Transducer Grease Mount
 

I went out fishing today, (Saturday). I will leave the fish report to some of the guys who actually caught fish today. All I was able to reel in were some greenies and a seagull. I did see several nice WSB landed. Most were caught on squid. To the jerks in the power boat that grinned as the drifted over my lines and got everything tangled up on their motor, #@%!! *&#. Why do some people behave so badly?

Anyway, even though I was skunked again, the day was not a total loss. As some may know, I have been playing around with another method of mounting a transducer in a yak. The wet mount works very well but some people have not been able to get the well to stick to their boats and others have not been able to make the unit completely water tight. For those people, (and maybe many others), I would like to introduce another option which I will call the “Grease Mount”.

I cannot take credit for this idea. I had read about it somewhere and thought that it might be a worth trying. My biggest concern was that the grease might melt when the yak is stored or transported upside down and exposed to the hot sun.

Recently, Humminbird released their version of this type of a mount. They sent me a kit to try out on the condition that I would send them a copy of my report. Well, Humminbird, I have some good news and some bad news.

The Humminbird kit costs about $30. It consists of a plastic bracket, some grease, an adhesive backing with primer and apiece of Velcro. You can see a photo of what comes in the kit here. http://store.humminbird.com/products...cac4337f6d8ce6

I am sure that all of this stuff cost less than a buck, not including packaging. Talk about a healthy mark-up. I’m just glad this company is not selling hammers and toilet seats to the US Government.

I followed the detailed installation instructions which included scuffing and cleaning the area where the bracket was to be installed; painting this area with the supplied primer; attaching the adhesive backing to the bracket and finally pressing the bracket on to the prepared hull plastic. They recommended letting everything sit for 24 hours, which I did.

The next day, I squeezed the grease into the well created by the bracket and set the transducer in place. The instructions said to rock the transducer back and forth a few times to squeeze out any air bubbles that might have formed. The bad news is that within seconds I noticed a bunch of green grease flowing out from the bottom of the supposedly attached bracket. The adhesive failed miserably.

This was a total adhesive failure. The adhesive backing had two bonding surfaces, to the bracket and to the kayak. Both failed. I attempted to reach someone at Humminbird to report this problem but never received a response. My recommendations… don’t waste your money on this product.

Although the H-Bird product did not work, I felt that a grease mount might still be worth trying so I modified things a bit. I cleaned all the grease from the bottom of my kayak, sanded the plastic again and installed the H-bird bracket with good old Goop. It bonded perfectly.

Next I needed to find some grease. It seemed to me that some sort of high-temp grease would resist melting so I bought a can of marine grease at Pep Boys. I took a glob of this grease, smeared it on a piece of tin-foil, turned the foil upside down and put it in the oven at 400 degrees, (I put another piece of foil under the one with the grease to catch any drippings.). Good news, even after baking for an hour there were no drips. The oven stunk like grease and my wife got pissed but the test worked.

I smeared about ¼” of the grease on the transducer, set it in the bracket and pressed it to the kayak shell. I then took some Velcro and fastened the transducer to the bracket so it would stay in tight contact with the hull. Not including the curing time for the Goop, the entire installation took about two minutes.

Today was the field test. More good news and bad news. The good news is that I could tell no difference in the fish finder performance between the grease mount and the wet mount methods. There was one exception. The water temperature reading, while I was out fishing, hovered in the 80 to 90 degree range. I think this is because the transducer was taking the reading from the inside of the yak, not the water below. With the wet mount, the water in the well probably acts as a thermal buffer so the reading will be closer to what it is supposed to be.

For those who want to give this method a try, you should be able to make your own “bracket” quite easily. Find a half inch thick piece of some flexible material that will not be affected by the grease. Some light weight closed cell foam or a heavier type of rubber will probably work. Trace the shape of your transducer on to this material and cut the shape out with a knife or jig saw. I am sure that your cut-out shape can be fairly rough.

Glue the bracket to the hull with Goop. You should add a couple of anchor points to the bracket so you can attach a piece of bungee or Velcro to hold the transducer tightly to the hull.

As for the grease, I have no idea if one kind of grease will work better than another. The Marine Grease that I used seems to work fine. The container I bought is probably a lifetime supply so if someone wants a tablespoon or two, PM me and you can come by my place in Encinitas and pick some up.

I should stress that I have only been out once using this transducer mount method. Problems or other issues may surface down the road. If anyone else gives this a try, please post your results.

One final observation. I commend H-Bird for coming up with their kayak mount kit. It is an acknowledgement of the fact that yakfishing is a rapidly growing sport. I only wish that they had tested the adhesive a little better. Charging $30 for this kit is a bit over the top. If I were running things at H-Bird, I would include the plastic bracket at no additional charge with every new fish finder. They could even include a little grease. The installation instructions should recommend that the customer use customer-supplied Goop or some similar adhesive. They should also provide the specifications for the type of grease that is recommended for this kind of installation.

Until next time.

Bob

thanks for posting on your experience with the hummingbird kit mount.

Ok Bob. But the $50,000 question is are you satisfied with the modified grease mount or the wet mount with a better adhesive like 3M Scotch-Weld Structural Plastic Adhesive DP8005. I am going to get some DP8005 from Grainger next week.

I am satisfied with both but will probably go back to the wet mount as I like to be able to tell the water temperature.

The beauty of the grease mount is its simplicity. If you make your own bracket it costs almost nothing and the transducer is easily removable, (although there is always the remaining grease to contend with).

As for your adhesive issues, I think you are going the wrong direction. Goop works fine if the plastic is properly prepared. I thoroughly sand the area where I want to attach something, wipe that area with alcohol and apply the goop. I make sure that the Goop extends at least a half inch outside the footprint of whatever I am trying to attach. I have only had one thing attached with Goop come loose and that was after taking an extended pounding in the surf that stressed every square inch of my yak as well as most of my old body.

I believe that you have a Hobie which uses the same plastic as mine. You should not have any problems with Goop but I am sure some other adhesives will work as well or maybe better.

The grease mount is probably best for those whose kayak hull is shaped is a way that does not allow for attaching a water well. With the grease mount, he bracket seal to the plastic only needs to be good enough to keep the grease from leaking out. Since this material is designed not to melt or flow, a pin hole leak or two is probably not a big deal.

Bob

Thanks for sending me your surplus mount kit. Since H-bird ending up sending me a kit that included the grease, I ended up not using yours. Had I known that the H-Bird adhesive performed so poorly, I could have used your donation a month ago. Sorry for the delay in completing this test.

Would you like your bracket back?

Bob

I have the wet mount installed with goop. I was just under the impression that it failed on you. I put the wet mount in even before I used the Pro Angler. I'll just keep an eye on it and see how it fairs then. Thanks Bob.

nope....my wet well is work great and can't say i would ever use it.

When I informed Humminbird that their adhesive failed in my first attempt to test their kayak transducer mount kit, they treated the report like a customer service problem and sent me a replacement. I have no need for this unit and am not planning on trying to test the official H-bird kit again as my modified installation seems to be working fine.

If someone else wants to give it a try, I would be happy to pass this kit on to you for free. First come, first served. Please PM me.

Bob

Marine Grease or Axle Grease
 

Type of Grease for Transducer Grease Mount
<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff; COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->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?o...ging&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?

Kailolo,

I've done a grease mount on my last two kayaks and love it. I made the transducer well out of high density foam and the grease I used was from westmarine http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...classNum=10773

I dont remember the heat rating because it is in my grease gun right now but I know it was high (600 maybe)

didnt go out fishing today because of the hugh tsunami at LJ, so i changed my wet mount to a grease mount. i used a ziplock bag to cover the the grease to make it less messy. no more forgetting to fill the well.

http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/a...adx/ducer2.jpg
http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/a...adx/ducer1.jpg

http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/a...adx/ducer3.jpg