Way2slow

I think when you want to mark something, it gives you a crosshair you move over the object and it marks the location of the object so you can come back to that object, not where the boat was. I've never done it but I spent about a week playing with my SV on a power supply and think that was how it worked.

For the best answer on that one, I would contact Garmin and ask them about running an A/B switch to switch transducers. It would probably have to be something they made for that until to match plugs. In the old days of single and even dual frequency transducers, that was not a problem and was a very common practice. Transducers and the unit's technology have gotten a lot more sophisticated today, and interference created by the switch could be a problem.

I had a Terrova on my boat with three Lowrance HDS units, a 5 in the console, a 7 on the bow, and a 10 on a swing arm next to the console, all networked together with the structure/side scan unit. I ran the 7 on the bow off the transducer in the Terrova with no problems. If I wanted to see the side can or structure scan I just switch to the network. I've destroyed too many transducer cables running down the side of a TM so I would avoid that if possible. With a lot of today's transducers, that cost could ruin a fishing trip.

You will find, the more limited you are in area you have to fish, the better fisherman it will make you. It makes you figure things out with what you have and not just run around fishing areas that "should" be holding fish with a lure you like to fish.

Fishing pockets, side scan would be almost useless. A good high definition Structure scan might if they are suspended a foot of so away from the structure, but if you think you are going to just cruise over those holes and fish for the ones you see, you're going to be passing up a hellava lot of fish. By the time you get the boat over the hole, the fish are going to be spooked. In situations like that, I generally use something like a Senko or other slower falling bait and fish a couple of pockets away.

Captain Phil, I also built my first one from Heathkit back in the late 60's. I used that one for years because it was portable. As for using one, until these new generation units came along with side scan/structure scan, all I mainly used one for was depth and contour.

Used to be, boat prices had a lot to do with supply and demand, but that was back when there was competition between manufactures. That competition is gone now. Like most other products, large conglomerates have bought out the competition and what few there are, they can join forces, so they get to dictate their prices, back like the old monopolies had it, they just do a better job of making it look like they are not. Cost of production is not driving the prices up, it's the increased profit margins that's driving prices up.

I generally make a sand bed to slide it off the trailer into then work then sand in underneath it. Then put a couple of 4x4 post on each side to attach braces to go against the side of the hull. I have seen 4x4 used to sit it on and 2x4 attached to them against the bottom and sides. Basically making a frame for the bottom and sides in about three locations. The way to check the transom is to trim the motor all the way up, then stand on the mid section and bounce up and down. If the transom does not flex or move, it's probably good. For what it cost in materials today, and time, you had better have a special connection to that boat, because you will probably have more invested in it than it would be worth when done. If it's usable, don't matter how ugly it is, use it to get your nickels worth out of it. I have a 17' Stratos I have plans on restoring that's going to need everything, basically it will be a new boat when done, but that one was my dads and I'm doing it to give to my granddaughter. She has a lot of fond memories of fishing with her gramps out of that boat. If it were not for that, you couldn't pay me enough to do it. You just don't realize how much work and discomfort messing with all that fiberglass is going to be. Get you some Tyvek suits and respirator, you will need them. As for how safe it is, sounds like it's rotted pretty good. I would not be trying to run full speed across wakes and in rough water, where you hit the water hard enough it makes your eyeballs bounce.

A lot more involved than that. The cap is going to be attached to the floor, either screwed or glassed or both, so that will have to be separated. Before you take the cap off, you have to support the hull, very good. When you remove the cap, the sides are going to move out some. You take the floor out to get to the stringers, and when you do, the hull is going to spead out more. When you glass the new floor in and If not supported well, the cap "WILL NOT" fit back on the hull. Also, if not supported extremely well, you will have one very ill handling boat because the hull is going to twist and move all out of shape, if you do manage to get the cap back on. If that bad, you will most likely find the transom is rotted also and need to replace it. In all probability, you are going to need some arms and hoist to lift the cap off. They usually have straps glassed in in several areas and just taking the rub rail off and screws out is not all that's needed to get it off. The cap can weigh 200 to 300 pounds. I have seen whole boats being held up by the cap and left overnight hoping that will pull it loose from the hull. Just depends on the boat and how they attached the cap.

There are a number of workarounds, but none of them are as good as finding and fixing the problem. Usually, problems don't fix themselves and can grow to be a bigger problem later. So, why not just go ahead and find the problem and fix it. Yes, there may be items in the boat that might have a constant current draw for keep alive power, but none of those should have enough of a current draw that it discharges a good battery. Maybe I'm old school, but I don't like doing band aid fixes, band-aid have a tendency to come off, and at the most undesirable time.

There is a redneck way of trouble shooting it, but it's not as good or accurate as using a meter. Get you a 12V, 5-Watt bulb in a socket or with some way of attaching wires to it so when you stick the wires across the battery terminals, the bulb will lite. Be sure it's close to 5 watts, it takes approximately 500 milliamps to make a 5 watt bulb burn bright, and I figure if it's pulling the battery down in a couple of weeks, it's going to take a load of a few hundred milliamps. Now, to troubleshoot the problem, start at the battery positive terminal and take the wires off. One at the time, connect the bulb between a wire you took off and the battery positive terminal. If there is no load on that wire, the bulb will not burn, if something is drawing current the bulb will burn. If it burns bright, then that load is at least 500 milliamps or more, if it barely burns, that means it's drawing a load but only a few milliamps but probably not enough to discharge the battery in a couple of weeks. A good example of this is, if you have a radio in the boat. The keep alive wire for the radios memory circuit will draw current all the time, but not enough to cause the battery to discharge in a couple of weeks. There are two things that I commonly find that can cause this, the voltage regulator and the onboard charger. Charging system have a circuit in them that's supposed to only let current flow in one direction, from it to the battery. If this circuit goes bad and shorts out, it will let the charging system draw current off the battery when it's not charging. There are a number of other things also, a stuck relay, faulty switch etc. This little redneck method will get you going in the right direction as to finding the problem. There should be nothing on the boat that will make that bulb burn bright when everything is turned off, so if you find a wire that makes it burn bright, or even half bright, there's a problem with whatever that wire connects to. Now, once you find a wire that makes if burn bright, you have to follow that and see if it branches off to other wires. If it does, you will have to do the same thing, disconnect those wires and check them one at a time until you have followed it all the way to the source of the load. Understand, this may get a little frustrating and take some time, but think about the fact that if you don't find it, you are going to be paying some boat shop about $100 an hour to do it for you. The pisser about that, a lot of them don't know how to troubleshoot it like we are doing and just keep swapping out parts they think might be causing the problem until they find it. So not only are you taking it in the shorts for the labor, you are getting a double whammy paying for parts that might not be bad. I will also say, I'm not fully convinced it's not the battery. I run two batteries in parallel in my 2500HD. Last year if it sat a couple of weeks, it would not crank over. Both batteries were new AGM's but one was bad and pulling the other one down with it.

If you can get one that has a current mode, (most do) we can isolate the problem. Without one, everything would just be guessing. I don't like guessing, wastes lots of time and money.

Back to my original question, do you have a multimeter? Ain't no way to look at a wire and see what the electrons are doing in it, so you need a meter to be able to tell what's going on. With a meter in the current mode, you can put it in line with each wire and see which one's drawing current and how much. Takes all the guessing out of it.

It's a very simple issue to trouble shoot, "IF" you know how to use a multimeter. If you have one and know the basics of how to use it, let me know and I can step you through how to trouble shoot it. Without knowing your capabilities, I would first suggest having the battery professionally tested. Anything more than that, requires a multimeter.

Just a little terminology correction. A capacitor and coil appear to pass AC voltage, but actually does not pass it. The charging and discharging of the plates/windings on one side causes the opposite side to charge and discharge at the same frequency and close to the same potential, but the AC does not actually pass through them. This happens to be one of the questions I used to ask my new technicians fresh out of tech school to see if they actually learned anything. What components appear to pass AC voltage while blocking DC? Actually a fluctuating DC will do the same thing as AC. That's how an ignition coils on a 12VDC system works.

I just ran two graphs, two days on my mower battery and it was down very little. You are probably looking at less than one amp each. Even at 2 amps, one of those small 20 amp hour batteries should run you six to eight hours running both sonars at the same time. Understand also, just because you are running a 36 volt system, each battery in the system is still just a 12V battery. As long as you connect the sonar to the negative and positive of the same battery, it's still just being connected to 12 volts. Just be sure it's the same battery. Now, if you are talking about one 36 volt battery, then no, it will smoke everything.

It's possible it may work flawlessly. It's also possible it may not work worth a darn. There are several possible problem areas. First one, running the graphs off the same battery as the TM. Depending on the TM and the graph you are running, there's always the chance of getting interference on the display caused by the TM. Second, there is the possibility the signals from two sonars on causing one or both sonars to receive both signals, causing a big mess on the display. I think it will just depend on how the planets are aligned when you use it. Like I said, may work picture book perfect, or may be totally useless. Since I don't fish and cut grass at the same time, it don't take five minutes for me to take the battery out of my mower and put it in the jon boat to run the sonars on.

Actually, to replace one, you usually have to replace both because normally, they are built into the same module. A little gee whiz info. If the tach quits working and it's not charging. That's usually the Stator or the rectifier. If the tach is working, but it's not charging, that's usually the regulator. If the voltage is too high, that's usually the regulator but a bad battery or bad connection can cause it to be high. A bad battery or one that will not fully charge will cause them to overheat and burn out. The worst thing you can do is jump one off (even in your car) and then expect the charging system to charge it.

DeepHaven, are you suggesting I might have a tendency to go a bit toward the extreme on my redneck engineering. I just like to make sure it's done right and I don't have to worry about it coming apart later. Also, tarps are temporary, the only last a few months. Flipping it over on the trailer, I don't have to worry about buying a new tarp every four or five months.

The best part about the whole setup, I was able to use the Toyota to tow it, 200 miles round trip to the lake and three thrips to and from the lake to where we were staying, another 40 miles, so 240 miles and still had almost a 1/4 tank of gas when I got home. This was towing at about 60mph. It has about a 15 gallon tank and the boat probably used two or three gallons. That would have been about 45 gallons of gas in my 2500HD and another 10 gallons in pontoon. One thing also, the Toyota has been somewhat modified for towing. I has a Crower Cam for a strong midrange power band, the head has been ported for max velocity, different injectors that are more efficient and the exhaust system swapped out to a larger exhaust, so it gets a little better milage than your average 93 4WD Toyota pickup.

Boat worked fine. This was the first time I've had a gps in it, 32.7 with it over loaded. Trolling motor did great, very low battery drain. The homemade rod holders did a good job. The fisherman operating everything totally failed. Everybody but me was catching fish. I never caught one Sunday trolling. This morning I did manage to catch five, but at least they were decent fish. The wind had pegged my fun meter, so I quit about 10:AM. They have a fish cleaning station so I cleaned them there. I weighed the cleaned, ready to cook fish when I got home and it was 78 ounces Oh, and the wife tapped out, decided that boat was a little smaller than she cared for. Which it was not the most stable thing to be in having to get up and move around in.

Somebody is being optimistic. Gathering up gear now, done about all I'm going to do to the boat for now. I just got another surprise, the wife is going also. She cares nothing about bass fishing but just sitting there watching a line in the water is just her kind of fishing, so we will see how that one goes.

That's the best way to store one of those things if you don't use them regular. Don't worry about finding it full of water where the leaves and trash have plugged the drain, or critters making beds in the foam under the seats and chewing on the wiring.

Looks like if I'm going within a week, it will be this Sun and Mon. Rains and bad weather move in Monday night and pretty much hangs around until next Saturday. Where I fish, much rain has a tendency to muddy the water fairly quickly. 50-amp Circuit breaker for TM and 12ga wire for wiring the electronics and accessories came Friday afternoon, so I can get it finished up today and have it ready for its maiden crappie trip by this afternoon. Wife won't know what to think if I go fishing and bring back some fish, provided I catch some. Bass fishing, I'm strictly catch and release so it's rare I bring fish home. WRB, the beers, I don't worry about cooler space for those. You can pour that crap back in the horse as far as I'm concerned. Alcoholism ran strong on my daddy's side of the family, and I always figured if I never took the first drink, I wouldn't have to worry about being an Alcoholic, plus, never could stand the taste of beer.

Been there, done that. I've been researching them for a few months now, going to most of the sites I can find.