Garmin LVS34 Malfunction

A week before I left for Cuba,  I had a day on the lake when thing just go south.   The fishing on the forebay was slow but as the afternoon wore on,  my Panoptix Live view LV34 system started to malfunction around 2:00pm.    For some reason I started to get black triangles on the screen while I was in Perspective mode.

I suspected that I might have low voltage on the battery that  I use for the electronics.   Low voltage makes some electronics do weird things.    I checked to make sure a the cables were plugged in  properly and as I was checking the cables,  I lost all power to my GLS10 and my Livescope was unusable.   I couldn’t get excited about fishing the rest of the day blind without the Panoptix and headed for the launch early.

When I got home,   I removed the GLS unit and checked the wire harness for shorts.  Using a voltmeter,  I found the power cable and blown fuse that caused my Panoptix Failure.   It was the power supply cable to the GLS10.   After pulling that out,  I used a  voltmeter to test the cable.  It was shorting across the two pins.     I dissected the plastic sleeve insulation where I suspected the short and it was right at the connector to the GLS10.    After ordering a new cable and   I reassembled the wire harness and tested the GPSMAP 1042xsv and GLS10 on the boat. All the units powered up and appeared working.   I attached the old LVS34 is definitely malfunction.

Here are pictures of the cable that shorted out the fuse to the GLS10 in my boat attached to the 1042xsx

 

After replacing the cable.   I booted up both units and update all firmware versions on both sonars and both GLS10s with Active Captain.    After which I attached the LVS32 and the LVS34 to both units.  On both units the LVS32 was 100 percent functional.   On both units the LVS34 showed the black triangles.   There is definitely something wrong with the transducer.

After much discussion about the integrity of the Transducer Cable,   Garmin gave me a choice to put a deposit down and cross ship a new unit or return the gsl10 an LV35 and wait  for a replacement.    I chose to put down $1000 and have them cross ship me a new unit.    After removing the transducer cable from my Fishing Specialties transducer mount to return it,   I noticed a nick in the cable which was adjacent to a blunt screw the extended into the tube  of the mount.    The screw holds the handle to the unit.   The main reason I use the Fishing Specialties mount is so that I can put the cable through it    After rotating the handle too much over the last season,  the blunt screw had rubbed a hole in the insulation.    Case Solved.   I drilled out all the screws in the mount and replaced them with rivets.  I ready to hit the forebay with the panoptix functional.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Garmin LVS34 Malfunction

  1. I observed the same potential issue after purchasing and assembling the fishing specialties down rod, the sharp self tapping screws extending into the tube made me pause, I wrapped the LVS 32 cable in automotive split loom and Scotch 88 electrical tape at the lower end, tapered cone mount and at the handle screw penetrations to reduce likely damage. Can you please send photos of the rivets you placed in the down rod and the sizes of rivets used? Thanks for posting your comments on this design flaw and potential fix, I have less than 8 hours of use with the split loom fix.

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