That's right, I used Humminbird and awesome in the same sentence! Before you think I've been sniffin' resin fumes, listen up. This is -not- your Uncle’s Walmart blue-light special freshwater bass fish finder. This is one serious tool!
Humminbird has been making fishfinders for more than thirty years, and they just about invented the recreational sonar genre. These guys really know their multiple-transducer array technology.
I found a Humminbird 947C 3-D Combo unit at West Marine for half-price, as it was last year's closeout model. It is also a GPS chartplotter and I picked up Navionics Platinum for the chartplotter side, but was mainly interested in the 3-D depth contouring capability. If it performed even half as well as advertised, I would be satisfied. After all, things never really work as well as they show in the pictures on the box! I had no idea how awesome this unit would turn out to be. Here’s the Humminbird website photo of this units advertised capabilities.
We don't fish. For us it's all about diving, and we take it seriously. My Dad and I have been at it for forty years straight since 1967. My kids joined us about five years ago. We've got three generations in the water just about every weekend in the summer.
For divers, knowing where the best bottom structures are is key. You can save lots of time if you can “prequalify” a bottom before suiting up and committing to a dive. Over the years we have been using traditional 2D sonar units to interpret prospective dive sites. Finding a tool like this 3D sonar unit is a very important breakthrough for us.
The transducer unit was a bit awkward. Because it contains an internal array of six transducers, it is a formidable size. It has the same shape and is just a tad smaller than the Admiral's Rowenta Spray-Steam Iron! :shock:
I decided to mount it as a shoot-through hull unit in the bilge. For a transducer of this size, there really is only one spot in a 2520 bilge that will accommodate the installation. As you can see, I do not qualify for Megabyte’s Clean Bilge Club.
I was unsure what the 14 degree deadrise in the bilge of my 2520MV would do to the 3D image, so I decided to level the playing field by building a custom "shoe" under the transducer to counteract the deadrise. I used a can of plumbers putty to create a form around the location of the transducer in the bilge. I prepared the bilge by cleaning and wiping with Acetone.
Then I mixed a half-cup of standard-cure West System epoxy and poured it into the shoe mold. The mixture self-leveled and cured into a level base for the transducer which was then attached to the cured shoe with another thin coat of epoxy.
Don't worry, the plumbers putty was removed, and no bilge pump equipment was harmed in the filming of this sequence. :roll:
The unit has an optional paddlewheel speed and temp sensor that I attached to the transom on a piece of Mahogany that I glued to the transom with 5200.
Took the unit out today for a shakedown and it was Fantastic! The images are much better than I could have ever hoped for. There was no bottom "breakaway" up to WOT. :lol:
The image above shows a split screen with the traditional 2D image on the left, and the 3D image on the right. Unbelievable detail!
The technology works by taking the output from the six transducer array, including the data from the “overlap” cone area between each two adjacent transducers, and creating an 11-segment matrix frame of the area under the transducer.
Here is an area (above) that we have been traveling over for many years, but never noticed the very interesting cone-shaped and vertical structures on the bottom. You can be sure we will be back once the water warms up a bit to see what these items really are.
I mounted the Humminbird right next to my laptop chartplotter on the dash. The Navionics Platinum chartplotter built in to the Humminbird is a wonderful unit, but I still prefer the Garmin Blue Charts for their detail and presentation. I will use the Navionics as a backup, and of course to mark the location of any “interesting” bottom details.
Here is the split-screen with Navionics and the 3D sounder.
As a side-note, I discovered that the new version of Garmin MapSource software that came with my BlueChart version 9.0 does –not- support the use of a PC for real-time chartplotting.
Perhaps Garmin thought that PC use was cutting in to their sales of GPS units. I had to roll back to an earlier version of MapSource to enable real-time tracking with my BlueChart 9.0.
This is a fantastic tool for divers. Fisherman might also like the bottom detail if they are after a groundfish species, like fluke.
Humminbird has been making fishfinders for more than thirty years, and they just about invented the recreational sonar genre. These guys really know their multiple-transducer array technology.
I found a Humminbird 947C 3-D Combo unit at West Marine for half-price, as it was last year's closeout model. It is also a GPS chartplotter and I picked up Navionics Platinum for the chartplotter side, but was mainly interested in the 3-D depth contouring capability. If it performed even half as well as advertised, I would be satisfied. After all, things never really work as well as they show in the pictures on the box! I had no idea how awesome this unit would turn out to be. Here’s the Humminbird website photo of this units advertised capabilities.
We don't fish. For us it's all about diving, and we take it seriously. My Dad and I have been at it for forty years straight since 1967. My kids joined us about five years ago. We've got three generations in the water just about every weekend in the summer.
For divers, knowing where the best bottom structures are is key. You can save lots of time if you can “prequalify” a bottom before suiting up and committing to a dive. Over the years we have been using traditional 2D sonar units to interpret prospective dive sites. Finding a tool like this 3D sonar unit is a very important breakthrough for us.
The transducer unit was a bit awkward. Because it contains an internal array of six transducers, it is a formidable size. It has the same shape and is just a tad smaller than the Admiral's Rowenta Spray-Steam Iron! :shock:
I decided to mount it as a shoot-through hull unit in the bilge. For a transducer of this size, there really is only one spot in a 2520 bilge that will accommodate the installation. As you can see, I do not qualify for Megabyte’s Clean Bilge Club.
I was unsure what the 14 degree deadrise in the bilge of my 2520MV would do to the 3D image, so I decided to level the playing field by building a custom "shoe" under the transducer to counteract the deadrise. I used a can of plumbers putty to create a form around the location of the transducer in the bilge. I prepared the bilge by cleaning and wiping with Acetone.
Then I mixed a half-cup of standard-cure West System epoxy and poured it into the shoe mold. The mixture self-leveled and cured into a level base for the transducer which was then attached to the cured shoe with another thin coat of epoxy.
Don't worry, the plumbers putty was removed, and no bilge pump equipment was harmed in the filming of this sequence. :roll:
The unit has an optional paddlewheel speed and temp sensor that I attached to the transom on a piece of Mahogany that I glued to the transom with 5200.
Took the unit out today for a shakedown and it was Fantastic! The images are much better than I could have ever hoped for. There was no bottom "breakaway" up to WOT. :lol:
The image above shows a split screen with the traditional 2D image on the left, and the 3D image on the right. Unbelievable detail!
The technology works by taking the output from the six transducer array, including the data from the “overlap” cone area between each two adjacent transducers, and creating an 11-segment matrix frame of the area under the transducer.
Here is an area (above) that we have been traveling over for many years, but never noticed the very interesting cone-shaped and vertical structures on the bottom. You can be sure we will be back once the water warms up a bit to see what these items really are.
I mounted the Humminbird right next to my laptop chartplotter on the dash. The Navionics Platinum chartplotter built in to the Humminbird is a wonderful unit, but I still prefer the Garmin Blue Charts for their detail and presentation. I will use the Navionics as a backup, and of course to mark the location of any “interesting” bottom details.
Here is the split-screen with Navionics and the 3D sounder.
As a side-note, I discovered that the new version of Garmin MapSource software that came with my BlueChart version 9.0 does –not- support the use of a PC for real-time chartplotting.
Perhaps Garmin thought that PC use was cutting in to their sales of GPS units. I had to roll back to an earlier version of MapSource to enable real-time tracking with my BlueChart 9.0.
This is a fantastic tool for divers. Fisherman might also like the bottom detail if they are after a groundfish species, like fluke.
