Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

[John_S]

I have an Eagle Intellimap 502C which is still under warrenty. I have this in as an outstanding tech support question (1 week+), but thought I'd try to get some additional info here.

My 502C will power-off everytime I start the engine. It has done this since new, but early on assumed it was a weak battery. This happens in two boats plus a vehicle. Both boats have larger than required batteries that are fully charged. Other electronics, including higher power requirement ones (Hbird 797C2 SI), do not power-off when plugged into the same circuit.

I have already checked wire connections and wire sizes. This is very annoying in the boat for stop and go fishing. Every time it powers back on from a power loss, it drops back to the map that was saved on the last time the power switch was turned off. It then goes through the routine of finding the sats again. It can be considerably down lake/river before it re-aquires them again.

Has anyone else had this with Eagle 502 units, be it sonar, gps, or combo units?

Does anyone have a simple cap/diode circuit that I can mount inline to help prevent the power drop that is triggering this?

PS: I've tried to measure the power drop, but my digital meter does not have a min-hold feature.

 

[Boatist]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

Lets hope Eagle replaces it. Many boat the battery voltage will drop as low as 10 volts when starting and that is pretty close to the minumin voltage required for your eagle. You could put in a large eletrolitic Cap near the unit and that may help if they do not fix it. The cap would also try to feed power to the motor but depending on wire size may not discharge the cap enough to drop the power. If you add a diode between the battery and the cap then the motor would not be able to draw down the CAP while starting. However under normal operation it will drop the voltage to the unit by .7 volts. So with the motor running the voltage output of 13.8 or higher would be fine as would drop to 13.1 volt.

With the motor off the 12.6 normal battery voltage would drop to 11.9.

If you do have to go that route I would try it with the Cap near the unit first and if it still failed then would add the Diode. Try to get a diode with higher amperage the fuse to the unit.

 

[John_S]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

Thanks for the reply.

Yea, I hope it is a defect vs a design problem. If the latter and sent in, unit would probably come back no trouble found.

For the cap, it would be inline (across +-) with the power cord, within a foot or two of the unit. The 1 amp fuse would be before the cap or cap/diode arrangement. While I haven't searched for elec components in a while, a 2 amp or larger diode shouldn't be a hard find. My bigger concern would be the cap size. I hope it doesn't require a large cap, which would add a box to the power cord. I was hoping to stay with something that would fit within a 35mm film container. Do you think a 16V 470mfd electrolytic would be large enough?

Update: I just checked my old parts bin. I have a couple of 25V 470mfd, a 25V 500mfd, and one 25V 1000mfd. Each should fit on their own, and could even do two 470, if the 1000 is bad, to fit within a 35mm container.

 

[Boatist]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

I could be wrong but I do not think a capacitor that will fit in a 35 MM film canaster is big enough. I do not know how long it takes to start your motor but the cap would need to supply the power long enough for the motor to start. If you have those cap just wire it up with some jumpers and give it a test.

I think you will get better results from Lowrance with a phone call. When I called with a few questions about the mapecreate software got in after a 5 minute wait.

 

[John_S]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

My experience with Eagle/Lowrance phone tech support, is about a 20 minute wait which is hard to do during their open hours. Email took about a week. This time, after a week, they sent a sorry for the delay email, which you needed to reply to if you still had a question. The reply was kicked-back from their mail server! Entered a new/old request. I will try a couple of times to see if I can get through in 5-10 minutes.

Anything bigger than that will relegate it to under the dash, and have to replicate in all boats/vehicles.

PS: I had some fun with Mapcreate S/W, too. Got it to work by trial and error before tech support responded.

 

[JB]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

I think your unit is dropping off at a higher voltage than designed to do.

Get a good analog voltmeter, like a Simpson 260, and measure the battery drop on starting. Compare that to the minimum supply voltage in the specs.

There is no reason you should need to modify the power supply to make your unit perform as designed.

I would suggest investigating your wiring in the boat, but as you say the same thing happens in other boats and in your vehicle, so I would call the boat wiring innocent.

I think Lowrance owes you a new unit.

 

[John_S]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

Forgot to add: Both boats and vehicle fire right up. There isn't any extended cranking. If it happened only on the rare occasion of extended cranking, might be able to live with it.

JB: My old analog simpson doesn't work anymore. I think I have a method to test right at the minimum 10V, but suspect it is a short dip that is triggering it. I will wait for a response from Eagle before doing that test.

The cap test, will be easy to do.

 

[tommays]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

My 3500C has allways done it NOTHING wrong it needs to be on a house battery NOT the cranking battery as it will shut down at around 10.8 volts (the screens require a LOT of power )

 

[John_S]

Re: Eagle 502 Power-off Issue

Tommays: FYI: My HB 797C2 SI has double the pixel count, and a brighter screen and slightly more current draw, and it does not power-off on start. This is GPS only, and does not require the power to transmit/receive sonar signals.

One of the boats only has one battery, and will not add a seperate one just to power GPS. Certainly, not in the vehicle. If it really needs a seperate battery, and cap fix doesn't work, it will most likely end up on ebay.