Showing posts with label Garmin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garmin. Show all posts
Friday, 11 September 2015
Installing the Garmin GSD 26
It's large, heavy, and packed with high resolution analog to digital converters, and a dual core digital signal processor (DSP) system. Although installation is fairly straight forward, there are some nuances you need to deal with when wiring the broadband transducer into the box, as I have learned.
The sounder module is heavy enough, that you need to pay attention to how you mount it. In this case the module is attached to the inside wall of a center console boat. At best I can get slightly more than 1/2" of screw depth into the wall, without popping through to the other side. It could have been through bolted with finish washers used on the console exterior, but in this case, there was a well attached piece of Starboard being used to to hold the battery switches. I set the bottom of the module edge on this to reduce the vertical screw loading that will come from pounding in rough seas.
Here's the catch. When the transducer arrived, the sheath had been neatly trimmed back leaving the exposed wiring for hook up. The wiring is all color coded, but there are four shield wires you have to connect.
Inside the big wire, there are actually three separate bundles of wiring, each wrapped in blue foil. For example the low chirp bundle has a blue/white wire, black/white wire, and a bare shield wire. You have to connect the shield wire for each wire bundle in the right location. In order to identify each bundle, I had to cut off an extra inch of the cable sheath to see each bundle still wrapped in the foil. Once you do this, the rest of the hook up is a piece of cake. There is also an outer shield wire that you connect to a grounding screw below the blocks.
One of the bundles contains an orange wire (XID), brown wire (GND), and a shield. These connect to either one of the two identical blocks on the right, or left side. Since this is an inhull transducer unit we are not using the temperature, or speed connections.
Now for the transducer. This is an inhull R599LH 25 element, 3000W beast, and at about 6" x 15" it's large. The tank has to be cut to fit the dead rise angle of the hull so the transducer is pointing straight down, and then epoxied to the base of the hull. As a small side note, this unit is for solid hulls, if you have a cored hull, all of the core must be removed so the sounder is just chirping through solid fiberglass only. Also tap on the gelcoat in the transducer area to identify any de-laminated gelcoat, and grind these areas out if you find them.
Because of the size of the tank, and the rounded corners, this has to be carefully done. In a perfect world, you could use a table saw to do the side cuts, but this requires some jigging of the saw because of the tank's top flange, and most likely, your saw won't get to the half way point, and a jig saw, or the ilk will be needed to finish the cuts. I did this one insitu with a jig saw. You have to do this carefully especially at the corners. A belt sander cleaned up the small deficiencies of my cut. This is an expensive box, so do this right the first time.
The tank epoxies to the hull using a 14 ounce Marine Tex putty kit you can buy at West Marine. It gives you an honest 30 minutes working time in moderate temperatures. Do the normal prep work on the hull surfaces, and have some extra popsicle sticks, you just get one with the kit. Don't leave big epoxy blobs on the hull bottom that the transducer is going to look through. If the deadrise angle is steep, and this one was, have something figured out in advance like tape, or a wedge to keep the tank from sliding down hill. Give the epoxy a full 24 hours to fully cure.
The tank actually has a foam layer inside of it, and a cork layer has to be cut to fit inside the tank to provide additional sound insulation. Do this before you install the tank, it will make your life much easier.
It's transducer time. Fill the tank, but not completely, with non-toxic antifreeze. In this case it took a little more than a gallon. You know you have enough liquid when some antifreeze pours out of the housing when you drop the transducer into the tank. It is important that the tank be completely filled. The transducer generates heat, and the liquid helps to transfer the heat. Attach the bolts and fill hole fittings, clean up and check for leaks. If all is good you can crawl out of the hole, stretch, and take a short break.
All in all the transducer install isn't that difficult, but the scale is substantial, and I think the transducer alone with its mounting plate weighs about 20+ pounds. A few other items to keep in mind. The GSD 26 comes with a software upgrade chip, but it may be necessary, and in this case it was, to do a fresh latest version software download and system update. I would just do this anyway out of principle. The software attached to the GSD 26 is sophisticated, and offers a lot of control and flexibility. We had just started up the system dockside, and the first thing we saw was a crab crawling under the boat on the bottom. The target resolution is staggering.
I'm almost finished with a guide to buying the right broadband transducer for your boat, whether you fish deep off shore, or in shallower coastal waters. I will cover both inhull, and through hull units, and will give you the tools you need to decide what's the optimum for your boat. These are large and expensive units, and you need to get it right the first time. There will also be lots of screen shots from both the eight element B265LH (1000W) and the 25 element R599LH (3000W) units.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Raymarine or Garmin I cant decide!
There is always a way. In this case the client has best of both worlds. A Garmin 5212, and a Raymarine E=120. How can you lose, or get lost.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Installing the Garmin GSD 24 sounder module
This is the first opportunity I have had to see or install the shiny new GSD 24 Garmin sounder module. This model is replacing the venerable GSD 22 which has been around for a few years now. Before you buy the GSD 24 check first for compatibility if you are planning on using your boat's existing transducer.
Lets start off with what you get in the box. The first thing I noticed is the new GSD 24 is larger, and notably heavier than its predecessor. You get almost everything you need to install the unit, including update software which most will need, a marine network cable, and what I will just call the "Magic Box."
Lets start off with what you get in the box. The first thing I noticed is the new GSD 24 is larger, and notably heavier than its predecessor. You get almost everything you need to install the unit, including update software which most will need, a marine network cable, and what I will just call the "Magic Box."
Magic box is the right word, because it allows you to use most, but not all Airmar transducers already installed on your boat, by cutting off the connector, and connecting the wiring onto terminals inside the box. In my case the existing transducer was a Northstar transducer, which loosely translates to an Airmar 744V with a Northstar connector on the end.
The process is straight forward. Start first by identifying your transducer. Airmar placed a tag, and it's a sturdy one, on the wire either up by the connector, or down near the transducer that at the minimum will have a part number. If the actual model number is not on the tag, (In this case the model number is a Triducer B744VL) you can go to Airmar's website and search for the part number. If the tag is missing, check with the old sounder module manufacturer for a list of compatible transducers to narrow the search, or call the boat builder if it was original equipment installed on the boat. Now if any of that didn't work, call Garmin, and or Airmar, and get some advice. Airmar did make a handful of transducers with special features for some manufacturers, that also may, or may not work. In this category are all Raymarine transducers which use a special sense feature. These units are not compatible. Some smaller Lowrance, and Hummingbird transducers are not compatible, along with all side scan transducers. The good news for most users is you will not have any problems.
Without trepidation, lop off the connector, and strip the wiring back about 5". The manual says 3 1/2 inches, but since you're going to strip the wires after you pass them into the box, don't stint, cutting them too short makes them harder to work with, and there is lots of room for them in the little box. There are two pass through fittings, well in my case three. Two smaller, but identical ones you see in the picture, and a third, and larger one installed on the little box. I will save you some effort right up front, the larger dual (Siamese) Airmar cables, will only pass through the larger fitting. Strip off a fat 1/4" of the sheath, and terminate the wires on the block following the wire color tables in the instructions. The wire color tables are not numbered, but are in the correct 1 though 8 order. Another small note is with the Airmar 744vV transducer you will have two bare wires. Twist them together and they both will go to terminal 3 in the magic box. Seal the magic box up, plug it into the module and you're done.
One of my personal gripes with both the new GSD 24, and the Raymarine DSM300 modules is they use a slotted hole mounting feature that pushes you to mount the unit with the cables hanging down from the units. What happens is that in many cases if the status light is facing down, it can be very difficult to see the light's indications. I wish that both of these modules just had round fastener holes in them that easily allowed mounting in any orientation. The provided mounting screws are overly long, and you will probably have to replace them with much shorter ones. The other small screw you see in the picture is the ground for the shields (bare wires) in the transducer cable. Use it.
With the box in place, hopefully with an easily visible status LED, the rest is plug and play. The power cable gets wired, the magic box plugs into the XDCR connector, and the marine network cable goes to an available MFD network plug.
One last step to go now. Turn on your Garmin gear, and take the provided software upgrade chip, and upgrade the system. Once that's done, switch to the sounder page, and prepare to be be amazed. The image is stunning, and the detail is the best of any non-chirping system I have personally seen to date. I don't typically do product testing and reviews, and I'm not starting today. If you would like to see some really good screen shots of the GSD 24 being contrasted with the GSD 22, there is a really good slide show at Spearfish Planet. The improvements in the GSD 24 over the GSD 22 are substantial indeed.
The process is straight forward. Start first by identifying your transducer. Airmar placed a tag, and it's a sturdy one, on the wire either up by the connector, or down near the transducer that at the minimum will have a part number. If the actual model number is not on the tag, (In this case the model number is a Triducer B744VL) you can go to Airmar's website and search for the part number. If the tag is missing, check with the old sounder module manufacturer for a list of compatible transducers to narrow the search, or call the boat builder if it was original equipment installed on the boat. Now if any of that didn't work, call Garmin, and or Airmar, and get some advice. Airmar did make a handful of transducers with special features for some manufacturers, that also may, or may not work. In this category are all Raymarine transducers which use a special sense feature. These units are not compatible. Some smaller Lowrance, and Hummingbird transducers are not compatible, along with all side scan transducers. The good news for most users is you will not have any problems.
Without trepidation, lop off the connector, and strip the wiring back about 5". The manual says 3 1/2 inches, but since you're going to strip the wires after you pass them into the box, don't stint, cutting them too short makes them harder to work with, and there is lots of room for them in the little box. There are two pass through fittings, well in my case three. Two smaller, but identical ones you see in the picture, and a third, and larger one installed on the little box. I will save you some effort right up front, the larger dual (Siamese) Airmar cables, will only pass through the larger fitting. Strip off a fat 1/4" of the sheath, and terminate the wires on the block following the wire color tables in the instructions. The wire color tables are not numbered, but are in the correct 1 though 8 order. Another small note is with the Airmar 744vV transducer you will have two bare wires. Twist them together and they both will go to terminal 3 in the magic box. Seal the magic box up, plug it into the module and you're done.
One of my personal gripes with both the new GSD 24, and the Raymarine DSM300 modules is they use a slotted hole mounting feature that pushes you to mount the unit with the cables hanging down from the units. What happens is that in many cases if the status light is facing down, it can be very difficult to see the light's indications. I wish that both of these modules just had round fastener holes in them that easily allowed mounting in any orientation. The provided mounting screws are overly long, and you will probably have to replace them with much shorter ones. The other small screw you see in the picture is the ground for the shields (bare wires) in the transducer cable. Use it.
With the box in place, hopefully with an easily visible status LED, the rest is plug and play. The power cable gets wired, the magic box plugs into the XDCR connector, and the marine network cable goes to an available MFD network plug.
One last step to go now. Turn on your Garmin gear, and take the provided software upgrade chip, and upgrade the system. Once that's done, switch to the sounder page, and prepare to be be amazed. The image is stunning, and the detail is the best of any non-chirping system I have personally seen to date. I don't typically do product testing and reviews, and I'm not starting today. If you would like to see some really good screen shots of the GSD 24 being contrasted with the GSD 22, there is a really good slide show at Spearfish Planet. The improvements in the GSD 24 over the GSD 22 are substantial indeed.
Excellent job Garmin. And for Jim, it was worth the wait, you will love it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
