Lowrance 5150 Chartplotter

chewi

chewi

Well-Known Member
Joined
8 Oct 2007
Messages
1,805
Location
Poole
Visit site
I am contemplating buying a lowrance 5150C Chartplotter

Lowrance had some bad press on this site in the last couple of years on bugs and lack of response. Did they get resolved?
 
I have a Lowrance 5200C, the direct replacement of the 3500C. This was exchanged after my 3500C died, it took a while, but it was exchanged.

With the products on the market now, I would look seriously at a Garmin plotter as opposed to the Lowrance. I would not rely totally on the Lowrance (for that matter you should never rely on any one piece of nav equipment).
 
I had a 3500 from Mailspeed Marine, Burnham two years ago which didn't work properly. I phoned them and they said drop it back to us. I did, they tested it, then they gave me another one on the spot, which I fitted and its worked ever since. I was back up and running the same day.

I have no connection with Mailspeed etc etc.
 
My Lowrance 3500 has just failed. Out of warranty of course so I opened it. Somewhat wet inside - they claim waterproof. My unit had not been assembled correctly - wire across o ring. I'm having a lot of trouble getting any help. Pity cos the Navionics charts are really nice.
 
There were a couple of issues a) the external GPS unit included with the 3500C. That has been resolved. b) Tidal module issues with all Lowrance plotters up to about a year ago - confusion between metres and fathoms on the display icon / corrupted data on certain days when using Navionics charts / improper correction for daylight saving time. I'm not sure any of these, except possibly the latter, have been corrected in spite of numerous complaints. I've given up trying. If you ignore the tidal module and just use it as a plotter, it was head & shoulders above its competitors in terms of display quality / clarity, and that's the main reason I bought and continue use mine. Whether Garmin and others have caught up, I don't know. Compare them all is my advice and see which you feel is the easiest to work with.
 
Like any manufacturer who sells a lot - there are bound to be recalls or failures.
I do not believe that Garmin or any other escapes similar. For some reason it doesn't seem to be reported. Raymarine used to have loads of complaints of failures but seemed to fade away.
Lowrance is budget and in our experience the 3500C has performed excellently. It has been in use on our boat for over 3 years now and only a couple of drop-outs where GPS module plug was a touch loose and it lost signal.
Our only complaint is the stiff cabling used with it when there are plenty of cables out there that are more soft and able to route easier.
Hubby is the real tops on the machine and he's happy enough to buy another, especially that it usually comes bundled with the Nauticpath card.
Me I like it as it's easy to use and I suppose familiarity with it has biased me against other machines used on others boats. Raymarine I couldn't get on with at all. Garmin I didn't like the charting or menus. The only one that I felt came close was the Navman, but still I'm happy enough to go back to the Lowrance.
 
i've got a 5150c and very happy with it.

As said above, the screen is head and shoulders above other budget plotters.

Only gripe I have is lack of AIS support, but I can live with that.

I did e-mail Lowrance support asking them if they were likely to ever do a software upgrade to add AIS to the 5150, and the response came back "we don't have a model 5150c"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Thankyou all..
Food for thought.
It seems like its a good unit, and if they fix the bugs, better still, but still good anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top