SONAR ISSUE

[THOMAS CITY CURVE]

I recently had some trouble with my bottom machine working intermittently on a not so far ride offshore. When we arrived at our destination it started working perfectly just out of the blue and had no more issues the rest of the trip. The Machine is a Lowrance HD series and the transducer is a shoot thru the hull made by Lowrance also. It is inside a well made of PVC with a threaded plug sealing it. There is a peg in the bottom of the plug that I assume is supposed to pen the transducer to the deck in the bottom of the well.
Does anyone know if this well should be filled with something or should it be dry ?

[Steve Stinson]

The bottom of your transducer has to stay in contact with the inside of the hull for it to work correctly. I haven't dealt with these in years, but we used to stick them down with fiberglass resin in the old days. You could not have any air bubbles in the resin, nor could you remove the transducer without destroying it most of the time. I have not ever heard of one that required the well or bilge to have water in it to work correctly.

The angle of the transducer is critical too, so you can't have it moving around in the well when you are running.

If your machine is re-booting when you are traveling, you probably have a loose connection someplace. Likely the reason it is working at idle is because you are not bouncing over the waves.

My Lowrance looses lock on the bottom most of the time when I am running on plane then re-acquires an accurate reading when I come of plane. Not real helpful if you are running toward the shore trying to guess how far to go before stopping.

- Steve Stinson

[THOMAS CITY CURVE]

This transducer is very small. The well is made of inch and a half pvc and is about three inches tall sealed to the bottom of the hull

[Dub]

Fill it with water, had the same setup on a Seacraft I had years ago.

[THOMAS CITY CURVE]

Thanks guys.