Anyone have Side Image ? How did you clear motor ?

[MtnDew]

I have a 14' semi-v with a 15hp on the transom.. no jack plate. Looking at the length of these Side Image transducers from Lowrance and HBird.. they are pretty long and the signal needs to shoot left and right without hitting the motor.

I was wondering if anyone tried Side Image on a small boat?


If so, how did you mount it ?
Since our small boats rock and roll more then a big heavy bass boat, do you notice any image problems ?

thanks in advance.

 

[russ010]

I had it on a 1546 Xpress with no problems whatsoever.... the thing to realize is that you aren't going to hit the motor with the side imaging beam... those beams don't shoot out 180*, the coverage will actually go under the shaft of the motor.

And for reference, rule of thumb for side imaging is 2-3x your depth for best image quality

 

[MtnDew]

Hi Russ,

Not sure I understand your comment about "2-3x your depth for best image quality" .. what should be 2-3x your depth ?

 

[shawnfish]

Hi Russ,

Not sure I understand your comment about "2-3x your depth for best image quality" .. what should be 2-3x your depth ?

i beleive he may mean if ur in 10 ft of water you wanna set the SI to look only 30ft to each side. and hes right, you will get alot better resolution. i have mine set to scan 75ft each way and get really good resolution in all depths. theres tricks to it, chart speed combined with boat speed is very important, if ur going to fast and the chart speed set to slow or vice versa i dont care what you adjust you will not get the best possible resolution. that along with not staying in as straight of line as possible is the biggest factors that affect resolution. adjusting contrast,sensitivity,color pallette etc... will get you know where fast if you dont do what was stated above first...

 

[RivRunR]

SI transducers on a tin boat usually take a lot of trial-and-error mounting adjustments, I know mine did. In fact, I finally went with a separate 2D transducer and a Y cable on my Hbird.

Anyway, first thing you'll probably want to do is mount a transducer board, so you're not re-drilling holes in the boat every time you want to move the transducer.
I made my board out of starboard, but a cutting board from WalMart works too.

After that, you'll just want to follow the manufacturer's install instructions as closely as possible for the way your boat is set up, and make adjustments after on the water tests. One thing to remember in relation to mounting the transducer to be level (or "x" clicks off of level if that's what it calls for) is that level on the trailer isn't necessarily level on the water. My boat sits level on the trailer, but when using SI (at 6 mph or less), I'm not on plane, and the boat is riding stern heavy.

If you've got a Humminbird, this Hbird Side Imaging Forum has a lot of good install threads, with pics.

 

[shallowminedid]

so with this si. my river is 4 ft deep. so i would only be able to see sideways 12 feet? a pair of dollar tree shades do that too. or would i still be able to see say 50 feet away

 

[russ010]

Hi Russ,

Not sure I understand your comment about "2-3x your depth for best image quality" .. what should be 2-3x your depth ?

i beleive he may mean if ur in 10 ft of water you wanna set the SI to look only 30ft to each side. and hes right, you will get alot better resolution. i have mine set to scan 75ft each way and get really good resolution in all depths. theres tricks to it, chart speed combined with boat speed is very important, if ur going to fast and the chart speed set to slow or vice versa i dont care what you adjust you will not get the best possible resolution. that along with not staying in as straight of line as possible is the biggest factors that affect resolution. adjusting contrast,sensitivity,color pallette etc... will get you know where fast if you dont do what was stated above first...

Shawn - are you using Lowrance or Humminbird? I too keep mine set around 75' for sidescan when I'm in 20' or less. I usually stay in 12-20' zones year round too.

As far as a 4' river.. well, you can scan out as far as you want - but you won't be able to see much detail on a small screen. I've got 8" screens on my fish finders, and when I get to that depth, I just switch over to down imaging or only have left scan or right scan on independently. I think I usually get around 20' out to one side when I do it like that. You can go out further, but it may not be quite as clear as if you were in a little deeper water.

 

[shawnfish]

Hi Russ,

Not sure I understand your comment about "2-3x your depth for best image quality" .. what should be 2-3x your depth ?

i beleive he may mean if ur in 10 ft of water you wanna set the SI to look only 30ft to each side. and hes right, you will get alot better resolution. i have mine set to scan 75ft each way and get really good resolution in all depths. theres tricks to it, chart speed combined with boat speed is very important, if ur going to fast and the chart speed set to slow or vice versa i dont care what you adjust you will not get the best possible resolution. that along with not staying in as straight of line as possible is the biggest factors that affect resolution. adjusting contrast,sensitivity,color pallette etc... will get you know where fast if you dont do what was stated above first...

Shawn - are you using Lowrance or Humminbird? I too keep mine set around 75' for sidescan when I'm in 20' or less. I usually stay in 12-20' zones year round too.

As far as a 4' river.. well, you can scan out as far as you want - but you won't be able to see much detail on a small screen. I've got 8" screens on my fish finders, and when I get to that depth, I just switch over to down imaging or only have left scan or right scan on independently. I think I usually get around 20' out to one side when I do it like that. You can go out further, but it may not be quite as clear as if you were in a little deeper water.

im using HB 798 and 898

 

[MtnDew]

Thanks for all the info.

I measure last night and the gap between the transom and leading edge of the motor is 5". If I put the transducer all the way to the starboard side it would be about 20" to the right of the motor.

So given that the Lowrance LSS2 transcuder is 10" long, half of it would stick out past the motor and I have to believe that would cause some SI issues. The HBird ducer is 6" long so that seem like it would have a better chance.



I did notice that I have rows of rivets along the bottom of the hull and a line along the trailing edge.. hopefully these won't cause to much turbulence and interfere with the SI and DI images. ???

 

[russ010]

you can put the transducer anywhere, but I would suggest you put it between the ribs on the bottom of the boat so that you don't catch turbulence... do you have trim on your big motor to not pick up the side scan, if so you can trim it up just a bit at slow speeds to get around it. I didn't know you had the 10" behemoth transducer - I've only had experience with the 6" and never had any problems with it picking up any motors or trolling motors

One other thing - make sure you mount it a little lower than the 2d transducer or you will pick it up

 

[redbug]

Yhe new hds gen 2 transducers are huge I will be mounting mine on my jack plate that is where they say to mount it