Marcum LX-7 problems…

Hey folks,

I bought a new LX-7 about a month ago, and from the start I had problems with this thing. The unit won’t turn on when it’s cold… The battery’s brand new, and will power other units without issue as the LX-7 sits idle in the case. I sent the unit in 3 days after I bought it, and the technician said that there was no problem found. The tech suggested a new cable (which came four days later after I called customer service back and requested a cable), and I still had an issue with it today out on the ice. Has anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions?

Send it back..new marcum lx7 have issues

I must have lucked out, bought mine a month ago and haven’t had a problem yet! I am overly satisfied with it.

Are you holding the power button down long enough? My LX6 need it pressed for 3 to 4 seconds before it powers up..
Seeing as Marcum tested it and found everything was right(it’s odd they did not replace the cable before they sent it back-not like them not to do so) recheck all your connections to the unit and at the battery to be sure….and good luck!

Kent Tau wrote:

Send it back..new marcum lx7 have issues

Where did you hear that.? I know 2 people that just got 1 and they both work great…

the button is what I would call a deliberate button… press and hold for 3 seconds or better. This is by design… nobody wants a button that turns on when bumped accidentally.

Mudshark wrote:

Are you holding the power button down long enough? My LX6 need it pressed for 3 to 4 seconds before it powers up..
Seeing as Marcum tested it and found everything was right(it’s odd they did not replace the cable before they sent it back-not like them not to do so) recheck all your connections to the unit and at the battery to be sure….and good luck!

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Kent Tau wrote:</div>
Send it back..new marcum lx7 have issues

Where did you hear that.? I know 2 people that just got 1 and they both work great…

I bought one and my brother bought one . His crap after 15 min of use. I didn’t use mine and sold it as i also bought an flx28 and love it. Don’t get me wrong I own last year’s lx7. Fished it in below temp and has never let me down. Still using up to date.. just saying this year’s series have issues at least more than before

Kent Tau wrote:

I bought one and my brother bought one . His crap after 15 min of use. I didn’t use mine and sold it as i also bought an flx28 and love it. Don’t get me wrong I own last year’s lx7. Fished it in below temp and has never let me down. Still using up to date.. just saying this year’s series have issues at least more than before

First I want say…this is nothing personal Kent..this post is about the growing idea (what I think is a myth)that Marcums are somehow inferior this year…

So… your brother’s new unit “crap” after 15 mins. so you sold yours(unused) and bought something else…
You then make the generalization that therefore all of this this years units have issues?

I see this on other sites… and the people there say that there are “all these people” are reporting issues…
When someone defends Marcum they repeat that-based on the number of complaints,there MUST be a problem…
Yet when you look at the actual complaints( say 100) compared the the number of units being sold, things look different….

I’ve said it before….Buy what you prefer…but don’t put down others that prefer something else…..

Mudshark wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Kent Tau wrote:</div>
I bought one and my brother bought one . His crap after 15 min of use. I didn’t use mine and sold it as i also bought an flx28 and love it. Don’t get me wrong I own last year’s lx7. Fished it in below temp and has never let me down. Still using up to date.. just saying this year’s series have issues at least more than before

First I want say…this is nothing personal Kent..this post is about the growing idea (what I think is a myth)that Marcums are somehow inferior this year…

So… your brother’s new unit “crap” after 15 mins. so you sold yours(unused) and bought something else…
You then make the generalization that therefore all of this this years units have issues?

I see this on other sites… and the people there say that there are “all these people” are reporting issues…
When someone defends Marcum they repeat that-based on the number of complaints,there MUST be a problem…
Yet when you look at the actual complaints( say 100) compared the the number of units being sold, things look different….

I’ve said it before….Buy what you prefer…but don’t put down others that prefer something else…..

No.. its not personal the only thing I said on the first post was to send it back to marcum, have them second look at it. I have read many issues with lx7 this season.. then when we bought ours.. my brother had issues with his. I never said buy something else. IMo sharing my experience lets people know they’re not alone. I didn’t sell my lx7 then buy a flx28. I bought them together as I like the traditional dial. If the flx28 didn’t work out for me I was going to sell it and keep the lx7.
I have both the lx7 and the flx28 there was no point to open the other one. 2 hours from home my brothers unit froze did nothing. Luckily I brought my lx7 and he had a flasher that day. I can’t even imagine how disappointed someone will be when they dump $700 and got a defective unit out of the box.
I sold mines because I don’t want to take the chance. It doesn’t mean flx28s don’t have issues. I have heard some but I have never own a vex so I wanted to give it a try.

Kent Tau wrote:

I have read many issues with lx7 this season..

This is my point Kent..
Where did you read about these issues??
Do read this in review sections of reputable Magazines or such?
Or did you read about them in one of the many other fishing boards out there, a few that have avid Marcum bashers?

I just do not see it that’s all………

Mudshark wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Kent Tau wrote:</div>
I have read many issues with lx7 this season..

This is my point Kent..
Where did you read about these issues??
Do read this in review sections of reputable Magazines or such?
Or did you read about them in one of the many other fishing boards out there, a few that have avid Marcum bashers?

I just do not see it that’s all………

I’ve only read about it here on ido and have seen some on iceshanty. There is more than one issues on lx7 posted this season alone here, many of them are on new units. They are not all related but are issues.

Kent Tau wrote:

I’ve only read about it here on ido and have seen some on iceshanty. There is more than one issues on lx7 posted this season alone here, many of them are on new units. They are not all related but are issues.

Ahhh…Ice Shanty…..That explains a lot…
Don’t get me wrong….I signed up there 3yrs ago and there are good people there…But it does have a definite group of people that like to put down Marcum any chance they get…1 guy was even complaining about a weird display in the simulation mode….

Yes, there have been people here who have had troubles with their Marcums,some are solved by fellow users who know their units….some of the rest are advised to send the units in…

The big question is…can you judge a whole product line based on (in comparison to # units sold) a handful of reports on a product??

That’ all I’m say’n

Bought my LX7 about 7 weeks ago, it works great every time I use it.

Kent Tau wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Mudshark wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Kent Tau wrote:</div>
I bought one and my brother bought one . His crap after 15 min of use. I didn’t use mine and sold it as i also bought an flx28 and love it. Don’t get me wrong I own last year’s lx7. Fished it in below temp and has never let me down. Still using up to date.. just saying this year’s series have issues at least more than before

First I want say…this is nothing personal Kent..this post is about the growing idea (what I think is a myth)that Marcums are somehow inferior this year…

So… your brother’s new unit “crap” after 15 mins. so you sold yours(unused) and bought something else…
You then make the generalization that therefore all of this this years units have issues?

I see this on other sites… and the people there say that there are “all these people” are reporting issues…
When someone defends Marcum they repeat that-based on the number of complaints,there MUST be a problem…
Yet when you look at the actual complaints( say 100) compared the the number of units being sold, things look different….

I’ve said it before….Buy what you prefer…but don’t put down others that prefer something else…..

No.. its not personal the only thing I said on the first post was to send it back to marcum, have them second look at it. I have read many issues with lx7 this season.. then when we bought ours.. my brother had issues with his. I never said buy something else. IMo sharing my experience lets people know they’re not alone. I didn’t sell my lx7 then buy a flx28. I bought them together as I like the traditional dial. If the flx28 didn’t work out for me I was going to sell it and keep the lx7.
I have both the lx7 and the flx28 there was no point to open the other one. 2 hours from home my brothers unit froze did nothing. Luckily I brought my lx7 and he had a flasher that day. I can’t even imagine how disappointed someone will be when they dump $700 and got a defective unit out of the box.
I sold mines because I don’t want to take the chance. It doesn’t mean flx28s don’t have issues. I have heard some but I have never own a vex so I wanted to give it a try.

So you didn’t disconnect the battery and try turning it on again???? The modern marcums allow for software “updates” free and I bet a newer version would have solved this.

TripleA wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Kent Tau wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Mudshark wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Kent Tau wrote:</div>
I bought one and my brother bought one . His crap after 15 min of use. I didn’t use mine and sold it as i also bought an flx28 and love it. Don’t get me wrong I own last year’s lx7. Fished it in below temp and has never let me down. Still using up to date.. just saying this year’s series have issues at least more than before

First I want say…this is nothing personal Kent..this post is about the growing idea (what I think is a myth)that Marcums are somehow inferior this year…

So… your brother’s new unit “crap” after 15 mins. so you sold yours(unused) and bought something else…
You then make the generalization that therefore all of this this years units have issues?

I see this on other sites… and the people there say that there are “all these people” are reporting issues…
When someone defends Marcum they repeat that-based on the number of complaints,there MUST be a problem…
Yet when you look at the actual complaints( say 100) compared the the number of units being sold, things look different….

I’ve said it before….Buy what you prefer…but don’t put down others that prefer something else…..

No.. its not personal the only thing I said on the first post was to send it back to marcum, have them second look at it. I have read many issues with lx7 this season.. then when we bought ours.. my brother had issues with his. I never said buy something else. IMo sharing my experience lets people know they’re not alone. I didn’t sell my lx7 then buy a flx28. I bought them together as I like the traditional dial. If the flx28 didn’t work out for me I was going to sell it and keep the lx7.
I have both the lx7 and the flx28 there was no point to open the other one. 2 hours from home my brothers unit froze did nothing. Luckily I brought my lx7 and he had a flasher that day. I can’t even imagine how disappointed someone will be when they dump $700 and got a defective unit out of the box.
I sold mines because I don’t want to take the chance. It doesn’t mean flx28s don’t have issues. I have heard some but I have never own a vex so I wanted to give it a try.

So you didn’t disconnect the battery and try turning it on again???? The modern marcums allow for software “updates” free and I bet a newer version would have solved this.

We did everything we could. We even restored it. Tried new batteries transducers. Marcum had to replace some sort of restistor no updates were made we were told. The problem wasn’t on our end it was definitely a bad unit.

Hey Brandon, I have had similar problems with my Marcum. Very frustrating when it works at home and gets shy on the ice. I have put new connectors on (scrapped the battery charging apparatus completely). On the ice I still have some issues with it turning on but making sure that I have a good connection from the battery terminals to the connectors seems to solve the problem, although wiggling them around and continually trying to power on until it restarts kind of sucks.

Ty,

I put a new battery in today (that has been on an automatic tender), took a needle nose and crimped the connectors down a little so they were tighter to the battery terminals, and the unit turned on fine in the warm house. I took it out to my garage before work, came home (12 hours in +/- 35°) and nada. Wiggled the connections, took the knobs out and took the head off the carrying platform to straighten the power cable back out, still nada. Brought it in the house, 45 minutes later it’s working just fine again. I’m lost here. Do I request a new unit from Marcum? I’ve owned this thing for a month, they’ve had it more than I have and it isn’t operable. I’m sold on THIS UNIT, and I don’t want to give up on Marcum but I don’t get a ton of opportunities to fish – when I do, I need to know my equipment works like it’s supposed to.

As far as the “shoulda bought a Vex” goes, save your breath. I’ve been looking at different units by different companies for a few years now, and this one is the one I want to fish with – I’ve got buddies who fish with LX3’s, LX5’s, FL-8’s, FL-22’s, FLX-28’s, ICE 55’s… I’ve had the chance to play with all of em. I’ve gotten to see how they operate, and the LX-7 is what I’ve settled on. I don’t think that a small percentage of units out there in use is enough to trash all of them (and yes, I’m certain that it’s only a SMALL PERCENTAGE). That said, this thing’s 30 days old and was sent in on the 3rd day I owned it. I think I’ll be taking a trip to MPLS this week to speak directly with Marcum and I’ll let you guys know what I find out.

Tight lines!

Brandon Sibert wrote:

Ty,

I put a new battery in today (that has been on an automatic tender), took a needle nose and crimped the connectors down a little so they were tighter to the battery terminals, and the unit turned on fine in the warm house. I took it out to my garage before work, came home (12 hours in +/- 35°) and nada. Wiggled the connections, took the knobs out and took the head off the carrying platform to straighten the power cable back out, still nada. Brought it in the house, 45 minutes later it’s working just fine again. I’m lost here. Do I request a new unit from Marcum? I’ve owned this thing for a month, they’ve had it more than I have and it isn’t operable. I’m sold on THIS UNIT, and I don’t want to give up on Marcum but I don’t get a ton of opportunities to fish – when I do, I need to know my equipment works like it’s supposed to.

As far as the “shoulda bought a Vex” goes, save your breath. I’ve been looking at different units by different companies for a few years now, and this one is the one I want to fish with – I’ve got buddies who fish with LX3’s, LX5’s, FL-8’s, FL-22’s, FLX-28’s, ICE 55’s… I’ve had the chance to play with all of em. I’ve gotten to see how they operate, and the LX-7 is what I’ve settled on. I don’t think that a small percentage of units out there in use is enough to trash all of them (and yes, I’m certain that it’s only a SMALL PERCENTAGE). That said, this thing’s 30 days old and was sent in on the 3rd day I owned it. I think I’ll be taking a trip to MPLS this week to speak directly with Marcum and I’ll let you guys know what I find out.

Tight lines!

I understand u like the lx7’s but the lowrance units do the same as the lx7 and also have gps just another option u didn’t mention lol

That is a head scratcher for sure Brandon….that’s a new one..
It almost has to be a resistor or something internal like that…
And I could see how CS would not have found that being that they checked the unit inside….I would definitely call them again soon…I’m sure they will make it right…

Made the pilgrimage to New Hope today, and the fine folks at Versa/Marcum replaced my unit free of charge. I’m heading back out on Saturday, and I’ll finally have a unit that’s in working order! Based on the experience that I had today, I’m sold on Marcum. They stood behind their product, and treated me very well.

They are a great company and this proves it. All electronics have problems…marcum, vexilar,lowrance, etc. I love my LX7 and will never buy anything else. I’m happy that you got this settled Brandon. Now go enjoy that great unit!!

Great news!!!! Now the next ttime we get together I can see how that TV screen looking flasher works

If you look at electronic devices and how they fail you will understand them a lot better. Most electronic devices if faulty will fail in the first 5 to 10 days of use. After that they are pretty solid unless there is a firmware (software update) to fix known problems that are not electronic in nature.

Now if your looking at a traditional flasher with moving parts, they can also fail in the first few days and als0 after a while will fail because of the fact that moving parts wear out.

Look at a TV, they either fail in the first couple weeks or they tend to work for a vary long time.

It’s like a traditional computer hard drive that has a spinning platter and heads that move to read the data, it’s not if it will crash, it’s when will it crash. The newer SSD drives that are solid state memory have no moving parts and will either die very early or run for a very long time.

All manufacturers have defective units, as other have said it’s the percentages that really count and sooner or later you are going to get a bad one.

The bottom line is customer service and how you as an end user are treated.

i bought my lx-7 in november first one i have ever owned but know how to opperate overall had a little time to figure out it functions before 1st use. i really like it have only had a few issues with it.first being that dynamic depth seems to be glitchy and showing black triangles at times and second is that the cold weather seems to affect the battery life while not being in a shanty it lasts 3 to 4 hours says low voltage and shuts down.bring home and a hour later turn it on and at 11.5% battery life

any info would be greatly appreciated

randy l phelps ll wrote:

), and

get a new battery

A- the unit consumes more power when it is cold, mostly because of the screen heater, B- a cold battery will not show all of its power reserves, when the battery warms up, it will have a little more “life”.

As far as the dynamic depth glitch. What version are you running? Mine had that same problem until I did the latest update. Fixed it, now works perfect. The battery gauge should never be that low. At least mine never does. I have used mine for over 8 hours while it sat on the ice in my portable and mine never goes below 12.3 or so. Only problem I have is my charger rarely turns green when charged. I have to turn it on and look at battery gauge to make sure it is charged. If it is fully charged it shows HI-V.

Guy I fish with all the time bought his LX-3 in December. Screen lit up completely all the way around then went blank 3 weeks ago. Still hear motor running but no display. Disputed over the phone with Marcum about new battery, then sent it in, got it back, worked for two times out, did same thing on Sunday. Broke down again. He is disappointed to say the least.

has the latest version think it was 4.07

i have been using mine without a shanty