That's Dan, he is one my buds that I was talking about.

Haha.

I will only be fishing by my self so I will probably get the 50# thrust motor.

I can see where 2 batteries could double your fun on the water if need be

You will need it, that motor will draw some juice on a windy day.

Jay, it gets used often now! Really enjoying the boat. Thanks again...

(shameless plug... need your carpets cleaned hit up Mister Sir. Class act all the way)

are you running the graph on a seperate battery?

No it is soldered to the wires from the trolly motor, they both run off one battery.

The depth finder doesn't draw much juice at all.

Hmmmmmm. I think I have a short or a bad terminal connection then. Mine powers up fine but the screen goes blank after about a minute. Humminbird told me that if I'm running it on one battery then they 100% gaurantee that is the cause of the problem. I think they are 100% full of BS. I will try to re-wire it and see if that works.

If the battery is almost dead it will do that, but if it's fully charged, how could it be the battery?

12 volts is 12 volts, who cares where if comes from.

Yeah, Humminbird is telling me that because I am not running a dedicated battery it isn't getting the required minimum 10 volts and that it is causing interference with the graph and display. I think I may have a bad fuse, loose wire, or a bad battery all together but can't be sure.

Humminbird gave me some spiel about the depth finder being a sophisticated piece of computer hardware that requires a dedicated power source, blah, blah, blah. I say the thing draws less than my cell phone on the charger. We'll see. I wish there was some place to take it. I suck with electronics that don't involve stereos and home theater installation.

My lowrance x4 pro has a battery voltage read out on it and I can run the battery down to 8 amps before it starts cutting off and on.

Next time it does it check the voltage in the battery.

Thats the plan. I am going to pick up a voltage meter on my way hom tomorrow. It's getting frustrating.

What unit are you using?

Humminbird 550 DI.

They list it as pulling 10-20 volts dc. So it must spike up to 20 volts only for a moment and you don't have the reserve engery to cover it.

http://store.humminbird.cust.shopatron.com/media/document/550_560_570_570DI_Manual.pdf

I have a copy of that and will try again to track down where the voltage issue is happening. Thanks for posting it. Hopefully I will have a working graph again by Sunday without having to buy another battery. The freakin' batteries are a 1/4 of what I paid for my whole setup.