jtexas
Fleet Admiral
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2003
- Messages
- 8,646
I've noticed a recent development which I think might be related to an incident involving my transducer. Any input, theory, or personal experience would be welcome.<br /><br />It's an eagle fishmark320, skimmer transducer on the transom - works flawlessly but I noticed that at high speed it no longer draws the bottom on the graph - but it continues to show the digital depth reading.<br /><br />I can't be positive, but I think the timing coincides with a repair I did recently. The transducer broke its neck - between the puck itself and the bracket - part of it was still in the transom bracket and the rest was still attached to the cable. Must've had it too tight when I struck an obstruction - it kicked up ok at the time, then broke later.<br /><br />When I epoxied it back together, some epoxy ran down onto the bottom. I thought I better clean it off, it was almost but not quite cured. I grabbed the only solvent I had handy, which was methyl ethel ketone. Took the epoxy off, along with the smooth finish.<br /><br />So now the bottom of my transducer isn't smooth anymore - it's not scratched up, so much as, its rough plastic instead of smooth. So maybe I'm creating some turbulence. All other circumstances it works perfectly.<br /><br />Question 1 - does anybody think my symptom is unrelated to the MEK incident? I mean have you experienced a lost bottom due to some other cause?<br /><br />Question 2 - I'm thinking I could put a thin coat of epoxy on it - I have some 30-minute devcon and a couple ideas on how to apply it:<br />1. Drizzle it on and alternately hold it upside down & rightside up while it cures.<br />2. Epoxy it to a thin piece of plastic.<br /><br />Opinions on whether this will work, which method is better, or any other ideas?<br /><br />BTW, FYI, the epoxy repair didn't hold - it separated again. I was going to try again adding fiberglass to the resin, but I had some 3m gel superglue on hand so decided to try that. Plus glued some fiberglass threads across the break - that was probably worthless but it made me feel better. Used all my strength but couldn't break it - it's held up for a couple outings - I think it's permanent. Happens again, I'm using marine-tex.
<br /><br />I use a lot of other sonic type sensors and none of them work well after one of the guys gives the face a tuneup