New Transducer

[dhays]

I’ve had problems with my depth sounder being intermittent. It finally crapped out on my entirely last summer. Eventually I was able to pin the problem down to a bad transducer. I got the transducer and scheduled a haulout to have the yard change it.

I hauled out the morning of Monday the 28th in record heat. (111 degrees at my house that day). The yard was going to knock off at noon that day. We were scheduled to splash it on Friday July 2nd.

On Tuesday eventing, June 29th I got a call from the yard that they had finished the work more quickly than they anticipated, partly due to the higher than normal temps. The put the boat back in the water and that evening I moved it back to my slip.

Yesterday and today I spent most of the day running the cable from the new transducer cable to DSM. It was a very unpleasant job. I think I cut at least a hundred zip ties, replacing about 1/2 that number. I had to completely disassemble two lockers in the second cabin. That chore was made even more pleasant by the number of screws that had stripped heads. I’m too old, too tall, too stiff, and too fat to be crawling around the boat.

However, got the job done. Did a good, clean job of it, and the depth sounder appears to be working great, at least when tested in the slip.

Sure, I can’t move right now but nothing that a nice chair and a couple beers won’t fix.

 

[Comodave]

Congrats on a job well done. It certainly can be a pain to run cables through the boat. Enjoy knowing the depth again.

 

[IRENE]

Hi Dave,

Nice work. I understand the complexity as I just did a similar job.

What type of transducer did you install, and for what unit? I will be upgrading electronics in about 1 year, so time for me to start figuring out the pieces.

Thanks

 

[HTurner]

Zip ties can be horrible little plastic devils. Many believe they should be tightened to just before the point of breaking. Then there are those guys who place one every 3 inches.

 

[dhays]

Hi Dave,



Nice work. I understand the complexity as I just did a similar job.



What type of transducer did you install, and for what unit? I will be upgrading electronics in about 1 year, so time for me to start figuring out the pieces.



Thanks

The transducer is an Airmar that is designed to work with older RayMarine instruments. I can dig up the model number if you like but I just gave all the information to a local marine electronics shop and had them figure out which I needed. He ordered it and I bought it from him. He had loaned me a transducer to drop over the side to ensure that a new transducer would solve the issue. This was after he had already bench tested my DSM. Yeah, it cost me a few dollars more to buy from him, but despite him being a gruff old fart, he was helpful and knows his stuff.

 

[dhays]

Zip ties can be horrible little plastic devils. Many believe they should be tightened to just before the point of breaking. Then there are those guys who place one every 3 inches.

I know that I am guilty of sometimes tightening them too much.

Running the cable I was able to see the order in which the boat was wired and what things were changed by the PO. Often the person that would. Be running additional wires would just just wrap a new tie around the entire bundle to add the wire they were running. Often there were three zip ties in layers in the same locations.