I知 going to purchase a hummingbird helix depth finder for my 2006 TR186. Of course it is a skimmer type transducer, I知 trying to avoid placing it in the wrong spot, and drilling more holes than necessary into my boat. Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.
Can you possibly mount it to your jackplate?
When I mounted my transducer on my TR19 I used a mounting board made by Atwood. I cut it to the size I needed and traced the contour to match the curvature of the boat and cut it with a jigsaw. I then roughed up the area just a bit with some sandpaper and glued it to the boat with 3M 5200 (it ain't coming off I promise). I had to used some painter's tape to hold it in place until it cured. I placed it one strake to the right of my running pad. My thoughts on this was if I need to hold bottom such as when I running new water I can trim down and slow down just a little and keep a bottom reading but when I'm trimmed up and running fast it would lift up on the pad and get the transducer out of the water and not affect boat handling at high speed.
It's worked out perfect for me. I get great sonar readings and perfect returns. If I keep the motor trimmed down just a little I can hold a good bottom reading up to about 38mph which is fine by me. I'm not going to run faster than that in foreign water anyway. I could probably bring the transducer down just a tad bit and get it to hold bottom even a little more but I'm happy with how it works now. Mine is a Lowrance and I have my SS transducer for SI/DI on the jack plate but my skimmer for my sonar and temp is the one I had mounted on bottom. I know lots of guys like to set them up to shoot through the hull and I've done that before too but I honestly think I like it better on the bottom of the hull. The mounting board means I didn't have to screw anything in to my hull and it gives me the option of remounting another transducer there in the future if I need to and/or adjusting the mounting height if needed. Plus the board gives something really nice and solid for the screws to bite into other than my hull.
http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread....86#post8457386
I don’t like drilling holes so I can up with my own bracket
Thanks for that, at that location can you let me know how it reads? At what speed do you lose depth reading if at all? I realize scanning and down imaging would be at lower speeds but I’m talking about sonar at high speeds?Originally Posted by Bob McKenzie
Thank you for posting this, is it possible to post a picture? Did you mount right of the pad at the lowest part of the boat? Thx
I lose my SI and DI at about 10mph I keep my maps up to date and I don’t do the high speed Ducer reading, I’m more concerned with keeping the chine under control at high speed.
Thank you for the reply. I’m hoping to be able to keep just my sonar up to 30 or 40 miles an hour or so as I am cruising across the lake so I can pick up on any drastic depth changes. My boat experiences chine at top end, which I very seldom will be doing. At 5500 rpm’s my boat at 55 mph, not monstrous fast, but good enough for me. I think it would top out around 58 to 60 but the chine is terrible after ~58 MPH. I epoxied on a transducer mounting plate tonight, so tomorrow hopefully I can screw the transducer bracket into that...... hopefully I have it in a good spot.
I may have missed it, but is there a reason you don't want to mount in the sump? My original ducer was epoxied in the sump are and worked great. When I upgraded a few years ago to a HDS i epoxied the new skimmer ducer in the same area and it also works great. You don't have to worry about stumps or anything knocking it off or out of alignment.
Tom Gates, 2005 Triton TR196DC LE, 200 Opti
The way I understand it, by shooting through the hull I will be giving up a lot of my down imaging and side imaging capabilities, is this not correct? I’m not sure the transducer that comes with the helix 7 GEN two is capable of shooting through the hull? There is an old Lowrance X135 mounted in my dash, it does shoot through the hull, but there’s no room for any than a 5 inch in my dash, that’s why I bought this 7 inch helix. My X135 has a burn out in the screen so I’m looking for a replacement for that. Hopefully I can keep that for high-speed depth readings, and use this helix for more accurate imaging. I will be using a ram mount for the helix. I totally agree, if that transducer is capable of shooting through the hull and giving me the quality imaging, that is by far the best place to have it.
Yes it's just to the right of the running pad. I don't have a pic on my computer. I will try and get you a pic or two in the next couple of days.
Mount the SI/DI transducer on the jackplate or similar sturdy location. Mount a 2D transducer in the bilge. Connect the 2 transducers with a Y cable that will connect to the Helix. All 2D sonar images will be from the 2D transducer regardless of speed. SI/DI will be from the other transducer. If you test the bilge location prior to epoxying, you can get depth readings up to 50 to 60mph or more. Read this post before installing the transducers. Check out the Humminbird forum, lots of info there.
http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=172972
2006 Triton TR-21 XD, Mercury 225 Pro XS, S/N 1B287870
OK I ordered the Y cable and the through hull transducer. My question is when you say test them, do you mean literally holding them by hand while cruising on the lake? Or just sitting still making sure you get a reading, I知 not really sure how to test them. Also, what type of epoxy or silicone should I use when I set the transducer in the sump? I want to make sure I get it right. The Y cable and transducer will be here Friday.
Read post #2 in the link I posted. You need water in the bilge for testing as the transducer cannot work in air and a sandbag or something similar to hold the transducer in place. I used a quart freezer bag filled with sand. The object is to find the optimum location for the transducer. With the sandbag and water in the bilge, you can test different locations while on the lake at different speeds. After finding the best location, drain the water out, mark the location and let it dry before epoxying the transducer. I used the Humminbird slow cure epoxy kit when I mounted mine 6 years ago and have no issues.
2006 Triton TR-21 XD, Mercury 225 Pro XS, S/N 1B287870
On my 2000 TR186 there's two flat spots where the bilge and auto-float switch is mounted on either side of keel, I put my ducer just in front of that area a few inches just to the side of the keel. I also used a wire brush on a drill to smooth/clean the area and finished with rubbing alcohol to remove any grease before using marine epoxy to mount ducer. Use plumbers putty to make a dam for the epoxy and rock the ducer when setting it to prevent air bubbles. Use sand bag to hold it down overnight.
Thank you for the detailed procedure. I will follow instructions.
Thank you for that information, mine is set up the same. I am guessing you are happy with that location? Works well?
I put my boat on the water today to test out the hummingbird helix seven and it’s transducer. I’m pretty impressed with the images I am receiving, and I never lost sonar reading even at 45 mph, which is the fastest I went today because there’s quite a chop. In any case I’m pretty happy.
Yep, very happy and works at wide-open throttle. :)
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