Garmin help needed

[MaSnaka]

My boat has a Garmin GPSmap XS. Was working as normal one weekend on an outing, then the next weekend I have no depth reading. Seems my sonar has quit. Checking with the menu it says sonar is unavailable. I have had the bottom cleaned since and was hoping this might fix the problem but no change. Now I'm thinking a wire must have come loose. Before I tear everything apart tracing the wire I thought I would check with the experts here for feedback. Any ideas?? Its an ocean boat that stays in the water.

Thanks,
John

 

[mquiet]

Does the transducer run to a garmin sonar box or straight to the display?

 

[MaSnaka]

Thanks mquiet,
Not sure. I took a quick look in the engine bay and saw two tranducers side by side, one bigger than the other. I didn't take the time to trace the wiring. I will get back to it next week. Traveling this weekend. Nothing changed except one week everything worked and the next I had no depth range.
John

 

[Skybolt]

That's kind of how it goes when a transducer dies. Probably the temp sensor died, that is how the GPSMAP detects the transducer. When the temp sensor dies and the transducer is not detected the sonar options doesn't show up either. There was a kit available that had you cut the cable and jump out the temp sensor and allowed the depth part of the transducer to work, just no temp.

EDIT: Deleted previous link for this one - This is the direct Garmin tech support post: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=EaqWFpA3Zi2pZnGBOfLOeA

 

[hottoddie]

I have learned over the years that you can't turn on your sonar when the boat is on the hard. Doing so overheats the elements and renders the transducer useless. If you have turned on the plotter without disconnecting the transducer it has probably killed the transducer.

 

[MaSnaka]

My boat is in the water. Like I said one week it worked, then next week no depth. I dont recall there ever being a temperature reading. I'm just approaching one year with the boat and finding stuff like this to be overwhelming. Much to learn.

Thanks for the info. I should know more next week.

 

[MaSnaka]

It has taken me this long to get back to the depth sender issue. After many hours of contemplation, I finally came up with a plan. Check the simplest things first and so I pulled the Garmin screen/monitor out of the dash. I found that the 8 pin cable had fallen out of the plug on the back of the monitor. The cable was coiled up and not supported and eventually the weight of it succumbed to gravity. Thanks for the helpful suggestions. Moving on to the next issue...port tach doesn't work. Tried rotating the switch on the back but still not working.

John

 

[bobeast]

One true thing you can say to any boat owner. "Your boat is broken, you may just not know it yet." Hang in there, you've, just come to the next layer of the onion. One thing you can try is swapping the wires between the tachs. That will tell you if the problem is with the tach itself, or with the wiring.