Garmin Force?

[merc1997 Bo]

12 hours ago, fozzype said:

Not motorguide  which also is having a lot of issues with servo breaking cables

since i own a tour pro, i might have a thought or two about a servo breaking a cable.  a friend of mine has the 36v model, and to begin with, his foot pedal was just about impossible to use.  jack hammer could hardly move it.  on the underneath of the foot pedal is an adjusting screw for pedal tension. adjusted that and the pedal turns easy as can be.  what i might tend to think is that those that have broken a cable, might not have ever adjusted the tension and it took too much pressure to move the cables.  just throwing some common sense to what is going on.

so, perhaps motor guide would do well to make sure there is not too much tension on the foot pedal to begin with.  mine worked perfect right out of the box.  my buddy's did not, but instead of just using it that way, we looked at adjusting the tension.  got to remember that not all workers on the line are actually mechanically inclined or give a hoot about their work.

bo

[fishinwrench]

53 minutes ago, merc1997 Bo said:

 

so, perhaps motor guide would do well to make sure there is not too much tension on the foot pedal to begin with.  mine worked perfect right out of the box.  my buddy's did not, but instead of just using it that way, we looked at adjusting the tension.  got to remember that not all workers on the line are actually mechanically inclined or give a hoot about their work.

 The degree of bend in your cables relates to the tension, so anytime you install a TM and mount your pedal you should reset the tensioner.     The boys at the factory have no idea how your install is going to be.....so let's not slam them TOO hard. 😊

[Travis Swift]

I will say this on the Force, do NOT put it on 100%, go across the lake and forgot you did it.......I did that last year and went to make a 90 degree turn and I kid you not I ended up flat on my back on the back deck, I threw me backwards and I feel down in the boat, over the seat and onto the back deck......lesson learned.  I have an aluminum boat mind you but that sucker is POWERFUL.

[eyedabassman]

Had my Force put on yesterday by Marine Repair Center in Springfeild. Great guys, and the did a great job! With all this darn rain I could not get it wet to calibrate it. But I must say I am blown away with the quality of the Force and it does things I didn’t even know it did! Wow!

[rps]

51 minutes ago, eyedabassman said:

Had my Force put on yesterday by Marine Repair Center in Springfeild. Great guys, and the did a great job! With all this darn rain I could not get it wet to calibrate it. But I must say I am blown away with the quality of the Force and it does things I didn’t even know it did! Wow!

Enjoy!

Remember not to let the shaft slip down and crimp the cables. That will make the motor do crazy things. You want the lower unit only deep enough not to cavitate.

[Jhenson86]

On 5/18/2021 at 8:46 PM, bobby b. said:

The Force is great for all the reasons given in this thread and other older post regarding Garmin.  The Force connects perfectly to the Garmin Chartplotters.  

If I had to say anything negative about the Force it would be:

• Although the anchor lock never disengages (like my MinnKota did) and holds position perfectly , for some reason when I engage the anchor lock the motor always backs up about 10 ft as if it was taking the GPS location of the Console chartplotter.
• Also I do not like the location of the power switch which is under the unit when the troller is stowed.  I use the trolling motor circuit breaker to turn the troller off and on which is located near the main battery switch in the rear of the boat.  Also I have it setup to auto turn off after 2 hours.

Mine does the exact same thing. I will lock and it backs up immediately and never settles where I wanted it to. I do have the graphs linked and also thought maybe it is pulling the location from the back graph.

[bobby b.]

5 hours ago, Jhenson86 said:

Mine does the exact same thing. I will lock and it backs up immediately and never settles where I wanted it to. I do have the graphs linked and also thought maybe it is pulling the location from the back graph.

As a test turn off all the chartplotters and try the anchor lock - it will anchor at the correct spot.  This would be a good question for Garmin - I just got use to dealing with it.

[Devan S.]

9 hours ago, Jhenson86 said:

Mine does the exact same thing. I will lock and it backs up immediately and never settles where I wanted it to. I do have the graphs linked and also thought maybe it is pulling the location from the back graph.

My Xi5 does nearly the exact same thing and its not connected to anything.....

[Dutch]

On 5/19/2021 at 7:13 PM, bobby b. said:

Are you saying you want the Ulterra?  I had one of those - I loved it, the automatic deploy because I'm old and lazy.  I switched to Garmin on my new Ranger because of the Live Scope and I wanted everything talking to everything else.  The Ulterra did not hold the anchor lock well and had some other issue but again I like the auto deploy.  I think Babler said that the Ulterra was " a bunch of parts trying to get away from each other" 😀  Very true.  Try the Force you will like it.  Easy deploy and stow even for an old fart like me.  If a person needs a setup that will never let them down while fishing, he better get a row boat.

I have the Ulterra and love it.

[eyedabassman]

It was hard to give up my MK Maximum, It was 17 years old and running good yet. The only thing it started to spend up if I had it set on 3 power then it would go back to 3. I checked with Marine Repair and they told me 200 to fix it. I will miss the old girl but in love with spot lock!