Fish Finder In Front Of Bay Boat

[cajun bill]

Originally Posted by alphaman

I was referring the ram arm lenght. It's 6in long.

yes, I know, but I think the ball diameter is what makes the difference. I think you probably had the right mount, I'm guessing that you couldn't tighten it enuf to make it stay in place, but I could be wrong.

[bayouchub]

It is common for boat dealers to use subpar parts for the job.

[cajun bill]

Okay, got everything hooked up. GPS fired up fine, but the sonar gave me a message that said "sonar turned off". Since the sonar is what I am most interested in, I hope I can figure this out. My first hope is that it is giving me that message cuz the boat is on the trailer, but I think that i"m being too optimistic. It probably has something to do with the cable which I kinda worked hard getting it pulled up to the bow. Planning on calling Garmin tech support tomorrow.

[jl8200]

Originally Posted by cajun bill

Okay, got everything hooked up. GPS fired up fine, but the sonar gave me a message that said "sonar turned off". Since the sonar is what I am most interested in, I hope I can figure this out. My first hope is that it is giving me that message cuz the boat is on the trailer, but I think that i"m being too optimistic. It probably has something to do with the cable which I kinda worked hard getting it pulled up to the bow. Planning on calling Garmin tech support tomorrow.

I think you are getting this message either because of a bad transducer or a bad connection. You need to check your connection to the unit first. I think this is sometimes caused by a bad temperature sensor in the transducer. There is a way to bypass that but requires some splicing of wires. Calling Garmin is your best option to start with however.

[cajun bill]

Originally Posted by jl8200

I think you are getting this message either because of a bad transducer or a bad connection. You need to check your connection to the unit first. I think this is sometimes caused by a bad temperature sensor in the transducer. There is a way to bypass that but requires some splicing of wires. Calling Garmin is your best option to start with however.

Garmin suggested that my problem was a continuity issue with the wire leading to the xducer so I pulled back on the ducer wire all the way back to the console. I then turned on the gps/sonar and the "sonar turned off" message was not present. So I very carefully pulled/bent and examined every inch of the cable all the way back to the console where it was originally run. While doing that, I lost the signal once, but not at a point that I could ID so I rebooted the sonar and everything good. Then I bent/pulled and examined the cable again and couldn't get it to fail again. Bottom line, I refished it back to the bow and it is now (emphasis on the "now") working. I'm guessing it will work until it won't, probably after I hit a big wave, but for now, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope it works. thanks for all the advice.

[cajun bill]

IMG_0308.jpg

[alphaman]

Nice

[jl8200]

That looks good Bill. I have to mount the transducer on my TM, which is a MotorGuide xi5 and the way it deploys its difficult to find a good way of mounting the wiring.

[cajun bill]

Originally Posted by jl8200

That looks good Bill. I have to mount the transducer on my TM, which is a MotorGuide xi5 and the way it deploys its difficult to find a good way of mounting the wiring.

Yes, that will be my backup plan if the xducer starts acting up, but from what I'm seen on the net, it looks like a TM mount might work with an iPilot by running the wire thru the groove on the shaft.