TomS
Well-Known Member
We don't do much navigating on our little lake, but my eyes desperately needed a bigger screen and a bit of color wouldn't hurt either. I wanted a better depth finder and the ability to mark certain spots for reference. I also plan to install a Mercury Smartcraft to NMEA 2000 gateway to pipe the Verado engine data onto the Garmin's VGA screen. Garmin just introduced the 527 and 547 charplotter/sounders which are a faster than the old ones so I decided to give the new 547XS a try. I think it was Carl who said something about "cutting into a perfectly good dash" and now I know that feeling since my boat doesn't even have 10 hours yet. I just took my time with a small hand saw and it went fine, about 30 minutes work.
They sent a P66 Tri-Ducer since the Echo 100 and cable are not compatible with this device at all. It is an 8 pin connection end to end. I studied the boat on the lift for an hour and for the life of me can't figure out how I'm going to get the cable pulled from the transducer to the console. It's totally covered underneath bow to stern other than just outside some of the crossmembers under the rubrail. Even that is blocked by a riveted "L" angle next to the console where the harness passes through. Ideally I could use the old one as a pulling cable but I fear the 2 right angles somewhere crossing underneath and the fat connector would hang it up. :unsure: I have a fish tape, so I'll take a fresh look again tomorrow for some solutions.
For now I have a transducer cable running along the floor to the back just for testing and it seems to work just fine. Now I need to get creative as it's not coming out of the water until fall.
They sent a P66 Tri-Ducer since the Echo 100 and cable are not compatible with this device at all. It is an 8 pin connection end to end. I studied the boat on the lift for an hour and for the life of me can't figure out how I'm going to get the cable pulled from the transducer to the console. It's totally covered underneath bow to stern other than just outside some of the crossmembers under the rubrail. Even that is blocked by a riveted "L" angle next to the console where the harness passes through. Ideally I could use the old one as a pulling cable but I fear the 2 right angles somewhere crossing underneath and the fat connector would hang it up. :unsure: I have a fish tape, so I'll take a fresh look again tomorrow for some solutions.
For now I have a transducer cable running along the floor to the back just for testing and it seems to work just fine. Now I need to get creative as it's not coming out of the water until fall.