Marcum 4.07 Update

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Yep, I’m running the 4.07. It seems that most of the issues people have been experiencing are with dynamic depth mode, if you experience any glitching with it I don’t have a recommendation outside of just using a different mode. Marcum is really working on the dynamic depth feature, so don’t count it out, but if auto or manual depth works better for you, then I would just use those settings. When I was out yesterday I was on a crystal clear lake in 60 feet on a steady break. I was able to use 6 color mode with sensitivity set at 3 on the 20 degree cone and the only thing on my screen was my lure. However, some bugs started hatching and showing up on my screen in blue clutter, so I simply turned my color mode down to r,o,g, bumped my sensitivity to 5 and maxed out my target size because it’s just cool to be able to do that without effecting gain! No bug clutter. Right around 4pm the smelt started moving in, so I turned the sensitivity down to 3, and switched to the 9 degree cone which settled the smelt issue. This is usually the point where my vex became useless because I could never get the smelt off the screen and I couldn’t see my lure once they moved in the area. Basically what I am getting at is that the update works fine for me, but tapping a few buttons to make the unit work for me was key in the whole process. I also set my max ping rate to 2… At 4 there was a lot of signal bounce off the granite boulders. If there is a lot of clutter the first thing I would do is shut off the 6 color mode and play with ping, then adjust your sensitivity and target.

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You nailed it exactly what makes these units so great!! The features that can be changed to our personal preferences. As well as the situation of our present location is what makes these units shine. The combination that so far hasn’t been touched by the other flashers on the Market.

Some people don’t fully understand the reasoning behind a unit that is upgradeable thru firmware updates. Simply Marcum wants customers who bought a LX-6,7,or 9 in the past to have everything a brand new model has available. Don’t get me wrong the other manufacturers are coming out with new models every few years. But in order for previous customers to gain the features they have to buy another $600 unit. Marcum put the upgrade out there for free to all customers, that is great! They are not trying to dial in the unit because it has issues, they are trying to make it better by adding features!

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I would like to hear if the majority is having positive results. Really I’m interested in the percentages of good and bad. Also not being able to turn the gain down more if needed is very concerning to me, I fish a flowage system and at times there can be allot of debris in the water and not being able to adjust that out would be very problematic.

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Ice just got a call from a friend on “The Rock” who’s got a LX7 I did the update on he said it was working perfect. Fishing was so so.

FWIW…—-I know a guy who wants Windows 98 back…

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FWIW…—-I know a guy who wants Windows 98 back…

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Windows 98 was clutch!

Updated the wifes will see how I like her’s before upgrading mine from 2.9

I’m interested to see what James or any of the guys have to say about this. I have yet to update my 7 because all of this back and forth as I haven’t had any problems with mine. I was really skeptical of hearing the release of the update via email then hearing a final release so quickly after that. Makes you wonder if more people got that update and they just put it public without fully working out all the bugs.

I did the update and yes I notice gain settings are lower. But except that the unit runs great. I actually had a serious issue before the update where if I was hole hopping it took the unit 8 seconds to respond and read clear bottom. That issue was removed and also depth jumping around was removed as well. It works just fine for me.

Been having a couple issues with my LX7 after the v4 firmware upgrade also. Sent and email to Marcum yesterday with a link to a video I took.

http://youtu.be/vU5UqOJQwVk

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I only have a few hours under the new firmware. All in all everything runs OK on my unit under 4.07, nothing perilous or distracting happening, but I’m not super stoked performance-wise.

I’m finding that with a 3mm fiska in 25′ my gain was set at 1 and everything was showing up a little too well; I’d personally would have tweaked the gain lower if possible, but 0 is zero, not a valid option. Also, higher gain (above 4) seemed to invite noise susceptibility in my unit that wasn’t an issue under the earlier firmware.

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I spent a good 12 hours in front of my lx7v.4.07 and it does run solid. I didn’t hole hop, pretty much just sat and fished the same setup the entire time.

My gain settings were at 2 or 3. Going higher displayed a hot signal with lots of information being displayed, much of the “noise” I was picking up on my initial go was still there, but I’m thinking now it is actually suspended particulate. The bay of MNtonka we’ve been camping on is much more turbid than other parts. I was toying with a flx28 w/Producer and it showed the same deal, bump the gain up a hair and the screen was dancing at all 20 of the IR settings.

My biggest concern with the change regarding sensitivity implementation is that we are being penned into the bottom of the enumeration. I could care less if we can or need to crank it to 11, 25 or 26; I am a bit concerned that I can only set my setup at n, or n+1 and not over a range of 6 or 7 discrete settings. What the heck are 5-25 good for? Do they come into play with deeper water? I need more guidance, is there an appendix to the manual?

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I spent a good 12 hours in front of my lx7v.4.07 and it does run solid. I didn’t hole hop, pretty much just sat and fished the same setup the entire time.

My gain settings were at 2 or 3. Going higher displayed a hot signal with lots of information being displayed, much of the “noise” I was picking up on my initial go was still there, but I’m thinking now it is actually suspended particulate. The bay of MNtonka we’ve been camping on is much more turbid than other parts. I was toying with a flx28 w/Producer and it showed the same deal, bump the gain up a hair and the screen was dancing at all 20 of the IR settings.

My biggest concern with the change regarding sensitivity implementation is that we are being penned into the bottom of the enumeration. I could care less if we can or need to crank it to 11, 25 or 26; I am a bit concerned that I can only set my setup at n, or n+1 and not over a range of 6 or 7 discrete settings. What the heck are 5-25 good for? Do they come into play with deeper water? I need more guidance, is there an appendix to the manual?

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I agree, the sensitivity settings need to be tweeked so there is a usable range. I was noticing a huge jump between 0 and 3.

You can see what i’m talking about here.

http://youtu.be/vU5UqOJQwVk

For some reason some of my posts aren’t showing up. Sorry if this is a duplicate.

Thanks Late Season great video I will wait till they fix that before the upgrade goes on mine.

mine was doing the exact same things.and more. clearly this is not happening on all the units that have the 4.07. that or people are ok with it and not saying much.

I ran version 4.07 Saturday on devils lake. I moved around a lot and fished in depths from 13 ft to 42 ft. I used lures ranging in size from a #5 darter to a northland mud bug. I had no issues other than the auto range on the vertical zoom. It was a little jumpy when a lot of fish where on the screen. When I say alot i mean 5 or 6 large perch grouped tight. This can be fixed by setting the depth.

I was out this afternoon in 9′, running a small moonjig w/ crappie minnow. The unit ran super solid and had lots of adjustability. I could get just a flicker of my bait with it set @ 2, pushing it up towards 10 only made the marks fatter and livelier appearing. My two previous runs were at 21′, then 28′.

In 15′. Fished W5 raps for a bit. Switched over to crappie baits after landing a nice 11″ on my minnow set. Super solid and adjustable, noise free in roygb. I stopped thinking about updates, just looking for good spots to play now. I’m fine running 3 color as needed in high turbidity cases. I ran it in grey scale for a while, wish the graph was a negative of its current state like the columns and zoom; anyone know how many shades of grey Marcum puts out?

I heard 50, if you count the whips, chains, and handcuffs!

Thanks for picking up on the twisted innuendo! Really, 50! – hope they get that in the manual appendix..

Contacted Marcum. I have to ship it to them. Or in my case bring it over to them so they can fix it.
I’m really curious to know if the firmware can be downgraded on these sonars or not and what they think is potentially wrong with it.

Went into the Versa Electronics service center today. One of the guys looked at the video I posted and said the lure is definitely showing up way to big. He went through the units settings and had the transducer out so it was picking up the floor. He suggested to try the open water mode because the sensitivity is supposed to be different with it. Or go with a 3 color pallet. I don’t want to run 3 colors and said I’d like to have the option to downgrade to the 3.17 firmware. They are supposed to be emailing that file to me so I can roll back to it as a last resort.

I forgot to show you guys the fish that it marked the last time I was out with it. There is nothing in the lake this big. The tech said yeah, that’s obviously wrong. Looks like it would be a 45lb fish!
I’m not sure what the blue lines were. Sometimes It seemed like it would pick up my line as I dropped the lure. Other times i would already be down there jigging and the screen would fill with blue hash marks. Was really hard to get it to clear up with the jacked up sensitivity settings i’m experiencing.

I’m beginning to wonder if there is variation in these units that interprets the updates differently. Not taking the different features, but the sensativety and other aspects that have variable settings. I also would like to reload the previous version if at the end of the day its what works best on my unit. And they should make these easily available on their site. I emailed them close to a week ago with concerns and still have not received a response.

I’m starting to think the exact same thing. If I get the 3.17 firmware I’ll let you know.
I also asked if they are working on a 4.10 or some newer code and was told that he wasn’t aware of anything right now. It sounds like they are going to let the 4.07 disperse and bake in a while. Yay…

I have been very happy with there service in the past on my LX-5 and 7 but why didn’t they reload your unit for you. I would think it would have taken them less than 5 minutes.

He was pushing to try out different settings in the 4.07 code. I said that’s fine as long as he emails me the 3.17 code so I can down grade, and he agreed. I feel like a beta tester at this point.
Being in IT I understand the upgrade pains and am fully capable of downgrading the unit as long as its supported which I assume it is since he said he would email me the file.

I’ll be back in that area Thursday. If I don’t have the file by then I’ll go back over there with a thumb drive and have them put it on there.

I have 3.17 on my desktop from when I upgraded my LX6 to it. If it is the same, pm me.

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He was pushing to try out the different settingd.. I feel like a beta tester at this point.

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Not to say throw more $ at this, but I’d try a new transducer before rolling back. I had one that displayed a far hotter signal than my other 2 dual beam ducers. It did everything OK, just displayed a signal that required the sensitivity of the LX7v3.17 to be bumped significantly lower. It was original to my lx7.

WOW the head aches people have been having wouldn’t that be the sheets if it was a batch of faulty transducers.

Well I should be out fishing this weekend. I’ll play around with the settings and record my findings so they can see whats going on when I go back to Marcum if things haven’t changed. I’ll bring up the transducer idea next time i’m there. I bought the unit at the Hardwater Expo this year so warranty shouldn’t be an issue. Hopefully i’m one of few and there are many more that have successfully upgraded.

I have the 3.17 file for the LX7 if anyone needs it.

Haven’t down graded yet, I’m waiting until after this weekend when I get another chance to play around with the 4.07 code out on the lake.

I downgraded back to 3.17 . contacted Marcum and was not pleased with the sensitivity or mark size . they emailed me the 3.17 file and I did the swap tonight at home . back to 3.17 for me .

I got a chance to get out and play with the 4.07 code more. Switching it to the “Open Water” mode changed the sensitivity back to how it acted on the 3.17 code.
Now that my buck shot doesn’t look like a 10 lb northern I’ll stick with the 4.07 unless more issues arise.
From what I was told, Marcum will be changing the mode names in one of the next releases.