Marcum lx-3 sensitivity decreasing

I bought an LX-3 a couple of years ago and it has worked great for the last two years. This year I have noticed that it isn’t nearly as sensitive as it was. I used to be able to use as tiny of jig as I wanted and would pick it up no problem at any depth with my gain set on 1 or 2. If I use a small jig now I can’t pick it up at all at any depth. If I use a bigger jig I can pick it up, but only if I have my gain set between 6 or 8 depending on the jig. I called Marcum and they said to send it to them. However, I don’t want to send it in quite yet with probably only a couple of weeks left here in Iowa. Anybody have similar problems or have any idea what is wrong with it?
Nate

Sounds like a transducer to me.. I am sure you will find out when you send it in.

Call service and tell them about your issue. Your transducer is shot. Several years ago they had a bad batch of ducers and have since replaced about 90% of those. However, there are still a few out there, but they have no idea who has them. If you have any questions let me know. Service will get it taken care of for you. Just tell them what your typed here.

Do you think they would just send me a new transducer so that I don’t have to ship my whole unit to them?
Nate

Had a similar problem with a few units and just like Scott said just send it in. When you send the unit in they will also check the main board in the unit just in case the problem is there instead of the transducer. To answer your question I would doubt they would just send out the transducer.

I had one of the bad ones, and I think they sent me the new one and asked that I mail the bad one back once I got it.

I don’t mean to piggy back on some one elses post, but I think I may have an issue with the charger on my lx3. I was having to turn the gain up like I did when I had the bad transducer, but I borrowed my brothers transducer and it was the same. I figured before sending it in I’d try a new battery and it worked great…the only thing is, after a couple of hours of fishing, it said there was only 20% charge left (when turned off). Has anyone else had any problems with the charger on the lx3s? By the way, the new battery was a 9 amp vs a 7 amp. Would there be any problems charging that type of battery?

I bypassed the Marcum charger and just use the Smart Charge with my vexilar charger hooked to it. Works fine. I’m not knocking the Marcum charging system, it’s just useless to me because when you’re not using the unit for fishing it is reccomended you unhook it anyway to save the battery.
As for the ducer problems, I called Marcum last winter thinking I had one of the bad ones. They told me a new ducer would shipped that day and to keep the old one. It turned out to be an issue with the mother board for my unit. But Marcum took very good care of this customer and all is well in Nowhereland.

The MarCum charger is a 3 stange, fully automatic charger. It is designed to charge your battery and maintain a charge. The best thing you can do for your flasher is plug in the charger and leave it. It will maintain the battery for you.

I recommend you plug in your unit and let it charge until the DCS stops blinking and reads 100%. If you do that, your battery is charged. You should no lose performance because your battery level is down to 30%. The DCS is measuring draw while the unit is running. The only way to get an accurate guage of your battery is shut the unit off. Usually draw results in a reading of 20% lower than what the battery really is.

The DCS is a pretty simple device and has very few problems. One thing you want to watch is that when you plug the DCS in the numbers should blink, indicating the battery is charging. If they are not blinking, you are not charging your battery. If they are not blinking, most likely your problem is the transformer that plugs into the wall.

As for the transducer problem. If you can test another ducer on your LX-3 and verify that is the problem they will just send you a new ducer. If not, they may want to see the entire unit because they will want to check other things in addition to the ducer.

thanks for the info Scott…when I got the new battery, I plugged it in and it flashed until it got to 100. How long should that last me? I was out on the pond on sunday and it ran all the way to 0 in about 6 hours. It started to flicker on off, and when I turned it off the battery life said 0%. Luckily I had brought a back up.

6 hours?? A new battery should last you a full weekend almost. I can usually make it an entire weekend without charging the battery. That takes in account times of not using the flasher and traveling inbetween spots. But, 6 hours on a new battery is not good, you may want to try a new battery.

Batteries are cheap for a reason and are often the main problem.

interesting…I even bought the more expensive 9 amp one that they said would have a longer run time. I guess I’ll be buying another one