Installing New Garmin Transducer

R

Rob & Karen

New member
My Garmin 498 suddenly quit reading depth a couple weeks ago. I bought a new transducer to install. The transducer has a plug that plugs in near the chartplotter it the cabin. Installing it requires taking apart the wire bundle (many wire ties) on the starboard side of the boat. It would be much easier if I could just cut the wire for the existing transducer in the starboard lazarette and splice in the new transducer. Has anyone done this? Does anyone see any obvious problems with the idea? I am going to call Garmin tomorrow to ask them about it but I thought I would check here as well. Thanks.

Rob
 
I just looked into this because I discovered that my kicker mount had pinched through one of my transducer wires :cry The word from several folks (including some trusted pros) was that it never really seems to work, or at least not long term (even with expert soldering). The people who told me this were not the same people I was going to be buying a new transducer from, so no bias that I know of. I gather it has something to do with the solder changing the impedance of the wire. I think it's "worse" with things like radar, but still not desirable on a transducer.

Not that a person couldn't try it on a broken wire (nothing to lose), but I definitely wouldn't cut one on purpose, after looking into it.

I decided to order a new transducer - this time I got an all-in-one vs. the separate "block" and paddlewheel ones. So I'll be doing the "wire feed" as well.

Sunbeam
 
Yes, it can be done, but as noted, it never seems to work quite right.

You might want to plug the transducer into the sounder and dangle it in the water to be sure it's a defective transducer before running the new wire in the boat.
 
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