HB Unit blacks out in waves

Cruising in waves, my 798 will just black out randomly. Hit the power button and comes back on…then shuts down one, two, or ten minutes later.

I see three contact areas:

Head on unit to base

Wire to wire butt connectors

Connection to battery

I have checked all three over and over…they appear okay.

What am I missing that is causing the random blackouts???

I had a simalar problem with my unit. It was a loose nut on the terminal block under my dash. In my Alumacraft the main power supply goes to a terminal block , then is distributed out to the accessories from there. If I hit a big wave it would shut down,but would turn back on when I pushed start button. I’m not sure if this helps you , but that is what my issue was. Good luck.

My buddy had this problem(1197 or 8?). My buddies was the connector right at the unit. Power the unit up and shake the connector around and see if it shuts off.

His good friend works at bird and what he was told to do was to separate the 2 power pins very slightly so its tighter when you plug it in. Hasn’t had a problem since.

Exact same problem on a Garmin unit several years back. Took over 3 years to figure out. It was the in line power fuse. That little 3 amp with a single thin wire through it. That wire became detached on one end. Worked fine until you bashed a wave. Just enough bump to kick out the power, then worked fine again. Fuse looked fine until you looked at it real close.

-J.

My 788 will do it if I am really banging around. I think it has to do with how the unit is connected to the quick release mount that you put the wires/cables in.

I am glad to hear that other people had this issue. My 998 blacked out yesterday on mille lacs. I checked the connection on the back of the unit…tightened it up and did not have and issue the rest of the day. I hope this is not a problem that continues.

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Exact same problem on a Garmin unit several years back. Took over 3 years to figure out. It was the in line power fuse. That little 3 amp with a single thin wire through it. That wire became detached on one end. Worked fine until you bashed a wave. Just enough bump to kick out the power, then worked fine again. Fuse looked fine until you looked at it real close.

-J.

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Same here with my Garmin. Took me a long time to find the source because I thought it was my fuse panel.

My 798 did the same thing. In my case it was the power connection plugging into the unit. All I had to do was bend the two prongs slightly to get a better connection. Never had another problem.

Thank you for the ideas…I have to believe it’s the connection from the head to the power also. Some bending and it’s good to go.