That’s cause it’s a lithium ion battery inside a tablet….and in the manual it say.. 90 minutes run time.
The internal battery on tablet gives up to 2 hours. The external battery gave it another 2.5 hours. What marcum is saying is to use 2 EXTERNAL batteries to give more run time. Using both EXTERNAL batteries would give you about 8 hours of run time roughly
Marcum emailed me back and I had 2 choices. Take the 2nd battery with to get more run time or return. I opted to return. Carrying a 2nd battery out wasn’t very appealing to me. If battery life were to be corrected I think it would be an ok unit
I understand your frustration. That’s a lot of money.
But, is the battery life the only issue you have so far?
does the unit work?
So far that’s the issue. Pretty big issue though. I also bought a new chip for it that hasn’t shown up that was 200 I thought it had a decent map on it loaded but it doesn’t. I like the idea of it but the battery life is pathetic. I’d have to bring my generator out to charge it if I were to fish all day which I normally do.
So, your major issue is battery life? Does the unit perform like advertised, minus the battery life? I’ve read that Energize Outdoors and Dakota something make a lithium external battery for it.
I already have 900 into it with shipping really not interested in putting any more money into it. Marcum should send them out with that battery since this is a known issue.
Hopefully this post will help others not make the mistake that endzoneseats and I made. I emailed marcum and requested to send it back and get a refund. I will keep this post updated on what they say. The unit isn’t even a week old yet so hopefully I get my money back or if nothing else an exchange for an lx-7.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Mark Rudy wrote:</div>
Should have mentioned fully charged Sunday night and brought it out fishing again today. 4 hours of run time has left me with 3% battery and yes the external battery was charging internal battery for about 2-2.5 hours. Great idea but I don’t think enough testing. Getting 12 hours of run time shouldn’t be an issueNot enough testing? MarCum knows exactly what they’ve sold you. I have a friend that manages a fishing department at a retail store and I asked him why the RT9 wasn’t being offered at retail. Rapala is the company that markets and distributes all other MarCum sonar products but they won’t touch the RT9 with a 10-foot pole and they’ve refused to sell it to their retailers! They know what a POS the RT9 is and they’re not willing to put their name behind the product.
So what does Marcum do? They come up with a sneaky plan to sell factory direct and take advantage of people that trust MarCum’s products. The RT9 has major run-time issues that have never been resolved. The user interface is horrible. Durability is horrible. You will have your RT9 in for repairs if you can actually find a way to keep it powered out on the ice. How do I know? I was dumb enough to buy one when the product was first released several years ago. I had nothing but issues.
I paid nearly $1500 for mine at the time. I can’t tell you how mad it makes me to see MarCum discounting the RT9 to move them when I paid full price and they left me out to dry when I was having so many issue. MarCum is throwing in a Camera Panner to sweeten the deal which is another MarCum product that lasted one season because it was another POS. Don’t fall for this factory direct deal!!!!! Ask yourself why none of the bigger name pro staff guys are using it.
Save yourself a gigantic headache and a pile of money and buy yourself a LX7 and use your cell phone for GPS. Or buy TWO Humminbirds that work flawlessly for the same price as one RT9 with all its issues. I’ve run Marcum units for a long time and never had any issues until I had an RT9. I’m not trying to bash a product more I’m just trying to save fellow ice anglers from wasting their time and money on this horrible product. I don’t know how long this post will last but if you can please share this info with people that are thinking about buying an RT9.
Sad to hear but I’m not surprised. I would definitely say to anyone on the fence to not buy it. I thought it was odd that Scheels didn’t stock it and I also bought the pancam when it first came out and was disappointed. I ended up selling that and with the one that came free with the deal I was going to sell to help with the price.
Should have mentioned fully charged Sunday night and brought it out fishing again today. 4 hours of run time has left me with 3% battery and yes the external battery was charging internal battery for about 2-2.5 hours. Great idea but I don’t think enough testing. Getting 12 hours of run time shouldn’t be an issue
It was fully charged inside my house. Brightness 50%
Yes navionics chip micro sd however you may need to bring a generator to keep it from dying. Full charge today turned off unused module ports gps location and WiFi and even with all that turned off external battery stopped charging after 2.5 hours and now I’m done to 53% battery waiting for it to die. Total run time will probably be around 4-5 hours. Hoping I can return it back to Marcum
Update. I bought it and used it the first day without issue 100% battery after 2 hours of use. Left in my truck (probably a mistake) started off today with 44% and died within about 3 hours. Will recharge and try again tomorrow. Anyone else have issues? I used to leave my vexilar in my truck all the time and never had issue. It says to save battery to turn off features but doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of spending big money on it?
Size #12 pink flirty girty ice hook treble
Sorry it took so long to reply. Yes they sent me a whole new auger assembly and it drills excellent now
First time up here this year. So far it’s been slow
It took a few times to get through but also very satisfied with customer service. He said my blades are bad but shouldn’t have failed so soon. They are sending me the new style bit setup
Waited 30 minutes on hold then was prompted to leave a message. Never a good sign when customer service/ support is that busy at 11 am. Tried at 8am and waited 20 minutes and gave up, yikes
They made limited quantity this year as there suppliers had too many quality control issues.
It will be interesting to see what they say tomorrow. 18 holes is unacceptable to need new blades. Honestly I didn’t abuse them or anything. If I put the auger into a lake bottom it’s my fault but to only last not even 2 months in crazy. My jiffy never had issues
I had my ION out on LOTW a couple years ago when the ice was very dirty.
Drilled a dozen holes or so, then it started doing the same thing as yours is doing.
I bought new blades but haven’t used it since I got the Jiffy Propane.
Wondering if I should have bought a propane jiffy now. Loved my Jiffy gas auger.
I agree with blade issues. I’m guessing that’s why the changed the design. I must have hit some sand that fell off of a car or something drilling that’s the only thing i can think of. New design says can drill in dirty ice.
If the blades fail that easy that is kind of scary. My gas jiffy has drilled 100 times the holes that the ion has done and never had issues. I’m going to contact Ardisam tomorrow and see what they say. Sounds like a blade issue from what you guys are saying
This was a new hole. Never put the blades in the dirt or anything. It did happen all at once. I haven’t tried drilling out old holes.
Last years model. I can’t believe the blades would be dull already. Nothing wobbles just has a tough time grabbing onto the ice now. You would just about have to put all your body weight into it to get it to drill where before it was smooth and drilled with little effort.
