Depth Finder

CurrentSea

CurrentSea

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Joined
Sep 23, 2002
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10265
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Not very happy with my depth finder.
Works okay sometimes but there are times it will lose the bottom and give me absurd readings.

I currently have a raymarine screen with the airmar in hull transducer.

I am thinking about adding a second depth finder but not so sure I want to haul boat and cut a hole so looks like in hull is way to go. I am thinking I may mount more away from IPS so I can get it to read smoother water. Maybe midship.

Any recommendations?

Is there a bluetooth depth finder that would talk to the ipad apps?

Thanks.
 
I like fish finders because their scan display gives some indication even when it cant show numbers
 
Yeah, I am not dragging anything. I was looking for something that would mount inside boat like a in hull and display on ipad. There is one made by Vexilar:

https://www.elvessupply.com/Vexilar..._756759.html?gclid=CPDE6Oe94sUCFQyqaQod8oEAAQ

But it says it needs another part and I assume that is a transducer and not sure how it all comes together.

I may just add another in hull airmar unit with a seperate guage but add the in hull unit inside the salon area where my A/C thru hull is located. I know there is water there when running since I have A/C and it doesn't lose prime and it's forward of the IPS. I think the IPS disturbs the water too much with it's underwater exhaust and so the engine room is not a great location.

Plus if I have 2 and one cuts out or misreads bottom I have another as backup. It always reads high, not low when it cuts out and I think it's because it loses the bottom.
 
Check the setting on the unit it may be a simple issue. I will sometimes get false reading when I go to different areas such as the sound because the setting my unit is set for work well in my home port. I have not had this issue with my current Garmin unit but have with other units in the past.
 
What setting? I don't think there is any settings in a depth finder besides offset and low water alarm.
What else can you set?
 
Sensitivity mode not all models have this what model unit do you have I will try to look it up.
 
I just read your manual cover to cover and you do not have any control over the setting for the transducer hence you are out of luck. You do have several controls for alarm setting for shallow and deep water alarms. Wish I had better news. I have two on my boat one similar to yours and then I added the black box and transducer to my Garmin I allows have a reading but I have been in your shoes in the past and it's very frustrating!
 
Nature of the beast, there is no solution. White water, air bubbles it is what it is. I have two of them on my boat, two senders, two heads. Both transducers are in different places under the hull. Between the two of them, I have a 75% chance of knowing my real depth while cruising. Of course, slow speeds or idle, they both work perfectly. You are fighting a battle that cannot be won! LOL
 
Can't hurt to disconnect and reconnect the transducer plug into the ST60 a few times in case of slight corrosion there.

It's pretty early in the season for hull fouling unless the boat wintered in, but could you have an excess buildup of copper based A/F under the T/D area? I know just using a scotch brite pad to gently clean off A/F paint (not weed)from the face of my u/w t/d's has effectively increased sensitivity from time to time, so just perhaps you could have the same effect, "once-removed"?
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

Click to expand...


for the shoot thru the hull type xdcr to work you need two things, clean water flow away from noise sources like the shaft or hull strakes and a section of hull that has solid glass rather than coring. contact regal customer service and find out where specifically they placed the solid glass section on your hull. if the boat shipped with a depth xdcr from the factory it is in the right spot. if you really want great sonar at speed and more than 30 - 40 feet you really need to use a thru hull type.
 
Dave, I have 2 depth sounders on the boat, one thru-hull, one shoot thru hull. Both work great most of the time. But I went out for a quick ride today around noon and was having issues with both of them reading. I think the problem is with lots of boat traffic and the shallow water in the bay, all the air bubbles from other boat's wakes throws off the signal. I've seen it happen many times before. When I have the boat in Montauk with the deeper water and much more spread out boat traffic they always read great.

I do like having a second one though because in certain conditions one works better than the other. If you're going to add one go with an in hull, will be a simpler installation.
 
Is there a pattern to the problem? Certain speed, following another boat, rough water? This can indicate the xducer has been installed in the wrong spot.

Also, check the wiring, most manufacturer recommend running the xducer cable without splicing, yet some builders or installers splice them, sometimes with a terminal block. This could cause issues. I've seen that on a 59 marquis

On that same boat, the Raymarine module woudl also lose bottom randomly or simply throw an error. After 3 attempts by the marine max tech to solve th problem I took a look (owner was a neighbor or BE member) and it turned out marine max had done a lousy job running the xducer cable. Not only did they splice it in th ER but under the helm it was laying on top of an air con blower causing random interference.
 
It works good running slow, up on plane not so much.
I am going to add a second one just to have redundancy and see if it works better.
Gonna go with same type since thru hull will be hard to do in water now.
I have a 2 inch blank I can add and then if other reads better I may swap the cable for the ST60.
I see better in hull ones that are larger.
Mine is also glued to bottom and I wonder if the ones with the little cup filled with AF work better.
 
If you have issues on plane then it is due to the xducer gettin some air bubbles. Either because it is too far forward or because of turbulence cause by something in front of it like a thru hull. You may need to relocate it further aft
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

It works good running slow, up on plane not so much.
I am going to add a second one just to have redundancy and see if it works better.
Gonna go with same type since thru hull will be hard to do in water now.
I have a 2 inch blank I can add and then if other reads better I may swap the cable for the ST60.
I see better in hull ones that are larger.
Mine is also glued to bottom and I wonder if the ones with the little cup filled with AF work better.

Click to expand...


re recently converted from an analog xducer to digital via raymarine. the tech advised not to have two xducers running on the same frequency at the same time. same shoot thru hull config. as yours.

we have the same issues of poor performance at speed when depth is below 30 feet or seas are anything but smooth. I believe it is the hull strakes that are causing our noise issue at speed. no problems at low speed even on deeper water. I believe your hull config is very similar to ours.
 
Vic,
When you say converted, what did you change or add?
I get not having 2 the same, so if I get a different brand, will that work?
I was looking at a Hawkeye with a glue in transducer.
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

Vic,
When you say converted, what did you change or add?
I get not having 2 the same, so if I get a different brand, will that work?
I was looking at a Hawkeye with a glue in transducer.

Click to expand...


we added a second raymarine xducer also shoot thru hull, we did not keep the old one active. I didn't know the frequency the old vs new operate on, the tech was clear that having two xducers on the same frequency was not going to work well for obvious reasons. since most xducers are made by airmar you would be wise to check the frequency(s) the ones you are contemplating operate on if you want both to work at the same time.

I did find that the new xducer coupled with a current C series raymarine plotter produced amazing results as a sonar compared with the older analog depth finder. I doubt the new sonar function would be very helpful as a fish finder utilizing the shoot thru the hull config, but it does allow us to "see" the bottom in all but deep water.
 
I wont use digital only depth displays for reasons all you guys discuss. If you use a fish finder it shows a scan of the bottom rather than just numbers and when it looses sync it still shows some dots to give a clue where the bottom is. My last FF a garman had two frequencies and shows a double scan as well as numbers when numbers were lost the scan still showed some data.
 
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