Permanent Wet Transducer Installation

[Billy V]

Originally Posted by Hypoxic1

Bob,
no, you cant flip the boat and expect the water to stay. My installation is designed to allow for removal of the transducer, and the entire unit for that matter, after landing, without disconnecting any wires, which leads to corrosion, and broken pins.
earlier someone asked if the HD units needed to be thru hull. The answer is no. I used it for the first time today. worked like a champ. was like watching a movie. And as for detail, I saw my fish, dropped on my fish and brought home a 25-27 lb yellow today.
Thanks to the Darkhorse for teaching me how to use this fine tool today
Chris

I just wired up the Lowrance HDS-5 on the skiff with the transducer mounted on the transom. I can't wait to test it out, it reads to 6000 ft. with this transducer.

[rayak]

Sorry guys, gonna drag this thread out just a little longer.
After a bit of help. I'm in Perth Western Australia I've sourced some clear acrylic pipe which will hopefully suit the rubber end cap if i can find one. But that's the problem, I'm having trouble tracking down one of these rubber end caps. Can anyone point me in the right direction. If I can't find one here, i'll try to get one online from up your way.

The acrylic pipe if i do get it, is going for $AUS98 a metre and they want me to buy a minimum of 2 metres which is a bit of a low blow. but if i do go with it i'll probably be able to sell it off on one or two of the local forums.

Thanks again.
Ray

[dsafety]

Rayak,

The rubber cap is a standard plumbing fitting available at most plumbing supply places in the US. Do you have what we call "Big Box" hardware stores in Australia that sell every possible item you can imagine for construction and home projects? If so, you should be able to find what you need in their plumbing aisle.

Someone should make a small business out of this. Buy up a bunch of acrylic pipe, rubber caps and hose clamps. Cut the pipe to the appropriate size, package the components up and sell them as wet transducer mount kits. I bet a lot of people would pay $14.99 for $5 worth of parts, especially if they cannot find the materials locally.

Bob

[rayak]

no big box, but thanks, i'll keep looking. i've got a couple of places 'calling me back' so see how we go.
I've managed to find some not acrylic but polycarbonate pipe where i don't have to buy any minimum size. the bloke there is happy for me to take 4 or 5 inches for 10 bucks. I'm sure i'll find the rubber cap somewhere. thanks

[dsafety]

I went out on Saturday and immediately discovered the my Humminbird FF did not work. It gave a reading of 0.8 ft. This has happened before when I went over the canyon and the sonar lost contact with the bottom but today it gave the same reading all the time.

I spent the entire day peddling blind. Even finding bait was a challenge. I am using this as my excuse for getting skunked on this trip.

I have been using this system for a couple of months and every time I pulled off the rubber cap to check the water, it was full. This trip, I did not check the water before heading out. Bad decision. When I returned home and checked, I found the well was totally dry.

I am not sure why or when the well drained but will be working on figuring that out. Needless to say, checking the water level in the well has been added to my preflight list. If I can find a piece of clear pipe, I will probably pull the ABS well and replace it one of these days.

Bob

[Nic D]

that sucks Bob,,, but at least you had an excuse for getting shut down, I didn't!

I hope your fix is an easy one.

[dick fabulous]

Duck butter or somekind of synthetic grease?

[Rob929]

To Bob/ all for the info in this thread..

I have been less than impressed with my FF performance. I decided to pull up some of the foam around my ff and realized that the bubbles in the goop under the foam probably meant bubbles under the ducer as well. I decided to pull it all out.. good thing :


Now, some of the larger air gaps were formed when I pulled this up, but as you can see, there were plenty of small bubbles and areas that had not adhered well.

I switched to the wet install, and the first thing I had to do on the water was turn my contrast way down. I also noticed I had to tune the sensitivity. Performance seems to be greatly improved with better bottom contrast and better readings out in deeper water.

Has anyone come up with a simple fill/ check plug? I was thinking of running some small diameter tubing (like they sell for refridgerator water lines) with some kind of check valve. My motorcycle's gas cap has a vent tube that that has a one way valve on it.. something like that would probably work well for on the water top-off..

Anyway, this may cause others to second guess their goop installs. If you find what I did though, you can swap it out, and hopefully see what you have been missing!

[swinginFish]

I've been using a wet mount for 5+ years - primarily so that I could easily use my ff/transducer on any of the various boats I've had. Point is the cup in which one places the transducer needs to to do two things only, i.e., accommodate the size of your transducer, and contain the signal medium.

I personally prefer round puck-shape transducers, mate an appropriately-sized ABS coupling to the yak's bottom and then epoxy its fitted-edge down to the hull's inside (Have learned that slow-drying epoxy is best - less brittle & more robust bond than quick dry).

Once I'm at the beach, I pour a bit of water into the created reservoir, put the puck in (and attach the ff) and I'm off. It is suprisingly simple and effective for my purposes, with gravity doing its job of holding the puck in place for as long as I'm on the water.

I've now done this on 5 different yaks, and in 5 years the only issue has been when quick-dry epoxy let go after a yak fell hull down from my truck bed to the sand. Flex of the hull broke the seal so water leaked out from beneath the ABS reservoir (If someone's really concerned about this, then I suspect vaseline or grease would continue to work even when the reservoir seal gave way).

As for down sides, as Andy rightly noted, polyethylene's a bit slow to respond to temperature changes, so transducers w/ built in temp gauges sitting or glued inside a craft will respond accordingly.

AE

[Bill K]

I've been having the same problems, with my transducer. It was originally installed, by the Kayak store, with a piece of foam, as the cup, and then vaseline was used inside the cup. It works o.k., until you turn the kayak upside down, then you have vaseline all over the place.
Next try, was with the goop, and then silicone. Both worked for a while, but then I would only get a 0.5 reading. Either, there were bubbles formed, or an adhesion problem.
My last attempt, was the wet well. I used silicone to mount the pvc fitting. It worked great for a few trips, and then stopped. The silicone did not seal well enough, and the water leaked out.
I have to re-do. I am thinking about, going back to the foam cup, and using a 2 part clear epoxy.
Has anyone used the epoxy method?

Bill

[Geoffkoop]

Bill, just do it with the PVC pipe and goop as mentioned. Mine has worked like a champ.

[dsafety]

While I still have full confidence in the web mount system that was introduced at the start of this thread, I will be testing a new, (for me), option very soon.

Hummingbird has a "just for kayaks" mount kit that includes a small plastic frame that is shaped like their transducer. This gets mounted to the hull with adhesive provided in the kit. They also provide a "special" grease that you put in this reservoir and then set the transducer in the grease.

It looks like a good system but I am concerned about the grease liquefying like the Vaseline does. I asked Humminbird about this and was told that it was a high temperature grease that will not liquefy. They are sending me a kit to test. I actually have one of these kits now that Dtownfan sent to me but do not have the grease so I have not been able to do the test.

When I have tried this system out, I will post the results.

I did a little research online and learned that there are many industrial greases, usually lithium-based that are very stable at high temperatures. My guess is that the "special" grease offered by Humminbird is one of those.

If you have a grease mount that works except that your grease melts, you might want to try one of these high temp products. If it works, going the DIY way will be much cheaper than buying the H-bird system which costs somewhere around $25. That said, if you get everything is a kit that is designed to fit the transducer, it may be worth the investment.

Stay tuned.

Bob