Transducer Choice for a Lowrance Gen 3 HDS7 Touch

Started by Keta, August 15, 2018, 01:44:07 PM

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Keta

I did a trade for work and ended up with a little used Lowrance Gen 3 HDS with a "Searchlite" transducer and 3G Broadband radar.  I need a transducer that is good to 1000' with chirp.  I need good returns from 400-700 feet but also want to use it in 50-200 feet.  Any suggestions? 

I am a Garmin person but have several Lowrance sonars and chartplotters from installing new electronics on others boats so I can deal with their BS menus, and actually sort of like the "Pages".
Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

boon

Wrong tool for the job unfortunately. The answer for picking up fish in 1000ft is the TM275LH-W but it's a 1kw transducer and the HDS7 Gen3 only outputs 500w. You will still get reasonable performance but the TM275 is a very expensive transducer and it would be a shame not to use to to its full potential. HDS Carbon will do 1kw; weirdly enough I don't think Lowrance even does an external brick that will output 1kw.

Simrad (part of Navico, who also do Lowrance) do the S5100 module which does CHIRP at up to 3kw output, but it costs more than just buying an HDS Carbon instead, and then you could network that to the HDS7 Gen3 and have 2 screens, and I'm not even certain that the Lowrance display would work with the Simrad module.

The very distant second place, but it will just plug in and work, is the TM150, or you could get the Totalscan skimmer which will have worse deep-water performance but be far superior in shallow water, and let you use all the down/side/blahscan. You can do all of these with the searchlite trolling motor transducer but I believe these are much more intended for very shallow lake use with extremely broad coverage.

It really depends what your main use case will be. If 90% of your fishing is in that 50-200ft range I would probably put the Totalscan skimmer on it and either put up with the poor performance in deep, deep water, or buy a used Furuno FCV585 or FCV587 and the trusty old TM258 or TM260 1kw transducers for deep water fishing.


Keta

I live on a fixed income so new electronics is out of the question. 

I have a Gen 1 StructureScan Skimmer and in my pile of used electronics that I planed on using for kokanee fishing on my 14' boat but I want good returns at 500'-600' for halibut fishing, 600' max would be OK.  I would like a machine that performed like a modern version of my 80's vintage Raytheon V-7000, it is very large and needs a transducer replacement  but it still works. My pre CHIRP Garmin does this but I would like to have 1 unit for the radar, chart plotter and sonar on the 21' boat.  If I still had the 28' Tollycraft I could run 2 units but there is not much room on the 21'.

I have less than 10 hours time invested into 2 HDS Gen1 units and the HDS 7 Gen3 w/radar.  I won the Gen HDS  5S in a OTC raffle and did boat wiring jobs for the HDS 5 Chartplotter and the HDS 7.

I wish I knew someone with a "extra" newer Garmin electronics that needs some boat wiring and wants to trade.  ;D
Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Keta

Hi, my name is Lee and I have a fishing gear problem.

I have all of the answers, yup, no, maybe.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

Darin Crofton

Keta, I have a TotalScan Unit brand new you can have, It came in a package with a gen 3 and I didn't use it. Let me know if you want it and I'll get it sent out this week? Darin
God, Family and Fishing, what else is there?