Dropped the trolling motor in the water yesterday evening and blew the fuse to my bow and console HDS 7 Gen 2s

Based on that figured the transducer cable had developed a short. Currently everything is completely unplugged and it is still blowing fuses. Not sure what to trouble shoot from here - battery terminals are good. I guess the only thing left to check would be wiring from the battery down the power cables? Could the fuse panel under the back hatch be going bad? Only thing on this circuit are the graphs.

1996 Ranger 362 XT

Any guidance is appreciated.

Does it blow the fuse with the HDS power unplugged?

Yes. Blowing the fuse with everything unplugged.

Need to break out the OHM meter and start tracing. Disconnect the wire on the fuse panel and ohm out the wires going towards the HDS, if it shows an open then the problem must be in the fuse panel, if it shows to have continuity then the wire is shorted somewhere between the panel and the front of the boat. Be sure and have the HDS units power cable unplugged prior to testing as it may give you a false reading otherwise.

Well now I'm stumped. Pulled the power wires for the HDS. All the way from bow to stern. All are good. It was a major pain in the butt. They never tie into the green wire. Anywhere. The HDS wires directly to the battery with its own inline fuses. So now I'm going to test the graphs on a different battery.

Per the wiring diagram under the rear hatch and that fuse is for the electronics - it is a green wire that runs from the fuse block to the terminal board under the console.

Ok, so there appears to be two separate issues, correct? 1) Both Bow and console HDS units which are wired directly to the battery will not power on. 2)Fuse for electronics which runs to the terminal board at the console keeps blowing.

For issue 1, Using a volt meter measure battery voltage. Then take the meter and measure the voltage on the pins 7 & 8 (the two larger pins in the female connector) of the HDS power connectors and confirm that you have at least 12 vols present. Below is a link showing the connectors pinout. It is near the bottom of the page.

http://support.lowrance.com/system/selfs...ID=2141#mapping

I corrected the fuse issue - I think it was just coincidence that I found that - it was plugged into the wrong side of the terminal board - per the wiring diagram. It's no longer blowing that fuse.

These units were linked via a direct Ethernet cable. I may have found (really no way to tell) a hairline crack in the transducer on the trolling motor. It sure looks like it. I'm thinking it somehow shorted out both units. Will confirm they are getting power in the am when I have time to run and get a multimeter. If they aren't getting power it's back to square one. If they are getting power I will open them up and look (didn't have a small enough star head to open them today)

Back in business. The inline fuse harness at the battery was the problem. I had replaced that fuse earlier with no luck. Harness didn't look to bad but that was it. I cut it off and wired direct and they both were good. Going to wire in a new inline fuse - and get rid of the glass tube type tomorrow.

Glad that didn't get expensive! Was about convinced I needed two new units!