First LX7 Experience

Finally made ice in Indiana where we could get out. This was my first trip using my new LX7. It has version 2.9. I am brand new to Marcum as I fished the past 5 years or so with a Vexilar FL20.

The unit is brand new and I had the battery charged up and ready to go. I got to the ice and turned her on. I was impressed with the nice big display. Also the customization was really nice too. I fished for about two hours and then noticed the battery meter was at 9 volts?? WTH?? It was a brand new battery that was fully charged. The unit then went crazy displaying all kinds of wierd info. Luckily, I had a backup battery with me. I put the new battery in and it jumped up to 12.7 volts and was fine the rest of the day. Maybe I got a bad battery?

I tried using dynamic depth and that was a mess. I was fishing in 18′ of water and the depth would jump back and forth from 17′ to 18′ on the flasher and the zoom window. Almost made me throw up trying to watch it! I tried messing with the ping rate, sens, target adjust but to no avail. I turned off the dynamic depth and set it on 20′ scale and the unit worked fine.
I messed with the sonar mode going back and forth between ice fishing and open water. It did perform different but I am not sure which one actually worked better for ice fishing.

I had the screen set up with 3 different displays at one time. The zoom on the left, flasher in the center and the 5′ zoom on the right. That 5′ zoom window on the right is addicting! Fish that came in were very clear and crisp and not overly large like my Vexilar always seemed to be.

Overall I am pleased with the LX7. I think its a great platform for the future and I am sticking with it.

Followup questions:

1. Does the LX7 draw a battery down when its hooked up to the battery sitting at home but now on?

2. Was there anything I could have done to make Dynamic Depth work?

3. Does anyone know the difference between the open water setting and the ice setting? Which one does everyone use?

PS – I so did not miss the hum of a dial!

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Followup questions:

1. Does the LX7 draw a battery down when its hooked up to the battery sitting at home but now on?

2. Was there anything I could have done to make Dynamic Depth work?

3. Does anyone know the difference between the open water setting and the ice setting? Which one does everyone use?

PS – I so did not miss the hum of a dial!

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1 – Nope. You’re battery will discharge very slowly over time the same as with a flasher (which is why you should hook it up and recharge every 1-2 months during the off season) I’m guessing that either you’re right that you got a bad battery but because it is a brand new battery it may just need to be used a bit to be broken in by cycling through a couple full charge/discharge cycles.

2 – I’ve seen something like this happen before when I’m right between two depths with a softer bottom. What I’ve done is drop the transducer 2-3 inches and it locked in to the lower depth.

3 – I use the ice fishing setting and get to focused on fishing to play around and figure out the difference. I’m also curious to hear others input on this one

Theres a bug in the 7, new update supposed to be out this week to fix the dynamic depth as well as some other issues…9 hours on my 7 and battery has never been below 12v, starts the day at 12.8

My lx7 did the same thing last week so i called marcum and they suspect a faulty internal battery gauge. Sent it in friday and they said i should have it back in 5 days or less. Great customer service on there part. Give em a call and see what they have to say!