Humminbird colour fishfinder problem.

[Davy_S]

I had a Humminbird 146c colour fishfinder brought over from the UK, bought new from Compass24. It had been working perfectly for 9 hours when all of a sudden I could no longer see the screen, if I shielded it from the sun i could see it is still working, but cannot be seen in sunlight anymore. It said low battery! only 9 volts, so I checked with a multimeter and it is getting 12.7 volts, I also connected it seperately to a new battery and it still says low battery on the screen, checked again with meter and it is getting 12.8 volts at the set.
I have e-mailed compass marine and the Humminbird site in America but no reply yet.
Any experts out there any ideas what to check? having to post it back to the uk under warranty could take ages, plus I will have no fish with my chips!l

 

[Sgeir]

Is there an internal battery as well?

 

[duncan]

please try increasing the backlighting and see what effect that has on the screen - ie does it do anything?

I don't think the voltage can be the only issue - it simply wouldn't function at 9v!

 

[Davy_S]

I dont think there is an internal battery, but I will check the handbook when I go down to the boat Tuesday.

 

[Davy_S]

I have increased the backlighting to maximum, with no effect, the set operates on 10/20 volts, for some reason it thinks the voltage is to low but it clearly is not as I have tested it. I run a Lowrance plotter off the same battery and it works fine. The set is working as it shows the depth of 8 meters underneath my mooring, i just cannot see the daylight viewable screen. It has a low voltage alarm that I can set from 8.5 meters up to 13.5 volts, I have altered this and switched the alarm off, it makes no differance. I think a chip, resistor or whatever lights the LCD screen has gone Kaput unfortunately.
The set is a 141c I made a mistake in the first post.

 

[duncan]

yep - I think you are interpreting things accurately but it's back to hummingbird..........it may be as simple as a screen plug being loose to the pcb but it's going to be a postal job.