New old boat grief -- sounders -- advice?

[Tazling]

My new old beater Grand Banks 32 came with a clunky old Raymarine GPS/sounder at the indoor helm station, and a Lowrance Hook7 GPS/sounder at the flybridge.

The Raymarine works OK, screen is a bit temperamental but it's a decent unit.

The Hook7 OTOH never did read depth for me. It reads temperature from the ducer but no depth.

The ducer is an AirMar B60-20.

I investigated the Hook7 issue and found its power cable was badly corroded. That seemed like a reasonable explanation for poor transducer performance -- undervoltage due to corrosion. I tried to clean it up a bit but may have damaged it in the process -- when I tried reconnecting, the head unit would no longer boot -- black screen of death.

That was depressing. So I called my go-to chandlery and asked what I could replace it with that would be plug-compatible with the original cables. They told me basically "nothing" -- Hook 7 is no longer sold and the connectors have changed. But, they said, there's an adapter cable so you can use the older transducers with the new Reveal series.

So I bought a Hook 5 Reveal and an adapter cable. Went through the shenanigans of getting that wired into place (involved some cleanup of horrible old wiring!) and tested it today -- darn it, it also reads temperature but no depth from the ducer.

So this is getting annoying. I tracked down and read the PDF manual for the Hook5 and alas it says right in the intro, "does not support AirMar transducers with adapter cable" (!!!) I guess I should have told the chandlery that I had an AirMar transducer.

So now I seem to have an orphan ducer with a connector that only goes with an obsolete product. I also just bought an expensive little Hook5 that won't work with the transducer even with the (also expensive) adapter cable. Not amused.

Is there any way out of this? Can I get a different connector and use some other model of GPS/fishfinder that is compatible with the B60 ducer? Even if I have to hack the connector off and hand-wire the new one on myself? How would I get the pinouts and wire colour code to do this correctly?

I thought (in desperation) of installing the ducer that came with the Hook5 unit, but it's a lightweight transom-mount thing suitable for a bass boat or something like that. The cable isn't nearly long enough to get to my transom. The only thing I could do with it is mount it on a longish stick and poke it into the water somehow amidships. Actually I'm not sure the cable is even long enough to do that.

[And btw, why-in-tarnation is there no industry standard for these ducer connectors? Imagine if every USB device in the world had its own proprietary connector that only worked with the manufacturer's USB cables -- ridiculous!]

 

[Delta Riverat]

That's what I did -

Bought Garmin 9 inch GPS, sonar package. Bought 35 foot transducer extension cable. Ran cable from flybridge through lockers, out side and down along window frames. Then under rub rail and down transom to swim platform.

Drilled 1.25 inch in platform and installed 1" SS rail mount. Silver brazed an SS plate to the 1" SS tubing to mount the transducer and ran through the platform mount. I can even adjust the depth of the transducer as the tank levels change. I think the transducer had 15 feet of cable on it, so 50 feet with the extension and I've got about 4 feet extra. Yeah, not much.

Far from elegant I know, but it's tested and works and now I know how deep the water is -

 

[BruceK]

My new old beater Grand Banks 32 came with a clunky old Raymarine GPS/sounder at the indoor helm station, and a Lowrance Hook7 GPS/sounder at the flybridge....
I thought (in desperation) of installing the transducer that came with the Hook5 unit, but it's a lightweight transom-mount thing suitable for a bass boat or something like that. The cable isn't nearly long enough to get to my transom. The only thing I could do with it is mount it on a longish stick and poke it into the water somehow amidships. Actually I'm not sure the cable is even long enough to do that.

]

Is the transducer a plastic "hockey stick" thing? You may be able to install it inside the hull,to "shoot thru" the hull. I did that with a Garmin transom mount transducer, on the advice of Garmin. Preferably find a flat section of hull, and install the transducer so it is parallel to the sea surface. You can use a small builders level to do that, and install it in a section of plastic plumbing tube. If its on an angled hull surface, cut an angle of the tube where it sits against the hull so the top of the transducer is level with the sea. You can test it by putting it in a plastic bag of water. I installed mine in a mass of clear silicone inside the tube. It worked, but took longer to initially "find the bottom" than the one with a conventional transducer. GB owners might know the best place to put it.

 

[Tazling]

Is the transducer a plastic "hockey stick" thing? You may be able to install it inside the hull,to "shoot thru" the hull...

That is a very ingenious method but as my hull is about 1 inch of tropical hardwood I kinda doubt any transducer could see through it!

 

[BruceK]

That is a very ingenious method but as my hull is about 1 inch of tropical hardwood I kinda doubt any transducer could see through it!

Oops, I assumed fiberglass. My f/g hull was an 1" thick. Best of luck with it, I think you can get extension transducer cables.

 

[twistedtree]

Well, one possibility is that the B60 transducer is shot.


But the other possibility is that you simply have a wiring incompatibility with the various connectors and adapter cables.


Here is a link to the documentation for the B60, which by the way remains a popular transducer. https://www.gemeco.com/Product/B60-20-MM


And I think with some searching you should be able to find the transducer pinout for the connector on the Hook 5. Then with a meter, see how each conductor goes through your adapter cable and see how it matches up with the transducer pinout. Temp works, so you know those connections are correct and that will provide a reference point to be sure you are tracing the wires correctly.

 

[rgano]

That is a very ingenious method but as my hull is about 1 inch of tropical hardwood I kinda doubt any transducer could see through it!

After all these years, I would imagine there is enough moisture in that Philippine mahogany (actually probably 1.25 inches thick) to support a ducer shooting through. Can't hurt to try.

I had a woodie GB42 for a LOT of years, and I used to swap out sounder heads all the time never changing any of the three ducers the boat came to me with. I just fiddled around with the three-wire connections until depth showed up.

I finally got rich and elected to do it up right by installing two Humminbird high-end color fish finder heads and one big expensive bronze through-hull ducer. There was a transfer switch at the lower helm (seen on the 90-degree surface to the Humminbird head in the photo) into which both heads were connected. Whenever I left the lower helm headed up to the upper one, I flipped the switch to feed ducer date up there.

 

[PM]

I would go with all new components. Electronics have come a long way in recent years, accuracy, trajectory angles, power draw, graphics, etc. Why torture yourself any longer?

pete

 

[kthoennes]

I would go with all new components. Electronics have come a long way in recent years, accuracy, trajectory angles, power draw, graphics, etc. Why torture yourself any longer?

pete

I have no useful help to offer on the OP's topic but I'm just posting to say: (1) it's so comforting to be in good company and be reassured that I'm not the only one who has thorny, technical, persistent, aggravating issues like this one, and (2), in regard to Pete's post above, you could ask a similar question to all those Don Quixote boat owners who struggle mightily with their marine refrigerators. It's the White Whale, we refuse to be beaten by maintenance and tech issues.

(I feel better now that I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money hunting down a new aerator and spray control for the galley sink faucet, because the old one didn't squirt properly and it bugged me no end.)

 

[C lectric]

I am one who persists in "FIXING" things. However, there are limits beyond which fixing no longer makes sense especially when there is likely no fixing it due to adaptation needs.

I will emphasize this if you are not an electronics person.

Replace it.

Wood hull. Where is the current transduce mounted? Through hull? can you mount the new transducer in the same place?

If it were a serious hobby like those for old radios or old cars go for it but is that what you want? And those hobbies almost always cost far more the
units original cost or it's replacement.

 

[catalinajack]

Our DeFever 44 came to us with Standard Horizon head units wired to some an Airmar B744 transducer. Both head units failed. It turns out that the transducer signal wire is a simple two wire, poistive and negative with an RCA connector. I purchased a Raymarine I-40 and used a female adapter to go from RCA to a two-wire pigtail. Works a charm.