8 Hrs Fishing Time on Helix 7 and Product Review

Guys,

I was going through older threads on battery life on these units. I was able to fis from about 7:30 to 4:30 on a standard 12V 9Amp battery. At the end of the day my unit was at 8%. I had seen some posts prior where they were asking if at that low percentage on the Helix if that was somehow hurting the battery? I was curious on that…

Product Review:

I purchased this unit as a secondary unit mainly and to have in the boat. I got it beginning of ice season this year and have been really impressed by the ability to use the A Scope and to configure the depth to allow for any depth. I was not sure on buying the lithium battery or not but I will for next year as I think this will be my main unit with the lake maps on it and I like the updated features over my Vexilar. Still love my Vexilar as it does not glitch but for normal fishing I do like the Bird over it. Also I really like the case as well…

What are everyones thoughts that have used the unit?

Which gen are you using? I like my G3 a lot and even more so with the lithium battery. I purchased the 12V cig adapter for it with a separate 110V to 12V female cig adapter so if I’m in the fish house and the genny is running I use that and save the lithium for when I’m not running the genny.

I’m not a very techy guy and it is taking me awhile to get the learning curve out of it. The temptation is to just learn the basics of it and fish and not bother to go any deeper in using it. I’m trying hard to avoid that as it’s a very capable but somewhat complex piece of equipment and I don’t find it to be very intuitive to use. You have to sit with the manual and go to school with it to get the most out of it.

The Lake Master maps are outstanding and I love being able to pull a map up off the lake list and view it sitting on the couch at home and plan several spots to fish before I even leave the house.

I love my helix 5.

It takes some tinkering and has some quirks every now and then but it is awesome.

I 100% agree with being able to scout out spots with lakemaster while sitting on the couch.

I picked up a 12ah amped lithium battery this winter and I highly recommend it. Between the weight savings and much longer run time it’s been a huge improvement.

If you turn the brightness down to like 7 or 8 you’ll get almost double the runtime
Out of it.

I’m pretty happy with mine. I have an older standard 9ah battery that doesn’t last long anymore from a full charge, though I will say that the Helix ran for over another hour after battery was showing only 10% charge remaining.
So I wired up one of the Milwaukee M18 connectors for it and love that. I have fished over 5 hours with a 5 ah battery that started out with a less than full charge, it still showed 2 bars of charge remaining. The M18 batteries with a full charge have too much voltage and the Helix will not start up with a battery that’s been fully charged recently. I have seen that the M18 batteries should be stored at 75% charge for best life anyway, so I try to pull them off the charger when 3 of 4 bars are lit.
I tried to see what max life would be from a 3 ah battery, and I killed it. It was a Chinese knockoff M18 battery, the Helix battery meter shows 100% with a Lithium battery until the battery is nearly done, then drops to zero in just a few minutes (like 2 – 3 minutes). I was too busy catching fish to notice until the Helix shut down. Now that battery will no longer take a charge. The genuine Milwaukee batteries have a protection circuit that prevents battery damage from over-discharge. Not a big deal since it was very cheap, but I’ll stick with the genuine M18’s for the Helix in the future to avoid ruining an otherwise useful battery. That 3.0 ah battery was at 3 bars when I started, and it lasted for about 2 hrs 50 minutes before it died. My brightness is set to 9 and in night mode (black background) since it was a very sunny day about 35 degrees temp and I was wearing sunglasses.
Having three 5 ah batteries should be enough for the M18 drill/Lite Flite and Helix 7 for a full day of fishing – even if the batteries start out with 3/4 charge. I also figured that I could fully charge batteries beforehand, then use them to run the Lite Flite drill for a few holes, and that will bring the voltage down to where the Helix will run – while I was experimenting, I ran an angle grinder for about 90 seconds with a fully charged battery that still showed 4 bars and it ran the Helix fine – just cannot be a fresh full charge. Also the M18 batteries have about the same footprint as the standard batteries, so they fit perfectly in the Vexilar Pro Pack II battery space.
Overall I’m happy with the Helix, but I have noticed that sometimes my bait doesn’t show up for 10 seconds or so, usually after being out of the water for a few seconds, then it sort of comes in view gradually while I’m jigging it, from a tiny blue blip (A-scope) to a full yellow/red blob, then stays very clearly “in focus” until the next lure change or after unhooking a fish. Not sure if this is some kind of rejection of the return until the Helix determines that it’s real or what? May be a setting I still have to play with I guess, but other than that it’s been excellent. I am looking forward to using it on open water and creating maps soon.

There is no reason to run a Helix without a lithium battery. If you are complaining about battery life with a Helix using a regular 12v battery (not saying you were) you should’ve known going into using that unit, that it would drain battery life like crazy.

If you buy a Helix or plan to use one on the ice, you might as well accept the fact that you’ll need to buy a lithium battery because you’re going to need it.

Really mahto? I’ve got the most standard 12v 9ah battery on the market and I’ve never needed to use a 2nd battery in a day when the original 12v was fully charged. Using the ‘ducer setting and gps non-stop. I’m running a Gen 1 open water helix w/ the ice conversion. Does that matter? Like others have said, turning the brightness down a few notches and I never had any issue with battery life.

Lithium is not a absolute must but it just makes a lot of sense to run one with these power hungry digitals. If you fish in a wheel house a lot buy the 12V cig adapter. Removes any and all battery issues.

tbro16 wrote:

Really mahto? I’ve got the most standard 12v 9ah battery on the market and I’ve never needed to use a 2nd battery in a day when the original 12v was fully charged. Using the ‘ducer setting and gps non-stop. I’m running a Gen 1 open water helix w/ the ice conversion. Does that matter? Like others have said, turning the brightness down a few notches and I never had any issue with battery life.

Do you use a 5 or 7? Screen size makes a big difference but I don’t think Gen model would. I just think there’s no reason not to get lithium with a Helix. In my experience running my Helix 7 G2N with a standard 12v I got less than 6 hrs on a full charge even with turning the brightness down. I get 16+ on full brightness with lithium with my Glow Ring and Ice Defense running.

Lots of good comments here. As I had said I was surprised the length of time that I got out of a standard 12 V 9 amp battery the other day. I do not run the split screen I run full flasher mode on Ascope with brightness at as low as I need. If inside you can turn it down a bit.

I am going to fab mine out a bit next year with marcum arm to get rid of styro float. Then it should be about perfect.

lrott2003 wrote:

Lots of good comments here. As I had said I was surprised the length of time that I got out of a standard 12 V 9 amp battery the other day. I do not run the split screen I run full flasher mode on Ascope with brightness at as low as I need. If inside you can turn it down a bit.

I am going to fab mine out a bit next year with marcum arm to get rid of styro float. Then it should be about perfect.

Did you buy the Ice Helix that comes with the ice pack soft case? If so the cable management posts that are in there work perfectly. You just unwind as much of the cable as you need and then push the cable into the slot on the arm of the post. Don’t need a external Marcum arm. First thing I do is toss that big styro hole filler.

lrott2003 wrote:

Lots of good comments here. As I had said I was surprised the length of time that I got out of a standard 12 V 9 amp battery the other day. I do not run the split screen I run full flasher mode on Ascope with brightness at as low as I need. If inside you can turn it down a bit.

I am going to fab mine out a bit next year with marcum arm to get rid of styro float. Then it should be about perfect.

I got a Marcum arm for mine and am much happier with it. I had the soft pack when I used to have an Ice-35 and wasn’t a big fan. Here’s my shuttle.

The jury is still out for me. I bought it primarily for the boat but have had it out on the ice. After some problems out of the gate it seems to be working pretty well. However I found myself grabbing my Vex FL22 more often than not.

Battery – yes I knew it sucked and yes it really does. I’m using a 7amp battery that I had and a .5amp/hour charger. This combination just doesn’t cut it and is the single biggest reason I keep grabbing the vex. Will be upgrading to lithium, impacts overall value when the extra $100

Cone angle – I still have a working tri-beam from Vex. 8, 12, 20 where the Helix has 15 and 21. When fishing breaklines I much prefer the smaller cone angles to reduce sonar shadow

GPS and mapping – I have an older handheld with a Navionics chip. The Helix is much, much nicer when outside a vehicle. When driving the truck the handheld is king. When my handheld eventually dies, it will force my transition.

Fishing walleye – since it’s really only about the bottom few feet I haven’t seen why the bird is any better than the Vex with the 6′ bottom zoom. To be fair, this could be true or only because I haven’t spent hours on the Helix yet.

Panfishing – only one day and skunked so bad a wooden block would have worked as well.