I have a Lowrance X96 that digitally reads the bottom but will not graph the bottom or fish.
The crappy Lowrance support team just says to buy a new transducer and that may fix it. A new ducer is 90 bones plus shipping and no guarantee.
If anyone would lend or sale a known good transducer to me to test if the unit is bad or is the ducer bad i would appreciate it. If the unit is bad I would rather just use my money towards a new unit.
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[font "Calibri"]Last year up at the DAV event at Strawberry I hit something on the way in because that’s exactly what my Lowrance elite finder was doing. No real visible damage to the transducer other than a tiny tiny scuff that looked like a water spot but it was shot. Very next weekend we went up to the Gorge and all I could see was fly specs on the screen. Fished for four days basically blind. Losing bottom, no fish, etc, etc. Installed a new transducer and downloaded the new updates and she now runs even better than when I first bought it.[/font]
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[font "Calibri"]I was kind of like you, not wanting to throw my money away on a transducer if the head unit was bad. The guys at Smith & Edwards suggested hooking up the transducer on a 2x4 and doing a test run without installing it. They told me so long and there was no visible marks on the cord or bracket they would return it if needed. If you live in the area and they have what you need they’re great people to deal with. Doesn’t take much to knock them underwater eyes balls out of whack. [/font]
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I dont know what hook up(connections) you have on the back of the unit but i have three transducers you could ck it out on
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I have a lowrance x51 you can use, if the plugs are the same.
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I have an X91 and X96. I had the EXACT same thing happen. After I pressed Lowrance tech support they admitted that a transducer life expectancy is between 5-7 years. Your unit is likely at least that old. Anyway, I swapped out the transducer and it now it works perfectly once again. If I didn't have the back up unit I would NOT have purchased one for $90+, I would rather spend $200 for a brand new unit that performs equal to or better than the X96 (even though they cost a lot more than $200 back when they were new). I'm not sure how long the other transducer will last, but when it fails I'm buying a new machine since the extra transducers are way too much money.
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BLFG,
Thanks for the confirmation. Everyone here has been great and I have had multiple offers to use transducers. I need to check the plug configuration tonight and then I can commit.
Does the same plug fit both the 91 and 96?
I won't spend the 90 out of principle either.
If the head is bad, Hummingbird here I come.
I wanted one of the new finders that practically takes a photo of the bottom anyway.
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All you have to do is look at the color of the conection ether blue or gray I think that is the only colors I've been having some trouble with tranducers myself
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Mine is grey and the connector also shares the power lead.
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That don't sound right you should have a power conector and a sonar conector are you sure the sonar conector is hooked up
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I did some more research and you are right they go to the same conector so all you need is a grey conector with both the power and sonar in one mine are two different conectors
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Unfortunately I was not able to borrow one tonight. I will be at Yuba tomorrow and will not need it for pike fishing. I will borrow one next week and report back to you all.
Thanks.
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