Garmin 5xxS Question

[Leapy]

Question for someone with a Garmin 5xxS and whose boat is out of the water...

Could you tell me please what the depth sounder display shows - as in depth of water available in ft/m - when the plotter is powered up?

The depth sounder system isn't able to give a reading out of water...but...is the ft/m display blank, does it flash a "dash" mark or does it flash the last remembered reading, or what?

Still on a quest to find out what's wrong with mine

[BogMonster]

I have a Garmin 556s and I am about to go to the boat so I'll check it and let you know later

[jyasaki]

If you get a return, it's typically about 4x the actual distance (i.e. a ducer one foot from the ground will show 4 feet due to faster sound propogation in water.)

Whether or not you get a return depends on proximity, direction, and substrate. If you don't get a return, the unit (well, Lowrance does; not sure about Garmins) should show either the last reading received with a flashing display, or if it doesn't remember that (i.e. just powered on), a series of flashing dashes.

jky

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by jyasaki

If you get a return, it's typically about 4x the actual distance (i.e. a ducer one foot from the ground will show 4 feet due to faster sound propogation in water.)

Whether or not you get a return depends on proximity, direction, and substrate. If you don't get a return, the unit (well, Lowrance does; not sure about Garmins) should show either the last reading received with a flashing display, or if it doesn't remember that (i.e. just powered on), a series of flashing dashes.

jky

On the plotter I get nothing...when in 'Chart' mode, the ft/m depth reading just shows a dash "-" ...there's no flashing, no last reading, no nothing Garmin say it should flash a nonsense reading but I think even they are out of ideas now. In 'Sonar' mode it's just a blank screen. It's just the same in the garage as it was on the sea at water depth less than 15ft...if the water's more than 15ft, perfect

The transponder makes that cyclic electric pinging noise it's always made.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

I have a Garmin 556s and I am about to go to the boat so I'll check it and let you know later

[BogMonster]

Apologies, I got slightly waylaid by a wheel nearly falling off my trailer and forgot ... then left the country

Anyway I did check and mine shows "-.--" when you switch it on out of the water, and if it loses the signal in the water it flashes the last known depth.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

Apologies, I got slightly waylaid by a wheel nearly falling off my trailer and forgot ... then left the country

Anyway I did check and mine shows "-.--" when you switch it on out of the water, and if it loses the signal in the water it flashes the last known depth.

Thanks for that. I'd been reading about your trailer 'excitement' and globe trotting so guessed things had got in the way.

When out of the water is the "-.--" reading constant or flashing? Mine's constant now after upgrading to v5.3.

[BogMonster]

I'm 99% sure it was constant because I remember thinking that I expected it to flash and it didn't.

How do you upgrade the firmware then - and what issues is it supposed to fix? I'm thinking "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but depends on whether there are any benefits.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

How do you upgrade the firmware then - and what issues is it supposed to fix? I'm thinking "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but depends on whether there are any benefits.

From the Garmin Support website you need marine plotter updates. It's a one-size-fits-all thing. You download the c60Mb file to a Windows OS pc (Mac not supported), unzip the file and save it to an sd card. Put the card in the plotter, go to Software Update in Configure and away it goes...it chooses what it needs depending on which 5xx you have.

I went from v4.3 to the latest 5.x...In the dowload to pc process it tells you what is fixed at each update level. There's depth sounder improvements, bug fixes, interface changes, additional language support, plus, plus...I'd do it for the performance ang bug stuff.

Thanks for your depth sounder comments. Much appreciated

[Leapy]

Bump...

Recap...Garmin 551S and associated transducer doesn't show water depth less than 15/20ft. It's not intermittent, it's a permanent thing. Once over 20ft, perfect. Coming back into shallow water, once under 15 ft, nothing. So there's a little hysteresis involved.

The 551 is running the latest (v5.6) software. All other plotter functions are fine.

Spoke to Garmin Technical who were perplexed...they didn't think it was the plotter but could be the transducer but they weren't sure as they'd no experience of this problem. Spoke to a respected Marine Electrician who was very clear...it's not the transducer, it's the plotter...the transducer is digital in that it either works or it doesn't

Can anyone explain to me the process by which depth readings are produced? I'm just trying to get my head around the process to try and understand where the problem might be.

* There are two frequencies...why?
* Is one frequency better in shallow water and the other in deeper water?
* If so, is the plotter/transducer capable of failing just one frequency?
* Does the transducer provide the separate frequencies or are they produced in the plotter and the transducer merely transmits and receives them through the water?
* Is there any 'intelligence' in the transducer or is it just a transmitting/receiving device that merely passes a data stream to the plotter?

Next planned step is for a Marine electrician to connect a new transducer to the current plotter, hang it over the side of the boat and see what happens. If that doesn't work, go back to the original transducer and connect a new plotter to it. If that doesn't work, open the sea cocks

[jyasaki]

Lower freq penetrates water better. Higher freq show better detail, but doesn't get as deep.

Plotter probably can fail on one freq; wouldn't expect it on the 'ducer (though I'm not sure if there are two separate channels in it or not; wouldn't think so, but might be wrong.)

As far as I know, the 'ducer is simply a bi-directional transducer: converts the pulse from the head unit to sound to emit, then converts the reflected echo back to a signal to send back to the head unit. Don't think there's anything else in there.

jky

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by jyasaki

Lower freq penetrates water better. Higher freq show better detail, but doesn't get as deep.

Plotter probably can fail on one freq; wouldn't expect it on the 'ducer (though I'm not sure if there are two separate channels in it or not; wouldn't think so, but might be wrong.)

As far as I know, the 'ducer is simply a bi-directional transducer: converts the pulse from the head unit to sound to emit, then converts the reflected echo back to a signal to send back to the head unit. Don't think there's anything else in there.

jky

Thanks ...can I try your words slightly differently?

The low frequency 'sees' deeper water in relative less detail. The high frequency doesn't 'see' deep but what it does see is in greater detail. Sounds like I might have a high frequency failure then. This would also explain the hysteresis as the cut-off boundary would unlikely be sharp.

again

[jyasaki]

Low frequency sound penetrates water better, so it reaches deeper. Fishermen use lower freqs for water deeper than about 180 feet.

High freq gives better detail, doesn't reach as deep, but we're talking more like < 200 feet, rather than < 20. I suspect you do not have a complete channel failure.

Should be able to select which freq you send out (in the sonar settings of the head unit), which would allow you to test the independent channels.

If you can get someone with a similar unit, try swapping transducers and see if that corrects it. Or head units.

One other thing: You may be seeing interference from some other electrical system picked up in the transducer cabling. I'd expect the effect to be more pronounced with short delay time signals (as when the echo returns quickly; i.e. skinnier water.) If you can easily get the cabling away from everything else, it might be worth a shot to relocate it apart from all other cables, at least long enough to try it.

Luck;

jky

[Erin]

Hmmm, interesting.

I was beginning to think my 'ducer was starting to play up this year, but the symptoms sound very similar to yours Leapy. Last year I am sure I used to get a reading at about 4' depth or so, but this year it is very erratic and sometimes doesn't start reading until 15' plus (stationary or underway). This is not great for me as the channels into my beach mooring are down to 4' depth in places . It also loses contact with the bottom more readily when going along and just flashes the last known reading. If it doesn't find a depth from first turning on it flashes blanks IIRC.

I had started to assume my 'ducer was playing up or maybe running out of glycol/oil in the housing bonded inside the hull. However all checks out ok and the only thing that has changed is a software update to the plotter (GPS5008), fitting trim tabs and AIS to the boat. The clicks from the 'ducer sound louder than I recall too .

[Leapy]

I've arranged an appointment with a marine electrician for the end of July when we're next on the water. In the meantime, I'm tempted to send the plotter back to Garmin for them to check as they've offered to investigate.

There's nothing else I can do in the meantime as the boat is well and truly on dry land and we're about as far away from the sea here as it's possible to get in the UK.

Erin - interesting, although the problem very definately didn't start for me with a software update. I've only updated in an attempt to try and fix it, with no result.

jky - the boat in this context is as built nearly four years ago. Plotter in the console, cabling into the hull trunking along with all else and exiting with the outboard and steering stuff just forward of the transom well. Nothing has changed in that respect. In fact, the only thing on the boat to change since build is the fitment of a keel guard through which the transducer must 'see'. However, this brings it into line with most boats built by Ribcraft - our keelguard was retro-fitted by Ribcraft - rather than making it somewhat different. The issue I'm having is unknown to Ribcraft.

[Leapy]

Did the replacement part trial yesterday with new transducer/new plotter.

Bottom line - original plotter knackt, presumed the shallow depth frequency is down. Returning the plotter to Garmin ... £140 to fix :-(

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Leapy

Did the replacement part trial yesterday with new transducer/new plotter.

Bottom line - original plotter knackt, presumed the shallow depth frequency is down. Returning the plotter to Garmin ... £140 to fix :-(

Returned the (four year old plotter) to Garmin who were unable to find anything wrong. Having said that, turns out they can't test sounder performance as they're land based and can't simulate.

They exchanged the unit for a refurb unit at no charge so we'll see how that performs.

[Leapy]

New (refurbished) Garmin 551S fitted and problem solved

No words of explanation from Garmin but the replacement was FOC even though the old unit was three years out of warranty :-)