running transducer out of water. old wives tale?

[Don Dieago]

I've heard this is bad time and time again. Is it hard on the transducer or not?
i dont guess Ive ever read anything about it in manual.
lots of times I pull TM up to run few miles away and dont
power off unit I just leave it running.
Few times in my life forgot and left unit on all night
on trailer.
I have had one or two go bad over years but not sure that was the cause.
Looks like if it was true there would be manys cautions on the unit and in the manual.

[LWINCHESTER2]

Last I heard, from Todd I think, was that Garmin's chirp transducers have a built in overheat protection circuit. If it gets too hot, shuts it down. After it cools, starts back up. Usually I just do the stop transmitting thing when I pick up the trolling motor. The GSPMAP units now have a Sleep mode that is real handy and quick to get to. Stops transmitting and blacks the screen. One touch and back on and working. I really like this new feature.

I've had a Lowrance 200/83 transducer go bad that I left on and one Vexilar 400 kHz that I wore a break in the wire from all the times turning the trolling motor. That took years though.

[puhlw]

Last I heard, from Todd I think, was that Garmin's chirp transducers have a built in overheat protection circuit. If it gets too hot, shuts it down. After it cools, starts back up. Usually I just do the stop transmitting thing when I pick up the trolling motor. The GSPMAP units now have a Sleep mode that is real handy and quick to get to. Stops transmitting and blacks the screen. One touch and back on and working. I really like this new feature.

Winchester: How do you get to “sleep mode”?

[LWINCHESTER2]

Press and Hold the Power button until a small menu comes up on the lower right of the screen. You'll see the option for Sleep. Once that menu comes up I think you can just release and bump the power button again to go straight to Sleep mode.

Guess you can tell since I'm posting this time of morning - not fishing today. Got a dang virus.

[Todd Driscoll]

I've heard this is bad time and time again. Is it hard on the transducer or not?
i dont guess Ive ever read anything about it in manual.
lots of times I pull TM up to run few miles away and dont
power off unit I just leave it running.
Few times in my life forgot and left unit on all night
on trailer.
I have had one or two go bad over years but not sure that was the cause.
Looks like if it was true there would be manys cautions on the unit and in the manual.

Garmin engineers indicate no heat-related issues running Garmin xducers out of the water. During the fishing day, no need to worry about turning the xducer off when running from spot to spot. With this said, no one would ever recommend running one for hours on end with the boat on the trailer.

[Bosh]

Winchester: How do you get to “sleep mode”?

In the echomaps press the power button momentarily and select "disable sonar transmissions".

[Don Dieago]

Good info Thanks everyone.

[Treeguyus]

Garmin engineers indicate no heat-related issues running Garmin xducers out of the water. During the fishing day, no need to worry about turning the xducer off when running from spot to spot. With this said, no one would ever recommend running one for hours on end with the boat on the trailer.

Airmar and their transducers recommend not running theirs out of water even for short periods of time. One Garmin engineer shared with me Garmin's transducers and the over heat protection. But added this disclaimer, reaching that point of shut off, is caused by heat, heat in any electrical engineers world is not always good. If it happens over and over "may" shorten the life in certain areas of the transducer, like the shrink used. His recommendation best practice put it into "pause", "sleep" a good habit to follow.

Interpretation dependent on who you talk to and the transducer used. Airmar, Garmin and others

Have noticed my panoptix PS-30 and 31 warm if out of the water, never leave them on long enough for "shut down"

My opinion, depends on who is being talked to and the shut down feature is a good one particularly if left on over night by accident

[LWINCHESTER2]

My practice is to appreciate that if I forget to pause the transmitting that I still have some protection. Many electronic products come with a MTBF rating. Mean time between failure. We don't know what it is but there is a number for how many times this protection can operate before the transducer will fail for good. It's a great feature to have, but I'm not going to be the one to tell everybody else just how many times this can happen before you get a complete failure. I just use it as insurance against my forgetfulness.