Stock transducer?

bert_florida

Hi guys, not sure if any of you ran into this, but on our 2004 FV 290 the transducer that came with it for the Lowrance depth finder has a very small leak, I am sure it has to do with the sealant that was originally used getting old, I am not too concerned as of now because the leak is tiny and I have 3 bilge pumps, the transducer can't go anywhere, so only the water sipping through in between the transducer itself and the hull can come in. However, this must be fixed ASAP. The question is, if I remove the transducer to re-bed the seal with new 4200 or so, it will more than likely break as it is made out of plastic. Does anyone know of a transducer that will work with our stock depth finder? I guess another option is to just plug the hull and forget about the depth finder since we have a nice Simrad unit with its own transducer, but I hate to have stuff in the instrument panel that doesn't work.

Any tips are appreciated.

Thanks!

Bert

davidbrooks

The old transducers worked on a frequency (200mhz) that no one supports anymore.  So the short answer is you will need to replace the transducer and guage....which is actually preferable.  They are super simple to do.  Getting out the old transducer without breaking it however i would say is impossible.  I ended up beating mine out with a hammer.  Then use a sander to clean up the hull where the new one will mate to it. I also used 5200 vs 4200.  Folks here will typically say anything under the waterline use 5200.  My only other thought is that it is good to have redundancy so for me i also have a transom mounted fishfinder that is my go to for depth.... i like having the other one in there also just in case.  

bert_florida

Thank you. Do you recommend a place to get a unit and transducer as a package? That’s my thinking, I want to keep this and also the transom mounted one I have for my Simrad unit. 

davidbrooks

It is really up to you. There are tons of styles and price is pretty close. I put in a Faria one to try and get as close as possible to my other guages. Two years later i am ripping it all out and going digital. I just did a lot of reading to see who was complaining about what. A big thing was transponders that would lose their reading at speed. My thought was if you are worried about depth you shouldnt be going fast.

bert_florida

I can’t find any depth finder that comes with a metal transducer, they’re all plastic. I guess I need to buy the finder with a crappy plastic transducer, throw that away and buy a nice transducer separately.