6 gang switch replacement & Point 1 installation

[Andy135]

Last night I replaced the 6 gang switch panel on Jersey Girl. The old one was showing signs of corrosion on the switch bodies and I suspect this was causing a voltage drop on one of the circuits.

 

Having labelled all the connections the old switch unit came out and the new one went back in, followed by reconnecting everything. A quick test showed that the deck light wasn't getting any power; turned out that the spade connector sheath was in the right place but the connector itself had slid down inside the sheath and wasn't actually connected. Quickly fixed, the deck light worked.

New unit installed alongside the removed old one.

 

I also had just enough time to remove the old LCG4000 GPS antenna and replace it with the Point 1 I bought recently.

Not yet calibrated it, so that'll be a job for when I'm on the water next.

[Saintly Fish]

12 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

I'm on the water next.

That’ll be January then!

[Andy135]

1 minute ago, Saintly Fish said:

That’ll be January then!

Sadly, I suspect you're right 😭

[captin slows old outlaw]

could be feb instead

[JDP]

When I had point one on my last boat it didn't matter how many times I calibrated it it was always about 10' out. Kept up to date with firmware updates etc but always the same result.

I changed over to Garmin on the boat I have now and thought I would see if it worked networked together with Garmin, to my surprise it did. To calibrate it it I simply lined up our harbour mouth while around 10km offshore and checked it against the avionics chart and its now more accurate than when used with Lowrance. 

For that switch panel to get so bad was it exposed to saltwater ? Do you ever spray the connections with Yamaha lube or inbox etc to keep them in good order.

[Andy135]

2 minutes ago, JDP said:

When I had point one on my last boat it didn't matter how many times I calibrated it it was always about 10' out. Kept up to date with firmware updates etc but always the same result.

I changed over to Garmin on the boat I have now and thought I would see if it worked networked together with Garmin, to my surprise it did. To calibrate it it I simply lined up our harbour mouth while around 10km offshore and checked it against the avionics chart and its now more accurate than when used with Lowrance. 

For that switch panel to get so bad was it exposed to saltwater ? Do you ever spray the connections with Yamaha lube or inbox etc to keep them in good order.

Noted Jon - thanks. What Lowrance units were you using your Point 1 with?  Interestingly, the refresh rate on the Point 1 is the same as on the internal GPS of the head units these days, 10hz. I've only bought it for the compass/heading info really, so I may play around with the network settings and see if I can use the internal GPS for location data and only use the heading info from the Point 1 if mine is as hard to calibrate as yours was.

As for the switch panel - no idea. I bought the boat in September, so I don't know the history of the switch panel per se. I'm guessing it was fitted during the build and a lifetime of marina moorings and salt air have taken their toll on it. The rest of the under-dash hardware looks absolutely fine - no hint of corrosion anywhere else, so I suspect it's an isolated case. I'm sure these units are built to a price point.

Good idea about Yamaha lube, I'll give the exposed connections (and switch gear) a wipe over with it.

 

[JDP]

I used it with a hds 12 gen 3. Like you I only had it fro the electronic heading, which is well worth having in my opinion. That particular model had a few issues of freezing up the screen, wasn't an issue with the 9 and 7 though. It was a tough decision moving away from the navico group having been with them for so many years but Garmin do have a few things in their favour that swung my decision for my style of fishing.

I know you showed some interest in live view for your units, if its anything like the Garmin live view you will love it. Its taking a while to get the best out of mine as there's a lack of info on what the settings do, so you have to experiment a fair bit with them. I now can't wait to get on the water just to watch my lures in live action among the fish. 

[JDP]

Just thinking about it I ran my charts as heading up and magnetic north, where in my location we are 13.5'degrees in variation from true north. This was about the amount it was always out after calibration, which makes more sense now.

You will also have a certain variation from true north that corresponds with your location. If it seems slightly out you could try switching between true and magnetic north on the lowrance to see if that sorts it out.

[JDP]

In the lowrance menu I set my heading line in time rather than bearing. For me a 10 min heading line would give me a line ahead of the boat about 10km long at cruise speed, this not only came in handy for quickly estimating travel time but also gave me a line to line up on my charts and visually check my heading against land marks. This was how I became aware the line on my chart wasn't lining up with what I was seeing directly ahead of me. It doesn't sound like much but on long range trips I was not traveling in straight lines when I hit a goto position, which meant more fuel per trip.

[GPSguru]

6 hours ago, Andy135 said:

Last night I replaced the 6 gang switch panel on Jersey Girl. The old one was showing signs of corrosion on the switch bodies and I suspect this was causing a voltage drop on one of the circuits.

Z/☘️🐼😅🧙‍♀️🚒

 

Having labelled all the connections the old switch unit came out and the new one went back in, followed by reconnecting everything. A quick test showed that the deck light wasn't getting any power; turned out that the spade connector sheath was in the right place but the connector itself had slid down inside the sheath and wasn't actually connected. Quickly fixed, the deck light worked.

New unit installed alongside the removed old one.

 

I also had just enough time to remove the old LCG4000 GPS antenna and replace it with the Point 1 I bought recently.

Not yet calibrated it, so that'll be a job for when I'm on the water next.

These days, I will only use Carling switches in boats, most others seem to rot in any salt air environment ...

[JonC]

4 hours ago, JDP said:

In the lowrance menu I set my heading line in time rather than bearing. For me a 10 min heading line would give me a line ahead of the boat about 10km long at cruise speed, this not only came in handy for quickly estimating travel time but also gave me a line to line up on my charts and visually check my heading against land marks. This was how I became aware the line on my chart wasn't lining up with what I was seeing directly ahead of me. It doesn't sound like much but on long range trips I was not traveling in straight lines when I hit a goto position, which meant more fuel per trip.

Would you not consider an auto pilot system? You would get a straighter track then. 

[Andy135]

5 hours ago, JDP said:

I know you showed some interest in live view for your units, if its anything like the Garmin live view you will love it. Its taking a while to get the best out of mine as there's a lack of info on what the settings do, so you have to experiment a fair bit with them. I now can't wait to get on the water just to watch my lures in live action among the fish. 

How deep do you use your live view? I've been skeptical that this sort of kit is only really useful for shallow-water lake bassing (major market for US manufacturers) but I might re-assess my opinion based on the experience of others.

[JDP]

6 hours ago, Andy135 said:

How deep do you use your live view? I've been skeptical that this sort of kit is only really useful for shallow-water lake bassing (major market for US manufacturers) but I might re-assess my opinion based on the experience of others.

Early days at the moment still learning more about It and haven't been getting good weather. Unfortunately the only instructions are only on how to install it but I found some Garmin tutorials in French!!! which Ive managed to sort of get my head around.

First impressions were disappointing as I didn't realise the adjustment forward and back (fore and aft) also has an beam width adjustment, which meant I was loosing even 10lb downrigger balls at about 15m because I had it set on 10'degree. Now I have set the angle towards aft more and beam angle to 40x120 degree's so Im able to track slow falling 3-5inch soft plastics in 60m of water. This is great as before I had no idea where these slow dropping lures were in the water until they got snagged in deeper reefs. Id be happy with just 60m even out chasing game offshore as this will often be the depth I drop a live bait (dropping to 4000m out there is out of the question). Big packs of whaler sharks will soon be among the kingfish, panoptics should help me save loosing a few jigs and hopefully fish to them, not to mention stopping the jigs just before bottom or exactly where the fish are. 

On my last trip I experimented with the beam angle and was able to work my jig right along the bottom without getting snagged once. I also saw fish approach the lure and hesitated my jig action to get two fish first two drops, both species we rarely take on jigs, I was impressed. 

I haven't started my offshore marlin fishing yet as the season normally gets going after Xmas when the warm currents reach us, then I will be experimenting deeper, even then the marlin are often high in the water column pushing bait towards the surface which should be interesting to see in live view.

What Ive found with both Garmin and lowrance is that the depths they quote as max are normally easily achieved which I put down to the water clarity we often have. I feel anxious to get out on the water, not because Im missing the fishing but simply because using this is such a fun game changer. 

I would prefer a dedicated screen for it as the 10 inch is small if combining with charts etc.