Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

How about taking a 6 pin garmin in hull bronze transducer with speed, temp, depth and matching it to a Lowrance X52, X102C head, considering I have the pinouts of both items?

Do people mix and match these things?

this is the transducer
https://www.gps4us.com/GARMIN-Thru-...ith-Depth-Temp-and-Speed--P1741.html#products

the Lowrance head is this pinout

lowrance pinouts and discussion on transducers
http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/Lowrance_LCX-27C
http://www.walleyecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151493

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

Sure, they miss match all the time. Garmin and Lowrance use the same OEM and the same transducer bodies for 90% of their transducers, only the pinouts are different.

The transducer is question requires 600W RMS unit. The X52 has 188W RMS head and the X102 has 500W. You could take the money for the transducer and buy a modern FF that would perform just as well, if not better than the your present plan.

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

i got that transducer for $49 and eventually plan to put it in the hull.
I know how much those stupid transducers cost, so I think It was a good deal. I would have refused to pay their price.
It is a 37 egg harbor cruiser, inboard motors. Being inboard, I have read, means transom mount too much turbulence from the props.

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

how does the wattage come into play, has it to do with depth, sensitivity to objects in the water column?

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

The power plays into both the depth and sensitivity. The X52 connected to that transducer would be useless. The X102C would be marginal. Personality, I would take the money you saved on the transducer and put it towards a newer 600W head unit. You can pick up some of the older, top end stuff for next to nothing anymore. The Sitex CVS106 and the Furuno 4100 come to mind.

Here is the OEM brochure on that transducerhttp://www.airmartechnology.com/uploads/brochures/B744VL.pdf

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

well dont want to waste money buying something that wont work very well.

the x52 says 1,500 W peak-to-peak (188 W RMS) power
x102c says 2400 W peak to peak

what is the diff between peak to peak and RMS wattage? I suppose the B744VL listing 600 W is RMS power.

for example this website lists compatable Garmin units and says the Garmin 140 will work with it
https://www.gps4us.com/GARMIN-Thru-...ith-Depth-Temp-and-Speed--P1741.html#products
Garmin 140 has Power output: 100 watts (RMS), 800 watts (peak to peak)
https://www.gps4us.com/GARMIN-Fishfinder-140--P612.html#info

So Garmin 140, which has a lower RMS will supposedly work, so mostly dont know what to think now regarding the wattage.

here is what I won. It is like brand new not even installed yet. I will need to make a fairing

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

looking more into this, the wattage seems to be this, dont drive a transducer with more power than it was designed for, or it cavitates, etc...

http://www.sailingtalks.com/forums/showthread.php?24729-Depth-Sounder-Transducer-Compatability

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

To overly simplify things, Peak to peak and RMS are like measuring temperature using Fahrenheit and Celsius. Two different measurements to express the same thing. The difference between peak to peak and RMS is a roughly a factor of 8

quote]looking more into this, the wattage seems to be this, dont drive a transducer with more power than it was designed for, or it cavitates, etc...[/quote]
Overdriving isn?t your problem. You underdriving the transducer. The transducer in question is designed for 600W RMS or 4800W Peak to Peak. Your proposing to use 1/3 of the power

Yes, it will ?work?. But it?s like buying a 1,000,000 candle light halagen spot light then putting a flashlight bulb in it. It will provide light, but you can?t see nearly as far (depth) and all you see is shadows (sensitivity) once you get a couple more than a couple of feet away.

BTW: Have you looked into the cost of a fairing block? They are not cheap.

Re: Fishfinders Use Head Unit With Other Make of Transducer

going to make my own block out of mahogany.
take 2 flat pieces, first piece cut out the tear shaped hole using jigsaw
attach to second piece, this forms the inset and overall fairing piece
shave grind outside to desired shape
then cut bevel angle to fit to hull.

Currently the boat is in the water. I was thinking of shooting thru the hull temporarily. Read some posts where this worked for some folks.
The boat has 3 in hull transducers, only one is working for sure and that is an apelco 350 triducer and head unit with speed, temp, depth.
The other 2 are bronze tear drop shaped older but large ducers with coax cables for depth only. One of the cables is good, the other maybe copper shield eaten inside. Only way to test them is to try and use them. I have 2 other fish finders, an old sitex-honda depth only which clicks transducers (you can hear when put to ear, used to work on the other ducer) but does not give meaningful numbers anymore and an Eagle 128 which powers on but always says no transducer present (starts in demo mode)
I think the sitex-honda is not working.
The eagle 128 may work, but maybe does not like my ducers. Manual says if it does not detect a transducer it enters demo simulation mode, and that is what it does.
I thought of hooking up a speaker to see if you can hear a ping click.
I am sort of leaning towards buying a Garmin just so wont have to mess with the plugs.