FF issue/advice needed

Howdy all,

My fishfinder is having some problems.  I was lazy and left the tranducer cable plugged into the battery box, and left both inside the hull of the yak a couple of trips ago.  I also didn't bother drying out the inside of the yak.  Which equals corroded leads.  Specifically, the female connector that plugs into the FF unit.  The battery both to power lead was sealed with dielectric grease, and was uncorroded.  The power connections on the transducer end are corroded to the point where you can't even tell if there is metal in there.  The FF got a good rinse and dry itself, so no corrosion on that end.

I take everything down to Fishermans and have them plug the main unit into their display power socket.  Everything powers up fine, so I buy a new transducer/power cable, since the Eagle unit can't/shouldn't be spliced to a new connector.

I get the power connector soldered onto the transducer cable, plug everything in after putting fresh batteries in the battery box, and get no power.  The inside of the battery box is bone dry, and shows no corrosion on anything.  Fuse is untripped.  I re-solder one of the leads, as there was a single strand in the positive wire that I could see that was broken, but no scorching or other issues.  I built a new school battery box.

So, the transducer cable is brand new and I am positive that I soldered the correct leads to the correct leads.  The FF unit takes power.  I have replaced all of the batteries twice.  What else should I be looking for?

Cheers,
Madoc

What do you mean by--ff takes power--? 

What do you mean by--ff takes power--? 

The fish finder unit (eagle 350s/map) turns on when plugged into the display power plug at the Fisherman's in North Portland.  since it will only cost a couple of dollars to rewire the battery box, I am going to try that.

ok wait.

it works on the bench at the store but not with your modded wiring?

dude, use a multimeter and check your continuity. it's sounding like you have a cold solder joint. if that's the case, go to radio shack, get you some de-soldering tape [wider is better] reheat the joint, tape it to remove the old solder, toss that bit, then resplice and resolder the connections correctly.

also, which wire side did you put the inline fuse on?? that makes a difference, too.

if that's what's wrong, shouldnt take you more than 40 miutes to be back up and running.
[WR]

My guess is you have the polarity reversed on the leads.  Check very, very carefully. 

 

I had almost the same issue after my first trip to the salt. I hadn't yet completed my thru-hull FF wiring, so I unplugged the cable from my Cuda 300 cable & let it lay inside the hull for my surf landing. I had some leakage from the rod pod cover (Completed that fix now also) so the plug connection was lying in shallow salt water. I didn't notice the salty leakage till I arrived home, so the Cuda plug was in the brine all the way home when I drained it. A week later I'm cuttin & drillin for the thru-hull wiring in the sonar shield compartment. O my god! the female connections meant to  mate with the cuda unit were rusted shut. I had no dielectric grease on the connections previously. I used Rem-oil, which I believe has an anti rust additive, contact cleaner, and then heavy amounts of dielectric grease. I was lucky, everything works fine again and my cables are intact.

What demonick said,, there are diods that protect the unit

Okay, went through the wiring carefully.  I am using two point connectors, and it looks like I used the wrong one - so Demonick is correct, I had the polarity reversed on the new transducer cable.  Easy fix.

Fuse is on the positive lead, for those who are curious.

Cheers, and thanks for the help.  Helpful to have other people point out where you may need to look.

Madoc

Does anyone know where to get power connectors for Humminbirds beside Humminbird?  I would love to make another power cable.