Garmin Force 3.0

[bobby b.]

So as reported my 1st Garmin Force troller (new one year old) failed about a month ago and was quickly replaced by Garmin and worked perfectly about two weeks ago (two short morning trips in a row).  Went out of Baxter early yesterday morning to try walleye trolling and nada on the troller.  Was on the phone with Garmin first thing this  morning and yep its done.  Again Garmin with excellent customer service will have a new unit at my house tomorrow by end of day and it will be installed by the pros this weekend.

PS to Bill B. - The troller was setup by the pros and worked fine for two days - I DID NOT TOUCH the software!

[Champ188]

Dang, my confidence in the product would be pretty much in the crapper at this point. Sorry you're having to go thru that. 

[rps]

My circuit board is fried and on order.  Selling my rig waits on the fix and a full detailing. Then I start hiring guides.

[bobby b.]

11 minutes ago, rps said:

My circuit board is fried and on order.

Randy, is that a Force troller?  If so I did not know that the motor was repairable - can you tell us the cost of that repair?

Bobby

[rps]

Mine was on warranty from Garmin and the approved marina doing the work. Went kaput less than a year after sale. No money cost anticipated. If one materializes I will report.

[bobby b.]

19 hours ago, bobby b. said:

My circuit board is fried and on order

Randy, can you tell me which circuit board is to be replaced - the motherboard in the servo or the ebox (the device on the mount where you turn it on).

I asked this because I just received my replacement motor (less than 20 hours after trouble shooting yesterday with the Garmin Tech.) which will be installed thus Saturday by the pros and it just occurred to me that the replacements that Garmin send do not include the ebox.  Being curious I call the Garmin tech and after some decision and me not wanting to wear out my welcome at my dealer with troller replacements, Gamin is sending a new ebox to be installed with the motor.  So the question is - Could some of this trouble be in the ebox rather than the motherboard which is why I asked you which board.

Bobby

 

[bobby b.]

I got my 3rd Force installed Saturday morning and all seems well.

In talking allot to the Garmin Techs particularly about my units and experiences we concluded the following is likely:

• my first unit operated without incident for about one year - it's failure may have been caused by improperly upgrading the software - Garmin is experiencing issues when the software upgrades multi versions - in my case it went from 3.0 to 3.5 to  4.0
• also issues when upgrades include the troller, the foot pedal, and the handheld unit. - which may have been the deal with my 2nd unit.
• 4.0 also may have issues.

As advised by the techs, we did not upgrade the software - it came with 3.0 and there it stays for now./

Bobby

 

[rps]

Mine had one or both circuit boards replaced. I do not know, nor do I care. It works and the boat is on  the market.

It was entertaining though.

 

[Champ188]

19 hours ago, bobby b. said:

I got my 3rd Force installed Saturday morning and all seems well.

In talking allot to the Garmin Techs particularly about my units and experiences we concluded the following is likely:

• my first unit operated without incident for about one year - it's failure may have been caused by improperly upgrading the software - Garmin is experiencing issues when the software upgrades multi versions - in my case it went from 3.0 to 3.5 to  4.0
• also issues when upgrades include the troller, the foot pedal, and the handheld unit. - which may have been the deal with my 2nd unit.
• 4.0 also may have issues.

As advised by the techs, we did not upgrade the software - it came with 3.0 and there it stays for now./

Bobby

 

Good grief, that sounds like they're rushing beta software out onto the market and then selling it at premium prices so the consumer can test it for them. R&D should work out the bugs in-house before putting stuff out on the market. Might be way off base but I don't think so.

[bobby b.]

I am a retired engineer - some  of us engineers (not me) believed that if it can be done (ya know, really cool) then lets do it - in the latter years most companies adopted a philosophy of life cycle cost/issue - the problem is you just can immediately see what those software engineers are doing.

I still like the Garmin stuff but there was a boat in the shop where my recent work was being done that was getting an all new Lowrance setup  graphs, troller and Active Target.  The power supply to the Active Target is huge and can't be put under the front deck but rather in one of the forward compartments - it will be interesting to see how it all turns out - the trolling motor moved smoother than the Force.