Fish Finder depth reading blinking at 60.0

[Jim McFalls]

Greetings,

I have a Lowrance Elite 4 HDI that I loved - at least up until about a month ago. I previously used a YakAttack CelBlock installation set-up with the unit mounted on top of the CelBlock, as well as the transducer arm, which hung over the side. This setup was great until a fish-on-the-line got tangled up in the transducer arm, which happened several times. Also, the transducer arm caused a bit of drag while trolling, since it was hanging over the side.

I changed the setup so now the transducer is shooting through the hull (mounted inside a pad and gooped into place) and I have the power and sonar cables coming up through a deck plate. Totally cool and efficient new setup, and everything works fine EXCEPT the depth reading. It blinks at 60.0 for about an hour, then it blinks at 13.9. I have tried everything I can think of, including on-line searches for answers, hard resets, soft resets, and nothing works. Does anybody have any suggestions? I am getting frustrated, as you might imagine.

Thanks!
J

[cryptotek]

The only thing I can think of is possible air bubbles in the goop. My finder will blink 60.0 out of the water only. I also did the goop installation. Problem is... that goop is insanely strong.

[J.A. Veil]

To verify if your transducer is still working, remove it from inside the hull, dangle it in the water, and see if you begin getting accurate readings again. If so, you can remount the transducer.

One other thing to consider is the material in the hull of your kayak. I checked out the Elie Coast website, which describes the hull material as "Used in all Elie kayaks, three-layer Poly-XR™ material is 30% more rigid than standard polyethylene, thanks to an advanced resin in the top layer." It is possible that the three-layered construction is interfering with your transducer signal. I recall that boats like Boston Whalers that have a foam core between fiberglass layers cannot use through-the-hull transducer mounting because the foam layer interferes with the signal.

If you try an inside the hull mounting again, use Duct Seal putty rather than Goop. That is easy to reposition or remove.