FF = Problems??

[lamb]

I'd check the transducer/unit connections. That seems to be the cause of majority of these weird problems.

My fishfinder has been acting up lately too.. It works fine a couple of hours, than just looses it - it is on, but it can't read squat... No bottom reading, nothing... It's not the battery, it does this with 3 different batteries... I guess the new one is order.

Salt water is taxing these electronics on the kayak big time.

[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?