Having problems getting my depth sounder to work. Bought the boat with a cut transducer cable, so while I had the motors out, I replaced the transducer with a new one from Lowrance. With the new transducer, gage kept flashing "0".

Talked to Lowrance, and they told me my brainbox must be dead. They don't make a 3400 anymore, so I went with a 3500 with the brains in the display unit itself. After having a custom bezel turned and powercoated to make up the difference in hole sizes, it looks great, but now flashes "965" or some other high number. Same results in or out of the water.

Has anyone installed a Lowrance transducer in a Fountain hull? Am I running into a problem with the coring in the hull? I glued mine on the inside of the "pad" area in the rear behind the bilge pumps. Do I need to remove any hull material? What a PITA. Of course, at least one motor would have to come back out to make any changes.

Thanks,
Brian

My 93 35 Lighning has the same prob. I sent my brainbox in to test and it was good to go so they sold me another transducer. Have not epoxied in yet, works good when I hang in the water but not when inside the bildge. Someone here said they will not pass thru the hull core unless you drill complete through the hull and set mount in that hole. I will not do that and continue to be careful w/o one.

I don't understand why Factory even went with this set up.

My last 27' had a short piece of PVC FG'ed into the hull bottom, then the transducer was placed inside the pipe with epoxy filling to the pipe top flush. It had to have gone thru the coring because it worked at all speeds. My new boat just has it epoxied to the bilge bottom. Quits reading as soon as I put the boat in gear. 0mph=reads, 5mph=nothing. I doubt the step bottom is aireating the water at 5mph.

Make sure if you have a step bottom that the tranducer is 6+ inches in front of the step as close to the bottom (being the V of the boat) as possible.

- Vinnie

Nope, no steps. Looks like this project will have to wait until winter when I can take the Roto-zip to my bilge.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Brian

run it WOT and you won't have to worry about bottoming out

I asked the same question. I was told that the foam coring wouldn't let the signal pass. That unless you were creative, the easiest way around the problem is the transom mount.

Transom mount...ca ca!

Downtown, WOT sounds like a good plan. I just want to make sure that when those other boats are chasing me around the race course, I don't lead them into shallow water. I should get accurate readings at 80, right?