It's too bad you guys are so in love with your high power locaters. My Eagle Cuda 242 ran for 2 trips of 11 days last year and made it half way through our 14 day trip this year before I had to change batteries - 8 lithium AA. From a canoe these cheap locaters priced under $100 do all that's needed to find depth, bottom structure and fish on a canoe trip. The newest basic Lowrance X4 has similar power consumption to the Eagle Cuda series so I would expect similar battery life. I am a bit conservative with my locater usage and only use it when fishing and even then I sometimes turn it off while trout fishing in deep deep water. At the weight of 8 lithium AA's and the weight of the display unit itself it would take alot more convincing to get me to "upgrade". My entire locater, transducer, wiring, suction cup and 2 sets of batteries weighs 18 ounces. And the total investment is still under $100.
For those new to depth finders don't think that this is more complicated than it really needs to be.
One more observation, my locater functioned fine until the voltage dropped below 8 volts and then the display faded out. That was with lithium batteries. When I've used alkaline batteries the first sign of failure came at about 9 volts when the unit was unable to find the bottom in deep water (over 50 feet) and they would last about 1/2 of a typical trip. I easily am seeing 4-5 times more battery life with lithiums and I like the operating characteristics of lithium batteries better too.

arnesr wrote on Dec 23^rd, 2013 at 8:08pm:


I had zero problems with imagery even at a standstill. What still is in question is power consumption. I went through (2) 8 pacs of lithium double A's in 2 weeks only fishing 4/5 hours per day.

Is it because the elite draws massive juice or is it because I was shooting through my hull and had subsequently mounted a keel guard right over where the transducer was shooting? Probably a bit of the latter and a lot of the former. I will move the transducer and see how it does.

The unit is incredibly sweet. The DSI imaging is unlike anything I have seen before. It not only shows you the tree branch you are passing over but also shows you the bait school within. Pretty nifty. Yup I'm head over heels........high maintenance but very nice to look at and I would have a hard time giving her up. 

not exactly on topic but related:
I've got the lowrance x4 (as stated, under 100 bucks) and would like to purchase an extra transducer.  Is there a best place that you folks have found to purchase extra transducers / parts, or do you just go to the mfgr?

thanks  Nandagikendan. the main issue was knowing which transducer would work with the lowrance x4 (my last post wasn't clear). it came with a skimmer transducer and for the next one i wanted to get the hockey puck style (flat bottom). Somehow first few times researching, it was never really clear exactly which transducer was right for that unit. Couple days after posting here i went back to the mfg site and all of a sudden it was more obvious than previous visits. turns out amazon has em too.

zski wrote on Jan 6^th, 2014 at 2:21am:


Zski,

Good info! I was having a similar difficulty in figuring transducers for different head units that I was looking at on ebay. Seems like you have found what you are looking for! I'm going to keep the mfg's websites and Amazon in mind for my eventual purchase as well.

Happy fishing,
Nanda