Lowrance 540C GPS Installation

[subhuman2178]

ok

so i bought a lowrance baja 540C for my truck ( no jeep here ). but im havinng some difficulties understanding this thing. heck i made myself an account here just to i could ask this haha....

enough of that, heres what i came to find out.

1. when it says it includes a 3 amp fuse.... was it wired in to your power cable already? or did you have to splice one in?

2. did anyones come with a ciggarette lighter power cable? if so would i be able to run my the lgc-3000 antenna and the gps unit off just that cable?

3. is the T-connector needed for the antenna wire coupling? im wondering if i can just plug in the power cable to my ciggarette lighter and mount the antenna and wires and be done....in case i went out and wasted money on toggle switches and 3 amp fuses.... oh well

 

[John90XJ]

so i bought a lowrance baja 540C for my truck ( no jeep here ). but im havinng some difficulties understanding this thing. heck i made myself an account here just to i could ask this haha....

enough of that, heres what i came to find out.

1. when it says it includes a 3 amp fuse.... was it wired in to your power cable already? or did you have to splice one in?

2. did anyones come with a ciggarette lighter power cable? if so would i be able to run my the lgc-3000 antenna and the gps unit off just that cable?

3. is the T-connector needed for the antenna wire coupling? im wondering if i can just plug in the power cable to my ciggarette lighter and mount the antenna and wires and be done....in case i went out and wasted money on toggle switches and 3 amp fuses.... oh well

1 I wired mine to an accessory fuse block that had the correct fuse installed. You would have to add an in-line fuse holder if you weren't going this route. The manual indicates this is included.

2 IIRC, you can buy a lighter plug cable and that generally has a fuse in it. You should be able to run the whole thing off the lighter as it has plenty of juice going to it. Your fuse is going to limit you to th lower amperage so it should be fine. However, the manual indicates interference is possible if not directly connected to the battery.

3 On mine I have two connections on the back, one for power and one for the antenna. The thrid connector is output for another coupled device. Your's appears to have 4 connections. (?) I don't have any kind of t-connector. I'm reasonably certain the back of the 540 looks the same as mine and should connect the same.

Why don't you want to install as suggested in the manual?

 

[subhuman2178]

EDIT: my gps unit didnt come with a manual for either the unit or antenna. so i went to the lowrance site and downloaded that manual, but it gave 2 install configurations and the first one looked way to complicated for what im doing, and the second im not sure if i will be able to use the supplied antenna...... mayne this is confusing.

the back of my gps basically has 4 ports, one port is covered up and its a sonar port. then i have 3 accesable ports, one for power, one for the nmea 2000 network( where i plug in my external antenna), and a seperate one that wont be in use. when i purchased this devide the only power cable supplied was a ciggarette lighter connection, was everyones like this? and if so did it have a fuse?, i bought a 3 amp fuse and a fuse holder but theres some wierd connection going on in that cable thats covered by shrinkwrap that i dont wanna uncover... basically im looking for someone who has done this install to help me out with the problems and misunderstandings i encounter. i would much appriciate it.

 

[John90XJ]

If you got a lighter adapter, unscrew the cigarette lighter male end and see if it has a fuse inside. That's where they usually are.

 

[subhuman2178]

man, your too good. so on closer inspection of my unit and its hardware, the back of my gps has one(covered) sonar port, the power/data port, the network port( i.e. antenna port), and an ethernet port.

the power/data wire has 3 cables, the comm wire that wont be used, the network power wire, and the units power wire, that shrinkwrap i was talking about housed a coupling of the negative and positive wires from each power source were ran brought together on the other end of a ciggarette lighter connector, with the ground wire running with the negative side, and YES the fuse was in the male end of the lighter adaptor. good call. so if all goes as planned im gonna try and throw this in tomorrow and let u know how it goes.

 

[robert j. yates]

so i bought a lowrance baja 540C for my truck ( no jeep here ). but im havinng some difficulties understanding this thing. heck i made myself an account here just to i could ask this haha....

enough of that, heres what i came to find out.

1. when it says it includes a 3 amp fuse.... was it wired in to your power cable already? or did you have to splice one in?

2. did anyones come with a ciggarette lighter power cable? if so would i be able to run my the lgc-3000 antenna and the gps unit off just that cable?

3. is the T-connector needed for the antenna wire coupling? im wondering if i can just plug in the power cable to my ciggarette lighter and mount the antenna and wires and be done....in case i went out and wasted money on toggle switches and 3 amp fuses.... oh well

Heh.....I am glad that I wasn't the only one who was completely confused by the Lowrance installation instructions. That stupid reference tot he toggle switch is one of the reasons why I went to switched power which I am pretty sure I want to change.

 

[John90XJ]

I hardwired mine because it is not a marine application and I'm not concerned about electrolysis. Works great.

 

[robert j. yates]

Yah...I hardwired mine too but whomever wrote those directions needs to be taken out and shot LOL :gunt:

 

[DakarTJ]

Just an FYI I mounted my antenna on top of my sound bar. I don't know if you still have yours. It's up out of the way. My Garmin 60cs sits at a rock steady 6ft accuracy.

 

[subhuman2178]

well, after some fidgiting and messing around i got the darn thing installed. everythin seems to be working fine but i cant ever get my altitude, speed, or exact cordinates to stop flashing. i tried troubleshooting it in the manual but all i could pull out of it was that i didnt have a gps lock. anyone run into something similar to this?

 

[Steve Curren]

Not to be a smart A but are you inside the garage? Mine won't get a lock unless I am outside and a clear view of the sky.

 

[subhuman2178]

nope, im deffinatley outside with a clear view. i cant understand it, the unit can determine my direction, my estimated arrrival time( which must mean that it can callculate some type of speed), and my location on the map but its off my a few meters, but thats it.

 

[Steve Curren]

Baffles me, it sounds like the antenna is connected properly. Are you sure that you have all parts to the antenna connected peoperly and nothing left off?
Good luck.

 

[subhuman2178]

haha yeah, it should be working properly....sweet.....:costumed-smiley-007

 

[subhuman2178]

ok, so it just atarted to work. i fumbled with the antenna lines to make sure there were no pinches, and reset the unit. then it just started to work. GREAT, but heres my problem. now the mapcreate software wont recognize that there is a memmory card in the reader.....so it wont load the map to it?!?!?!?!?!:mixed-smiley-030: