FF = Problems??

[ratdog]

I have had the same problems more often than not. When I clean the connections it helps dramatically. I have come to rely less on my FF and more on my GPS.

[Louis Clarke II]

Check your battery. When it drops below xx volts this will cause erratic readings...

Louis & Clarke II

[JPSURF]

Voltage is reading around 11.6 volts. The connections seem to be good where the unit plugs into the base. I think this is what you are talking about but i will check around.

Thanks for the replys

Jason

[zeelaagee]

the angle and seating of the transducer is critical to performance. if it doesn't sit paralell to the waterline while the yak is in the water, it's going to give you funky or inadequate readings. air bubbles in your adheasive or not enough adheasive to create a full suround of the transducer will also cause malfunctions of readings.

these may not be your problem, but it's cheaper to troubleshoot these than to haul off and throw down on a new ff.

[Kevin]

The first fish finder I had, I could only see the bottom only with nothing in between. No bait, no kelp.... I also used Marine goop. After that I switched to Ace two part epoxy for plastic.

the difference is that the goop is soft and dampens the signal. Epoxy cures harder and gives you better resolution. But the hardness is also the draw back as it can become brittle and break off. So what I did was use some adhesive putty and formed it into a circle around the location I planned to install the transducer. Then I filled the circle with epoxy and installed the transducer. Of course avoid bubbles and use a weight to sit ontop of your tranducer while it cures. But this has worked perfectly for several years now.

The epoxy thing is nothing new, nor is using a well, but do a search on the different boards and you'll see a number of ways to do the same thing.

On an Extreme this process is even easier. once you shave the foam out from inside the hull you alread create a nice well for the epoxy...

The difference in what you can see between epoxy and goop installations on the fish finder is dramatic, well worth doing.

Kevin

[zeelaagee]

Originally Posted by Kevin

the difference is that the goop is soft and dampens the signal. Epoxy cures harder and gives you better resolution.

The epoxy thing is nothing new, nor is using a well, but do a search on the different boards and you'll see a number of ways to do the same thing.

The difference in what you can see between epoxy and goop installations on the fish finder is dramatic, well worth doing.

they physics of it sounds right- but i'm not sure i'm buying into this theory because a tansducer (from what i've read and heard) should operate without problems with a little bit of water in the area around the transducer (at least in testing situations)- and water is far less dense than MG or epoxy. is this something more critical for color display units than greyscale?

[gotz togo fishin]

Why mess with expoxies and glues? Mount your transducer on the outside of the kayak and obtain better resolution. Here is an example of my mounting.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by zeelaagee

they physics of it sounds right- but i'm not sure i'm buying into this theory because a tansducer (from what i've read and heard) should operate without problems with a little bit of water in the area around the transducer (at least in testing situations)- and water is far less dense than MG or epoxy. is this something more critical for color display units than greyscale?

This might help explain it better.

Sound waves move faster through a denser medium because energy is more easily passed between tightly packed molecules. This helps explain why sound travels faster through water than through air, and faster still through steel than through water. But even more influential than a conducting medium's density is its elasticity. Elasticity refers to how well a medium can return to its initial form after being disturbed by a force. Steel has high elasticity. It bounces right back to its original shape after an applied force is removed. At the particle level, the molecules in elastic materials transfer energy more efficiently, so sound waves travel faster through steel than through water or air. But not all solids are good conductors of sound. Cork, for instance, has low elasticity. Its molecules tend to absorb energy rather than conduct it.

Marine goop performs more closely to cork in this respect and will absorb energy / sound. But that same ability to absorb energy / sound allows it to absorb flexing in your kayak hull and prevent the transducer from popping off. That is why marine goop is so popular for kayak installations.

I hope this makes better sense.