Lowrance DIY-DSI Scupper Mount, waterprof electricals

[Geordie]

Geordie, I am removing my transducer today and cutting down the slide-on holder part like yours so I can tuck the transducer up higher like you did. Sharing ideas is all good for everyone!

Go for it Tony,
at least with these tranducers you can put it back if you need to. I thought I would experiment but have not managet to get out on the water today to test.
I came down with a nasty Flu a few weeks ago and I'm still suffering a bit of a sore throat and ear. I was all ready to head out this morning but the runny nose and sore throat came up again over-night so I thought better of going out getting cold and wet. Bugga.

Let me know how you go and if there is any difference in teh DSI signal. I don't immagine that the hull would do any shielding as the beam angle is no where as wide as a sidescan model on the HDS5 and I have seen one of these mounted inside the hull.

I did try the DSI inside the hull in a wet mount but it did not fit well in the foam block I had from the previous transducer (so I thought I would try this before going back to an in hull wet mount). I figure under the hull in a well protected location will provide the best contact with the water and field of view.

[Tonystott]

Well I removed the DSI transducer and removed a lot of the stuff at the bottom end. Here is an image from the catalogue

The reason my transducer was not sitting as high as yours was due to the slide-on part being square, which as we all know, doesn't fit well in a round hole! I got out the trusty Dremel sanding drum and soon got the transducer sitting snug up in the TI's crack (oohaa, sounds rude ), a good 1/2 inch higher up, and totally horizontal, not like it was before. Thanks for encouraging me to get off my bum and do it properly. Weather not conducive to testing here just yet, but won't be long.

[Geordie]

Ah that sounds good Tony. So the scupper mount has the propper slide on square C shaped profile. At least this allows you to fit it up higher.

The only photo I had seen (or video of an install) they had just used the bolt through fitting and the transducer hung down a long way.

Shows what a bit of custom tweaking can do for an otherwise good product to make it better.

[antsrealm]

nice job. What did you do with the exposed temp plug ? Also my previous elite 5 got a damaged power plug, what are you doing to avoid this ?

Thanks,
Tony.

[Geordie]

nice job. What did you do with the exposed temp plug ? Also my previous elite 5 got a damaged power plug, what are you doing to avoid this ?

Thanks,
Tony.

Hi Tony,
I used silicone sealer to glue on a rubber cap (from Clarke rubber) over the other plug hole for temp sensor and also to seal down the cap for the external aerial plug (top right on the back).

The power cable, i have joined with the waterproof screw together Builgin connector. These are expensive but I have never had any problems with them in the water.

For the seal on the power plug into the back of the Elite 5 unit, I just smear with plenty of thick Silicone grease (Dowe Corning 111 O'ring lube is the thickest I could find). This does a prety decent job of kiping the standard plug sealed. I also fitted an on-off switch inside the battery box to switch power off when out of the water, even if I leave the sounder connected overnight. This prevents any electrolysis corrosion if there is a bit of moisture in the connector.

Dielectric grease is aparrently also great for this to protect the connecting pins.