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Hey Yankee Troller,thanks for the information and the heads up on the maps....sweet!I'm picking up my HB 688CI ICE tomorrow, and needed to get up to speed on this for the weekend.There really isn't a whole lot of feedback I could find on this model yet. It's to new I guess!
Few buddies have picked them up, or are picking them up soon. It's been solid. I'd say the only drawback is the reported target separation of the Humminbird compared to what Marcum and Vexilar are reporting. Humminbird seems to have a larger target separation, but 1" or 2" if the fish is that close you're watching to rod tip or feeling for the bite. The Lakemaster map card is a little more advanced than the Navionics I have, and I have the Platinum+ Navionics. Lakemaster opens up a whole other set of options I didn't have with my Navionics.If you search YouTube there is a little bit to get you going with the 688. The Technological Angler has a couple of nice videos. If you're used to Humminbird menus you'll have no issues. If you're not then check out those videos.
We picked up our 688CI ice a couple weeks ago and have used it three times. We absolutely love it. Putting it all together was a bit tedious so don't do it in a hurry the morning before you are heading out. And make sure you fully charge the battery the first time, though mine was fully charged as the charger changed from yellow to green in less than a minute. Battery time has been great, though I've only used it a few hours at a time; the battery has barely gone down each time. Plugging in and unplugging the battery leads each time is a pain as is clipping on the chargers alligator clips. There is just no room for hands in there. I'm going to make two 5" jumper leads that hang down where they are easier to get at. It's tight in that battery compartment. Note for first time assembly; they say to put it in the case and then put in the battery. No room to do that. Definitely insert your battery and strap it in first, and then put the whole works into the carrying case. I've used it in Sonar and Flasher mode and much prefer the Sonar mode so I can see the "history" rather than it only showing live data like in flasher mode. I changed the background to black rather than white, which is much easier on the eyes. Saved three modes in the three favorite buttons (flasher, sonar, and sonar magnify). It's easy to change sensitivity and set up and lower bounds if you want to magnify your target area. My wife, you had never used a flasher before, also prefers the Sonar screen rather than flasher. My Lakemaster chip arrives today so that will add even more functionality allowing us to walk or ATV to the contours I want. Also saving waypoints directly into the bird rather than my handheld GPS. One thing to note is there is only one chip slot and when you save waypoints, they save to your head unit and not the chip. You do NOT want to export waypoints to your lakemaster chip. You'll want to put in a separate chip and export to that if you want to move waypoints or back them up on your computer, etc. For my handheld GPS, I name waypoints what the water depth is in that spot. For example "28.7". That way, when I look at the waypoint on a map, even if there are no contours, I know the depth in that spot. Won't be as big of a deal now that the waypoints will be on a contour map, but it was great for saving on a gps that didn't have contours. Anxious to try the lakemaster chip this Sunday. Going to a lake I've not been on and willl help me narrow down spots. When you first get on the lake and are using gps and topo map, turn off your sonar in the menu. Then turn it back on once you plug in your transducer and it's in the water.
...Also found a little trick to get the battery and foam pad in correctly.
I have talked with my guy at Humminbird about reaching the battery to put it on charge. They are aware of that issue. I think the short leads are a great idea. I might go that route.
If you guys are using sonar mode make sure you activate, if it isn't already, the Real Time Sonar (RTS) screen. It's basically a vertical flasher on the right side of the screen. Speed up your scroll speed to the fastest setting. You can also take the backlight down to 2-3, and this should make battery life even better!
Care to share? As I mentioned earlier, the instructions say to put the cradle into the case and then install the battery. Bad order in my opinion. I took the cradle back out of the case and installed the battery. Fast and easy then by first tucking the foam into the hole and then easing in the battery (rather than holding the foam onto the bottom of the battery and trying to slide both in at once). Share your trick! I'm curious...Thanks.
Would changing the background to black inherently improve battery life as the screen is less lit? My 9ah battery lasts a day and a half on my 385ci with the white background and GPS active .
Has anyone used this for open water? Do you need to purchase a different transducer for it for open water or can you use any compatible transducer? Does it work with the auto chart software? I'm thinking about buying one, looks like it does everything you need for hard water fishing, I just need to make sure it has everything I need for open water fishing.Thanks!
I'm seriously thinking about purchasing this unit, but wondering how bad the interference is with other units. How does it do i the same shack with a LX7?
It depends on how close you like to fish to others. In deep water 90+ I was getting some interference from my buddies LX9, and we were 60 yards apart. In shallow water we can sit 30-40 yards apart and not get any. I used my noise filter, as did he, and we had no issues. That's what these noise filters are for, so it's great that we all have these on our units no matter what we are running.
So.....just to clarify, seems to be differences of opinions. If I had this unit in the same house as a LX7, we would both get interference but can get rid of it with our rejection options on the units? I normally fish with a buddy who has a LX7 and it would suck if neither worked well. Thanks guys.
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Topic: HumminBird's NEW ICE Machine (Read 23992 times)
