Wiring onix unit

Hi everyone

I have wired in my onix8 si and I keep getting a low voltage warning and sometimes the unit will power down. I have upgraded my cranking battery to a group 27 size like humminbird’s paperwork suggested. I have tested the voltage at the battery and at the console where I have the unit wired in. They both read around 12.5 volts. I have read the unit needs to be connected to 10 gauge wire. What kind of connector can you use to connect 10 gauge from the battery to the 18 gauge wire from the onix unit. They say these units draw so much power but yet they wire them with 18 gauge wire. Any help with this issue would be great. Thank you

What does the display say the voltage is?

I remember hearing something that there was an issue with one of the software versions regarding this (the warning threshold being set to high I believe). Have you updated the unit yet, I believe it was fixed.

The display voltage on the warning was saying 10.6 and 10.4 volts. I am running the 2.7 version of software. I thought I installed the 2.73 version as well but I looked last night and the unit still said 2.7 installed. I was thinking about using butt connectors to connect the 10 gauge and 18 gauge wiring and just run a separate battery to see if that fixes the problem. Think that would be ok to use the butt connectors to connect two different sizes of wire like that?

Probably your best choice behind direct solder would be to use a crimp connector like pictured.
Just make sure it is the correct size.

Also double check your voltages and make sure your unit is not defective. When it says 11 volts, go down the entire circuit and check all connections and see if it is different. And keep an eye on the display while doing so, you may have a lose connection or bad wire that is causing resistance and it may go up and down as you move it around.

May want to try and update again as well.

Also take that 5 foot long 18 gauge wire humminbird sends you and cut it to a foot long and connect your wire to that.

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Thank you for the advice. I will give this a shot tonight and hopefully all is well as would love to use the unit this weekend for my musky trip.

I would solder the wires to the connectors, Onix units are VERY picky with their power, lots of past discussions regarding this on bbc website forums

Here’s an idea that may not help much. Wire it to a different battery just to see if you get different results. I’m betting it’s one of the responses above but can’t hurt to try.

another option is to just connect those 18ga from the unit direct to a battery. Eliminating all the connections could tell you if the issue is at the unit or somewhere else.

I got mine the other week and hooked it up to my little ice fishing battery. Thought I saw a voltage alarm once but now I can’t remember. Now I’m thinking it was okay. I’ll hook it up again and check the readings.

I wired my 10 gauge wire with inline fuse directly to the units 18 gauge wire last night and didn’t get the low voltage warning after having it on for 5 minutes or so. I also dimmed the backlight display as I hear this helps save power. The true test will be this weekend out on the water.

I think you’re on the right track. Might not have some time to try to recreate but the memory seems to be working again. I think I got the warning the first time I powered up. Issue was a loose connection. Once I cured that then no more warnings and that was with a tiny 12v battery.

I’ll still see if I can get some time this week to get it back out of the box to make sure.

Found some time last night. I got a low voltage alarm the first time I powered it up. After I finally figured out how to display voltage it was in the 12’s. Tried to mess with the connection to see if I could re-create but no avail. The instant I lost any contact with the battery terminal it would power off.

Software Version: 2.3.

Thanks. Heading out from work at 3pm today to head up north for 3 days of musky fishing. Hoping the Onix is up to snuff now. Pretty sure the crimp connection will work and if it does I plan on soldering the wiring together this winter so then there will be no issue with connection. Were you looking in the system info tab to see the voltage at the unit?

NateR wrote:

Were you looking in the system info tab to see the voltage at the unit?

No, I added a data bar to one of the sonar views. Then changed out one of the items to display “supply voltage” under the engine menu.

Played more last night and interesting. For giggles I put it into Simulation mode. Dang if that low voltage alarm didn’t go off and more than once. No issues in normal mode. Consistently running in the 12’s with no warnings. Here’s the better part. When I took it out of simulation all the factory defaults had been restored. For now it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll retest when I get the firmware current.

Good luck with the muskies! Let us know how the unit does and maybe a pic of how you mounted it.

Using the 10 gauge wire and inline fuse direct to its own battery did the trick. Unit worked great this weekend. No low voltage alarms. Used the auto chart live and was great. Found underwater humps and points that weren’t on the hummingbird lakemaster cards.

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@Nathan Ryskiewicz

Thanks for this thread!!! Wired mine this weekend following your lead and no issues. Pretty sure you saved me a ton of time and frustration

Only difference was that I used 12 gauge instead of 10, otherwise the same.

You should use 10 gauge. I had issues with 12–it wasn’t enough—the electric gremlins were still there with 12 gauge.

Not a problem PatK. I have been using the unit quite a bit since I got the wiring all set up and it is awesome. Love the definition in the sonar. It has certainly helped me find a few more musky spots, unfortunately wasn’t able to get those big girls in the boat though. Looking forward to using it for a full season next year. Put the boat away this weekend and getting ready for the WI gun opener.