Mounting Humminbird transducer in Stealth 14?

[BrokeLoser]

I know this topic has been covered extensively but after running searches and reading through different threads it seems the art of trans mounting and the methods used are ever evolving.
I ended up springing for a Humminbird 597ci hd di unit (thanks tax refund) My questions:
Transducer - EXACTLY where to mount and how?
Currently what is the best most reliable way to rig these in?
Where should I mount the battery? (I have an X-wing)

I'm brand new to all this stuff but I'm pretty 'handy' and I shouldn't have any trouble doing this myself so long as I have step by step instructions and a complete parts list...haha

Help will be greatly appreciated..I'm looking forward to tackling the job over the weekend.

[Flyfisher70]

Lot's of great ideas out there, here are a few images from Google.
Kayak Transducer Mounts (http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&biw=1024&bih=653&tbs=isch:1&sa=1&q=kayak+transducer+mounting&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=)

[dsafety]

I have experimented with most of the mounting techniques. My current favorite is the grease mount. It is very easy to do and to undo. I can see no difference in performance between the grease mount and the wet mount.

The best thing about using the grease mount is that you do not ever have to worry if you have enough water in your well or hull to make the transducer work properly. Once installed, you can basically forget about it.

Bob

[BrokeLoser]

I have experimented with most of the mounting techniques. My current favorite is the grease mount. It is very easy to do and to undo. I can see no difference in performance between the grease mount and the wet mount.

The best thing about using the grease mount is that you do not ever have to worry if you have enough water in your well or hull to make the transducer work properly. Once installed, you can basically forget about it.

Bob

Do you have a link to a thread discussing the grease method? I'm hoping to find some detailed info and instructions.
Also, in the stealth, I'm having trouble finding a spot in the front of the hull that is flat enough to mount the ducer pointing straight down?

Thanks

[Fiskadoro]

I have experimented with most of the mounting techniques. My current favorite is the grease mount. It is very easy to do and to undo. I can see no difference in performance between the grease mount and the wet mount.


I'm not personally into fowl, and I hear hummingbirds are difficult to mount do to their size and agility. That said I have a good friend who knows much about such things since he grew up on a farm and I asked him. He essentually gave me the same advice as Dsafty, that if you can't go with a wet mount a grease mount is the best alternative.

Have any of you guys considered chickens? :biggrinjester:

[dsafety]

Do you have a link to a thread discussing the grease method? I'm hoping to find some detailed info and instructions.
Also, in the stealth, I'm having trouble finding a spot in the front of the hull that is flat enough to mount the ducer pointing straight down?

Thanks

There is not much to it. I think I wrote some instructions a while back. You might find them if you search for "grease mount".

Basically, you need to create some sort of a "well" to hold the transducer in place. Some folks have reported good luck with using a piece of foam. Spread a thick layer of marine grease over the bottom of your xducer making sure that there are no air bubbles. Gently push the transducer into the well until it seats with the hull. Anchor the xducer with some kind of strap, (velcro, bungie, etc), and you are done.

I don't think that it is very important that you mount on a flat part of the hull. The grease will fill any empty areas. It is probably important that you have the xducer pointed straight down and not to the side, front or back to any large degree.

Bob

[BrokeLoser]

There is not much to it. I think I wrote some instructions a while back. You might find them if you search for "grease mount".

Basically, you need to create some sort of a "well" to hold the transducer in place. Some folks have reported good luck with using a piece of foam. Spread a thick layer of marine grease over the bottom of your xducer making sure that there are no air bubbles. Gently push the transducer into the well until it seats with the hull. Anchor the xducer with some kind of strap, (velcro, bungie, etc), and you are done.

I don't think that it is very important that you mount on a flat part of the hull. The grease will fill any empty areas. It is probably important that you have the xducer pointed straight down and not to the side, front or back to any large degree.

Bob
Thanks Bob...I found your thread on the grease mount method. It sounds like still you prefer the wet well though.
The problem staring me in the face is the fact that the Stealth is so deep V'd in the very front where I'd like to mount the transducer. I'm struggling to figure out how to create a well that sits down in the V nice and snug to allow me to create a 'goop dam' at the base of it.
Has anyone installed one of these in the front of a Stealth using a well?
What did you use and modify to fit down in the V to hold the trans?

Thanks guys!

[dsafety]

The wet mount works just as well, it is just a little more difficult to install and if you do it wrong, the water can drain away making the fish finder useless. I am not familiar with your hull design but I doubt that the deep V is an insurmountable problem.

With the wet mount, you have to create a water-tight seal between the well and the hull. Since plastic hulls flex the seal can be easily broken during a rough launch or landing. The well for the grease mount does not have to be waterproof, just enough to hold the transducer in place.

Bob

[Albert]

If your mounting on an X-wing, you might want to consider mounting the transducer on an arm mounted to the side of the X-wing and putting your battery inside. Would make for easier wiring too.

[BrokeLoser]

If your mounting on an X-wing, you might want to consider mounting the transducer on an arm mounted to the side of the X-wing and putting your battery inside. Would make for easier wiring too.


I saw that in the "share your innovations' thread but I'm concerned about it getting caught in kelp, wrapping line around it and dealing with it when launching and landing

[Kailolo]

In additon to Humminbird's video for installation of their Kayk Kir using a grease mount you can go to http://www.yakhawaii.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:fish-finder-transducer-a-battery-mounting&catid=63:kayak-rigging&Itemid=62 for another video.

But for DIY, according to that link, H-bird support stated that "marine grease" or "axle grease" could be used. Has to resist heat (and preferably is not stinky!). The viscosity of the grease will help hold the transducer in place as will a very snug foam cutout, if you DIY.

I plan to make my own holder as soon as I recieve my new H-bird FF.

Maybe someone can post a "brand" of grease that has worked well.

I was told by H-bird that the only difference between a transom mount transducer and an in-hull mount transducer when mounted in-hull is that the transom mount tranducer may not read temperatures well. Maybe that is because of the location of the temp sensor inside the puck is different than inside the transom mount transducer?

[ful-rac]

Have you considered going to a thru hull??? I have a stealth 14 as well, and have had a thru hull for about a year now and it has been perfect! I personally have had no problems with it yet. It seems pretty bulletproof to me so far. The only downside is that you have to drill a pretty scary 2" hole in the bottom of your kayak, but once you get over it you really don't have to worry about it, other than you shouldn't drag it thru the parking lot or a bunch of rocks but you wouldn't do that anyways.....

[dsafety]

[QUOTE=Kailolo;78190]Maybe someone can post a "brand" of grease that has worked well.

QUOTE]

I got a blue can of Marine Grease at Pep Boys that works fine.

Bob

[mtnbykr2]

I'm not personally into fowl, and I hear hummingbirds are difficult to mount do to their size and agility. That said I have a good friend who knows much about such things since he grew up on a farm and I asked him. He essentually gave me the same advice as Dsafty, that if you can't go with a wet mount a grease mount is the best alternative.

Have any of you guys considered chickens? :biggrinjester:
chickens have large talons...easy to mount...lol:farmer:

[ful-rac]

Here are a couple of pictures of my thru hull transducer on my stealth 14 if your interested. Not bad after over a year of use, no maintenance works perfect everytime!

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u217/pksbshp/IMGP0126.jpg

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u217/pksbshp/IMGP0127.jpg

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u217/pksbshp/IMGP0129.jpg

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u217/pksbshp/IMGP0133.jpg

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u217/pksbshp/IMGP0134.jpg

[BrokeLoser]

Here are a couple of pictures of my thru hull transducer on my stealth 14 if your interested. Not bad after over a year of use, no maintenance works perfect everytime!

That's definitely sweet...looks super clean. What transducer is that?
Now I just need to grow the nuts to bore a hole in the bottom of my hull..heck I already have one for the tank pump.

[ful-rac]

That's definitely sweet...looks super clean. What transducer is that?
Now I just need to grow the nuts to bore a hole in the bottom of my hull..heck I already have one for the tank pump.


I believe it is a airmar p319....as far at the hole in the bottom of the yak...no big deal, like you said you already have one for the bait tank pump.

[BrokeLoser]

I believe it is a airmar p319....as far at the hole in the bottom of the yak...no big deal, like you said you already have one for the bait tank pump.

That airmar trans looks pretty stout.
I wonder they make a similar one for my unit? (HB 597 ci hd di)

[Fiskadoro]

That airmar trans looks pretty stout.
I wonder they make a similar one for my unit? (HB 597 ci hd di)


Most transducers are made by Airmar then repackaged with brand names on them, and you probably could get one directly from Airmar for it, just call them and they will tell you what will work with your unit.....

That said the Humminbird XFM 9 20 should work for your 597ci...

http://mediacdn.shopatron.com/media/mfg/520/product_image/thm/t400_1f5b539fe8bf3f2dfa725c8567368874.jpg?12997682 02
http://store.humminbird.com/products/313999?product_id=1f5b539fe8bf3f2dfa725c8567368874

93 bucks at the HB store and they say it works.... don't take my word for it check around before you buy.

Actually the cheapest places to buy transducers are usually computer discount supply chains online. I found one for 58 bucks but they had the wrong picture, and might not know what they are selling.

Better is 62.99 bucks here at nerds: http://www.thenerds.net/HUMMINBIRD.Humminbird_Dual_Beam_Transducer.7101811 .html?affid=8

or..

63.99 at Poorfish outdoors
http://www.poorfish.com/p-9784-humminbird-plastic-thru-hull-transducer-xfm-9-20.aspx if you want to go with a company that sells specifically fishing stuff.

Or you can do it commando style and make your own thru hull:
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6436/26944185ra9.jpg


http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/7840/16625639zn4.jpg

Works for me..literally... :D

I actually miss the days when we had to do these things ourselves :sifone:

Thru hulls are the only way to go...Any way you look at it your going to get much, much, much better performance with your transducer in the water like it's designed to work rather then beaming through the hull with grease or glue. It kind of blows my mind that people are now putting high performance fishfinders in their yaks and still killing their performance by gluing in thier transducers. To each thier own though. :cheers1:

Good luck!!!

Jim

[BrokeLoser]

THANKS WALRUS...for the killer idea of converting a $4 plastic terminal box from Home Depot into a badass wet well for my transducer. One trip out in rough water and this thing seemed to work perfectly..I didn't lose one drop of after nearly 7 hours on the water...I used so much Goop I think its part of the hull now..it ain't going nowhere! Here's a couple photos of mine installed.

http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h430/wcook913/wetwell1.jpg

http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h430/wcook913/wetwell2.jpg

[BrokeLoser]

Most transducers are made by Airmar then repackaged with brand names on them, and you probably could get one directly from Airmar for it, just call them and they will tell you what will work with your unit.....

That said the Humminbird XFM 9 20 should work for your 597ci...
http://store.humminbird.com/products/313999?product_id=1f5b539fe8bf3f2dfa725c8567368874

93 bucks at the HB store and they say it works.... don't take my word for it check around before you buy.

Actually the cheapest places to buy transducers are usually computer discount supply chains online. I found one for 58 bucks but they had the wrong picture, and might not know what they are selling.

Better is 62.99 bucks here at nerds: http://www.thenerds.net/HUMMINBIRD.Humminbird_Dual_Beam_Transducer.7101811 .html?affid=8

or..

63.99 at Poorfish outdoors
http://www.poorfish.com/p-9784-humminbird-plastic-thru-hull-transducer-xfm-9-20.aspx if you want to go with a company that sells specifically fishing stuff.

Or you can do it commando style and make your own thru hull:

Works for me..literally... :D

I actually miss the days when we had to do these things ourselves :sifone:

Thru hulls are the only way to go...Any way you look at it your going to get much, much, much better performance with your transducer in the water like it's designed to work rather then beaming through the hull with grease or glue. It kind of blows my mind that people are now putting high performance fishfinders in their yaks and still killing their performance by gluing in thier transducers. To each thier own though. :cheers1:

Good luck!!!

Jim

Thanks for all the info Jim!
I'll definitely go to a through hull like this if my new wet well fails.
Question for you: I see it's been discussed many times; some feel you lose very little if any quality using a shoot through mount vs. a through mount. Why is this issue so subjective? Haven't any of the manufactures ran legit tests?

[Fiskadoro]

Thanks for all the info Jim!
I'll definitely go to a through hull like this if my new wet well fails.
Question for you: I see it's been discussed many times; some feel you lose very little if any quality using a shoot through mount vs. a through mount. Why is this issue so subjective? Haven't any of the manufactures ran legit tests?

There is nothing subjective about it.

I must of posted this here a dozen times about now...

Transducers work with sound. They send it out and they receive it back in the form of an echo and from that sound received back (that they created in the first place) they then create a data set that they can display on the screen as a representation of what is in the water.

Transducers are calibrated for their use and 99% of them are designed to be put into the water directly. If you use them in any manner they are not designed to be used it throws the calibration off and your data set is not as accurate as a result. Inaccurate data means a faulty representation on the screen of what is there.

More simply... put it in the water it sends and receives what it's supposed to, and can draw you an accurate picture. Beam it through the hull and you get a muffled version that is distorted and the amount of information that finder can use to create an image on the screen is diminished. You essentually end up with less data, so you get less information on the screen.

It's just like hearing. Can you put your ear against a thin wall in a cheap motel and hear what is going on in the room on the other side...yeah sure you can hear something to an extent, but you can't here whats going on as clearly as if you were in the room.

With a transducer it's worse then just trying to hear something that is on the other side of a wall because it has to send the sound through the hull (wall) then receive it back through the hull (wall) as well so it get's a distortion and reduction twice not once, both on sending and receiving. So it's like yelling at the wall and trying to hear your echo coming back through it.

Essentially what you are doing when you beam through the hull is that you are turning the hull into both a speaker and a microphone. The sound is created by the transducer, it then passes through your medium: water, grease, glue etc.. to the hull. The hull then vibrates in response sending a distorted and diminished version of the transducers sound out into the water, what sound makes it through get's reflected off objects it echos back to your hull, which then vibrates the hull to an extent, and that vibration is then passed through the medium: water, grease, glue etc. back to the transducer which then tries to create a data set based on what it get's back.

You don't have to really understand the science or math involved to realize that is not even remotely close to the same thing you'd get by having the transducer send that sound directly into the water, or receive the returns directly from the water as it's made to do.

Plastic hulls dampen sound, they each have their own acoustic properties, so there is essentually no way for a manufacturer to calculate all the variables involved, or calibrate the transducer accurately for them.

In contrast the transducer puck is designed specifically to maximize sound output and retrieval when it in the water and it is perfectly calibrated for what it does to get the maximum results.

I don't know of anyone who is making beam through the plastic kayak hull transducers, though there are beam through the hull transducers that are specifically designed to be glued into fiberglass boat hulls. They are not as good as in the water transducers, but those can at least be calibrated for that use.. The accustic properties of a glass boat hulls are more predicatable and glass composites hulls are beter a transmitting sound then plastic hulls.

Here's the real deal. Kayakers came late to the sonar game.

A few years ago everyone just glued their transducers in the hull and the conventional thinking was that that was the way to go.

My take is the problem with conventional thinking is it never takes the individual case into account so it never get's the best results.

I'm a boat guy who used run boats and install gear like sonars for money. I have installed a lot of sonars, in everything from little Furunos and Garmins in skiffs to twenty thousand dollar searchlight sonars in million dollar yachts, so I have a lot of experience with this.

It's common knowledge among the boating community that transducer installation makes all the difference in what you see on the screen and that even such little things as a few bubbles crossing the transducer can degrade performance. When you've gone through a 1000 gallons of diesel half way down to Guadalupe, you want to be able to see everything you possibly can see in the water, because you have a lot invested and your out there to catch fish.

When I started playing with transducers with kayaks I first tried goop, then epoxy, then a wet mount, then one designed to beam through a glass hull and honestly they all just flat out sucked. Wet mounts are best but they still suck. I know what good readings look like, and I know when a unit is not functioning up to it's potential, and I just could not get the sonars to function to there full potential with in the hull mounts. So I did what I had to. I used an old tried a true method of mounting the transducer flush with the hull using essentually a built in box of the type people used to use before threaded thru hull transducers were readily available.

I cut a hole and got my transducer in the water where it belonged, and it worked just like it was supposed to work.

You would of thought it was the end of the friggen world.

People whined, people, bitched, people said it would leak, that I would sink my yak, that it wasn't needed, that you did not need a good sonar to catch fish from a yak anyway.

It was such a controversy that the first time I met Josh on the beach the first thing he said was: "Let's see that transducer.." :D
I said: "It's underneath on the right side." "No big deal it just works like it's supposed to."
He then said: "You know you were the only guy I saw all day on the yellows"
I said: "Yeah but you are the only one I saw catch one!" (I lost three that day)

Since then there has been a steady change towards better and better sonar units for small boats and kayaks, and the manufactures now offer inexpensive plastic threaded thru-hull transducers for almost any finder you can buy.

The guys in the know are giving up the old conventional thinking about kayaking with beam through the hull transducers, and are now either going with over the side arm mounts or through hulls where the transducers are actually in the water. The performance is superior because they are using the units as the were designed to be used. It's just that simple.

Threaded through hull transducers are the standard for high end marine installations, in boats an yachts. They are easy to install, never leak or fail if installed properly, and they give you the best performance possible.

I'd say it's the only way to go. What's the point of buying a $500 finder, and then screwing up it's performance by gluing a transducer in your hull. Threaded thru-hulls are cheap safe and effective. Down the line it's going to be what everyone uses except for a few holdovers that are either just too stubborn to switch, or just starting out and don't know any better.

:jig:For better or worse that's my take. Jim

[da22y]

The fishfinder company should hire you to write the instruction booklet !

Easy to understand in plain English.

Cleared my long time questions.

Thank you ! :notworthy:

Danny

[bubblehide]

The fishfinder company should hire you to write the instruction booklet !

Easy to understand in plain English.

Cleared my long time questions.

Thank you ! :notworthy:

Danny



And to think that some people complain about the "length and unnecessary content" of Jim's posts. Perhaps they simply get lost it the Complexity :rolleyes:.

[ctious]

just installed a threaded thru hull in my stealth 14... let me tell u .... cutting a hole that size messes with your head... and picking the right spot to put the hole was even worse... i checked and rechecked for 45 mins before i cut the hole... but now that its done its sweet... flush clean and works amazing... i will never mount a transducer any other way again...

[Kailolo]

The grease mount performed very well. It showed stuff in 120 feet of saltwater that I've never seen before. Used SuperLube, which some one else had suggested. It appears to be about the consistency of the lube provided by Humminbird in their in-hull mounting kits. I tried eco-friendly lithium grease from West Marine, but ti was very thick and tended to get chunky.

I simply used foam to create a tight-fitting well for the transducer. Gooped it down. Coated the well bottom and transducer bottom and sides of transducer. Inserted transducer into the well, push down, jiggle. Press down with a plug of foam. I might glue velcro to the foam well to strap over and hold down the foam plug. Signal is as good as when I hang the transducer over the side of the yak.