Garmin GPSMap 185 - trouble shooting - please help

[wetaline]

Yesterday while out on the water my GPSmap 185 stopped reading the depth. All other functions of the transducer unit and cable still work - i.e. the temp and speed.

I've checked all the connections and they appear to be solid. I felt for the sounder pulse from the transducer and do not feel anything there. This happend while sitting on anchor and no one was playing with the unit. There was no debree or anything that came in contact with the transducer either.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

[jimh]

It stopped reading the depth but the depth works? Anyway, try turning it off, and back on. Sometimes I have to do that with my Garmin 240 Blue.

[wetaline]

sorry for the confusion with the typo. No depth reading - but speed and temp still work. They all run off the same transducer unit and cable.

Yes i've tried disconnecting, reconnecting, turning it off, doing a reset of defaults. I've tried testing it with a different transducer (did that this afternoon). I havn't a clue.

PS - fished around rainer today - beautiful - but no fish seen. few seals around.

[jimh]

I guess the next move is taking a look at the Garmin site or contacting Garmin support.

[skein]

I had some trouble with my temp sensor reading too low, and they told me to take a scrub brush to it. I did, but haven't had the boat out since then to see if it helped. The depth function worked fine though. A new transducer is about $150, but it's not real money, it's Boat Bucks! :help:

Skein

[Catching Nemo]

First try cleaning the transducer.

Have you left the unit on, when the boat is out of water? I have been told you can "fry" a transducer by letting it run on dry land. I make a special effort to make sure the unit is off before I put the boat on the trailer.

Also, I can turn off the DF function (without turning off the whole unit) on my Garmin 188. Is it possible that someone messed with the settings and turned off the transducer :shrug:?

[wetaline]

I'm 99% sure its not the transducer. I have two - the one it came with and the one I upgraded to (which has temp/speed). I've tried both and both are in good working condition. This leads me to beleive that its either in the main unit or the short multi power/cable adapter that the transducer plugs into - which then plugs into a single slot on the back of the unit.

I contacted Garmin via the web and sent in a a trouble report.

I also talked to West Marine - they really had no suggestions on how to fix the unit - but said Garmin is very good about taking care of issues like this and usually will have the unit back to you in 2 - 3 weeks. I started asking him about prices on new units and he gave me all the info but said not to buy it from them. He said if Garmin couldn't fix the one I sent back that Garmin would offer me a much better deal than West Marine could through the retail store.

I'll keep you all updated. Hope to hear from Garmin early this week.