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

OK. I tried using the multimeter with the ohms setting. Left the negative wire connected, disconnected the wire that goes to the battery and wrapped it around the black probe. Set the multimeter on ohms, and touched each connector with the red probe. Found one pin that gave a reading of between .6 and 1.2. Not sure what that means, but might it mean the cable is ok? I may have done something backwards with the probes.

Thx,

BC

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

Your testing is flawed. Since you suspect a bad power cable, disconnect the cable from the locator. Connect the red power wire to the battery. Connect the black wire to the battery. Set your meter to the 15V scale (or whatever scale it has that allows reading 12VDC. Connect the BLACK test lead to the NEGATIVE terminal of the battery. Touch the red TEST LEAD to each contact in the cable connector. If you do not read 12V on any of those pins, you have a bad cable. If you do read 12V on one of them, the +12V line is ok. You now need to verify that the NEGATIVE (black lead) is ok.

Disconnect both wires from the battery. Connect the BLACK TEST LEAD to the black wire in the power cable. Set your meter to read OHMS. Now touch each pin in the connector just like you did when checking for voltage. If you find the pin that correspond to the BLACk wire the meter should read ZERO (0). If you do not find a zero reading, you have a bad ground wire in the cable.

IMPORTANT: None of these tests can be accurate unless the test probe can actually get into the socket on the cable. Use a pin or nail that fits but not one that is too large as it will spread the contact and it won't make a good connection on the locator.

 

[Backcountry]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

Thanks guys for the clarification on using the tester for continuity. I don't know if i was tired or what, but I went back and checked voltage in the cable, and got a good reading at the plug. Not sure why I didn't the first time, but I think the issue was a bad connection at the wire end. Now just need to go get an 3amp inline fuse and finish it up.

This place is great!

BC

 

[Splat]

Re: Eagle FishEasy 320c - not powering up

Your testing is flawed. Since you suspect a bad power cable, disconnect the cable from the locator. Connect the red power wire to the battery. Connect the black wire to the battery. Set your meter to the 15V scale (or whatever scale it has that allows reading 12VDC. Connect the BLACK test lead to the NEGATIVE terminal of the battery. Touch the red TEST LEAD to each contact in the cable connector. If you do not read 12V on any of those pins, you have a bad cable. If you do read 12V on one of them, the +12V line is ok. You now need to verify that the NEGATIVE (black lead) is ok.

Disconnect both wires from the battery. Connect the BLACK TEST LEAD to the black wire in the power cable. Set your meter to read OHMS. Now touch each pin in the connector just like you did when checking for voltage. If you find the pin that correspond to the BLACk wire the meter should read ZERO (0). If you do not find a zero reading, you have a bad ground wire in the cable.

IMPORTANT: None of these tests can be accurate unless the test probe can actually get into the socket on the cable. Use a pin or nail that fits but not one that is too large as it will spread the contact and it won't make a good connection on the locator.

I was looking more along the lines of a broken braid in the wires that would still give voltage, just not under load.

Bill