Helix Water Depth Issues

[Brad Carruth]

For starters, I have a Helix 5 DI GPS G2. My first unit had to be replaced due to the screen freezing & inaccurate depth readings. Now when Im in 4ft or less of water my unit will start reading that Im in anywhere from 17ft to 33ft of water. So I'm wondering if any other Humminbird Helix or Solix owners are experiencing these same issues. 2 different head units, 3 transducers later & Im still having the same problems! Pretty sure I'm done with Humminbird & switching to Garmin.

[12poundbass]

Sounds like a good solution to me! 

 

Seriously though, I’m now a Garmin guy, Humminbird makes great products. I’m sure it’s something simple, and I’m sure someone will be along shortly to help you out. 

[Brad Carruth]

If someone does help me out, I can promise you that it won't be anyone from Humminbird support. Their customer service is the worst. They'll test the transducer, nothing will show up & they'll just either send it back or send a new one and I'll keep having the same problems. I've been dealing with this dumpster fire since February. I was going to upgrade to the side imaging model, but I'm worried that I'll keep having the same problems. So that's why I'm thinking about switching to Garmin. Do you have any issues with your Garmin giving false depth readings in shallow water? 

[12poundbass]

40 minutes ago, Brad Carruth said:

If someone does help me out, I can promise you that it won't be anyone from Humminbird support. Their customer service is the worst. They'll test the transducer, nothing will show up & they'll just either send it back or send a new one and I'll keep having the same problems. I've been dealing with this dumpster fire since February. I was going to upgrade to the side imaging model, but I'm worried that I'll keep having the same problems. So that's why I'm thinking about switching to Garmin. Do you have any issues with your Garmin giving false depth readings in shallow water? 

No I don’t have any issues with depth on my Garmin units. 

[Hower08]

My Helix will start going crazy at anything around 1 foot or less sometimes. Usually less than a foot though. All graphs are going to loose accurate bottom readings at extremely shallow depths. What graph do you have

[Russ E]

my helix 7 DI does something similar occasionally. It uses a transducer mounted on the trolling motor.

It is usually on a hard bottom in water less than 4 foot. 

It will show bottom at the correct depth and an echo under that at around 20 foot. 

the depth readout will usually be around 20 feet when this happens.

It clears up when you get in water over 8 feet  After that I can go back into the shallows and the reading is fine.

It doesn't happen often , but it can be a nuisance.

My helix 7 at the helm has never done this.

[Dirtyeggroll]

13 hours ago, Brad Carruth said:

For starters, I have a Helix 5 DI GPS G2. My first unit had to be replaced due to the screen freezing & inaccurate depth readings. Now when Im in 4ft or less of water my unit will start reading that Im in anywhere from 17ft to 33ft of water. So I'm wondering if any other Humminbird Helix or Solix owners are experiencing these same issues. 2 different head units, 3 transducers later & Im still having the same problems! Pretty sure I'm done with Humminbird & switching to Garmin.

Where is the transducer mounted?

[Hower08]

Both my units are also helix 7 the bow is di the console is si only my transducer on the trolling motor will bug out at extremely shallow depths like almost touching the bottom. If yours is doing it at 4 foot something's wrong . My console graph with the ducer mounted on the transom never does this

Also if you want to sell that 5 di I could use it for my yak

[Tennessee Boy]

If you turn off all the filters on your unit you will see that in shallow water,  2D sonar is a mess.  You have strong surface clutter in the first few feet.  You have echos from signals that have bounced off the bottom then off the surface and then back again..and again.  It gets worse when you have a hard bottom.  I’m a software developer and when I look at the raw unfiltered sonar signals in shallow water,  I can appreciate how hard it would be to write code to find the bottom.  There’s just a lot of noise from which the software has to find the real bottom.  I think all units will sometimes get “confused” in shallow water.  I think Humminbirds might be worse than others but none will be perfect in all conditions.  

 

Now,  if you’re seeing this problem consistently at a depth of four feet,  that’s pretty bad.  You might try turning down the sensitivity and see if that helps.    I’ve seen this happen on my Solix a few times.  It doesn’t really bother me just like it doesn’t bother me that my unit doesn’t work at 30 MPH.  When I’m fishing,  I’m usually looking at 360 imaging and I tend to fish deeper water most of the time.  That’s just the way I fish.  If knowing the depth in shallow water is important in the way you fish then you might want to consider another brand.  

[Brad Carruth]

4 hours ago, Dirtyeggroll said:

Where is the transducer mounted?

Im in a kayak, but my transducer is mounted to a Scotty transducer arm mount that goes over the side of my kayak. Fully extended, it's probably 1 - 2 inches past the hull.  

14 hours ago, Hower08 said:

My Helix will start going crazy at anything around 1 foot or less sometimes. Usually less than a foot though. All graphs are going to loose accurate bottom readings at extremely shallow depths. What graph do you have

The Humminbird base map & gps have no issues. It's the 2D sonar & DI that have issues in less than 4ft.

[Brad Carruth]

1 hour ago, Tennessee Boy said:

If you turn off all the filters on your unit you will see that in shallow water,  2D sonar is a mess.  You have strong surface clutter in the first few feet.  You have echos from signals that have bounced off the bottom then off the surface and then back again..and again.  It gets worse when you have a hard bottom.  I’m a software developer and when I look at the raw unfiltered sonar signals in shallow water,  I can appreciate how hard it would be to write code to find the bottom.  There’s just a lot of noise from which the software has to find the real bottom.  I think all units will sometimes get “confused” in shallow water.  I think Humminbirds might be worse than others but none will be perfect in all conditions.  

 

Now,  if you’re seeing this problem consistently at a depth of four feet,  that’s pretty bad.  You might try turning down the sensitivity and see if that helps.    I’ve seen this happen on my Solix a few times.  It doesn’t really bother me just like it doesn’t bother me that my unit doesn’t work at 30 MPH.  When I’m fishing,  I’m usually looking at 360 imaging and I tend to fish deeper water most of the time.  That’s just the way I fish.  If knowing the depth in shallow water is important in the way you fish then you might want to consider another brand.  

Im going to try fooling with the filters this weekend to see if that helps. It does this on both hard & soft bottoms. It's frustrating, b/c as much as I enjoy the user friendly interface & the ability for customization with Humminbird units, I think it's time to try a different brand. Really appreciate the insight & I'm going give it a shot this weekend!