Second Look at Lowrance Active Imaging 3-in-1 versus HD side imaging - Is it worth the upgrade?

[@deshoup1]

Awesome video...about as "apples to apples" a comparison as humanly possible! Thanks for all the hard work!

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thank you! I really tried to get a good comparison between the two. I'm glad that you like it. I am working on the downscan comparison video right now and I hope to have it ready soon.

[@glenndaugherity6187]

This is some amazing stuff Gary !! Thanks for your helpful videos 👍👍👍

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thank you. It was a lot of work and I'm glad that you enjoyed it.

[@marcmarcantonio]

Good work, Garry!

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thanks Mark. It was really cold that day but I am happy with the results.

[@Cman12972]

An other outstanding and informative video. I can see advantages to both setups especially in the frequency changes. It definitely would be a difficult decision. I’d say if you can afford to upgrade go for it, as the newest updates down the road will most likely build upon the newer technology. However, I don’t think you’d be to far behind keeping the 3 & 1 if money is tight. You can always upgrade as new features and updates warrant.

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thank you for the comments and for watching the video. I do think that the 3-in-1 transducer is still a very good transducer, and only marginal gains are with the HD transducer. The biggest gain to me is the ability to sync everything together to eliminate the noise between competing transducers and the fish reveal feature on sidescan. Obviously for the test I did turn off the fish reveal feature to get a more fair comparison between the two. And since most people will use the settings as they come "out of the box", other than changing frequency I kept the factory settings too. Perhaps with some tuning the images could have been better. I do wish that we had some standing timber up here to scan. And that I could have located one of the wrecks in the river too. One detail that I didn't cover is unit resolution, the sonar logs were captured in full detail and I viewed them on my 4K monitors. In real life, the units have at best HD resolution (HDS 16). So there is some difference in what you can actually see. Sorry to ramble on.

[@scottsasanecki4106]

Great stuff Garry. These videos are helpful to any fisherman regardless of level and tournament pro or not because they go into great detail regarding how things realistically look on the water when scanning. Very helpful stuff in determining what to buy. My boat came with the 3&1 on the front and back and I'm still trying to dial that in. Personally, I'm excited about the fish reveal aspect. All this has me wanting to become more proficient at scanning, pre-fishing and finding spots not so obvious or getting into the real detail of a spot. Thanks for the hard work you put in.

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thanks Scott. I'm glad that you getting useful information out of the videos. I'd rather have good content to share.

[@giedriuskaralius8330]

Hello, great vid! whether both transducers are connected via the s3110 module?

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thanks! No, the HD transducer is connected to the S3100 module. The 3-in-1 is connected directly to the HDS Pro unit. The module and the Pro are synced to minimize noise, so the images are very clean.

[@frankiedowns9272]

What's your opinion on the new sidescan fish reveal? Do you think that its worth spending the extra money to get it ?

[@garrywoodruff960]

With the little water time that I have on the S3100/3-in-1 HD FR combination, so far I like that I have seen with the FR. I changed the fish reveal color to lime green so that the fish better pop out. I am planning on getting some serious seat time on the transducer when I pick up my boat in the spring. I can see where it would be extremely useful for locating schools of perch or crappie by idling around. I can also see where it will be useful for smallmouth on river humps and other structure or when they are chasing bait balls. Is it worth the $1400 (USD) for the setup, you'll have to decide. It was for me having the FR capability, HD features, and the sync function which allows me to run 2 side imaging and 2 in-hull sonar transducers without interference. Still that is a lot of money.

[@frankiedowns9272]

@garrywoodruff96 OK. I really appreciate and enjoy your videos! Thanks for taking the time to make and post them!

[@garrywoodruff960]

You're very welcome. I'd glad that you like and watch the videos!

[@brucemckinnley5272]

What voltage and batteries are you running on these units?

[@garrywoodruff960]

I run a 12 volt 100 AH Battle Born lithium for my electronics. And it gets charged while the motor is on since the Evinrude had dual charging circuits. I've had them for over 5 years now. And I use the same battery for my trolling motor.

[@brucemckinnley5272]

Was fishing off my buddies boat 2 weekends ago, and the Lowrance FFS stopped working at 12.1v. Screen was on, but scope/transduce not showing any returns...Will a 12v Lithium battery fix this issue, or will a 16v PowerHouse Lithium Batterie be better?

[@garrywoodruff960]

I have found that a 12 volt battery works fine if you have good wiring. That's why I make my wiring runs using 8 AWG marine wire. If he had Lowrance, that return problem is a known problem with the Ethernet between the AT module and the unit. There is a new update coming out that addresses the issue.

[@rickvann3489]

Your left HD is clearer than the 3 in 1, but the right side of 3 in 1 is clearer than the right side HD. I believe something is going on, causing interference. 3 in 1 seemed just fine to me.

[@garrywoodruff960]

It's the jackplate and I didn't have the motor trimmed up enough. Thanks for watching and noticing that.

[@rickvann3489]

@@garrywoodruff960 that's what I was thinking

[@garrywoodruff960]

I'm going to do some more testing with the dual transducers. I may have some other things to try to get better signals back.

[@ryanmeyer102]

Honestly I dont think its worth the added costs. Although the only advantage i really saw was the detail in the initial line at the bottom as you said. But at 455 on both which is what anyone who runs lowrance usually runs they were pretty similar. Not worth the money for the upgrade and to especially add the cost of the 3100 module on top of it all. Just my opinion. Ill stick to my lives and 3 in 1 for now. Worst case i can always just purchase the combo and not have to buy all new pro units. I have active target 2 and nothing changes from the live to pro so im good.

[@ryanmeyer102]

HD def crisper but i honestly liked the 3 in 1 on other parts of your video. Thanks thats like the best video comparison you can find. Appreciate your time sir.

[@garrywoodruff960]

Thanks. I'm glad that you took the time to watch the video. And to me, it is a marginal improvement. That's why I tried to show the data and let viewers decide. I am going to run both. I do prefer the 800mHz on the 3in1 but the HD has better Downscan. I still have to see if I can fune tune the HD. So far, the sidescan fish reveal is useful.

[@StefanoMantegazza]

Very similar......mhhhhh

[@garrywoodruff960]

Yes, very close for those conditions and ranges. I'm going to try to compare on different water bodies. And experiment with different depths and ranges.