I never got around to posting pics of my modded fish finder. Here they are! I took ideas from lots of different posts and tried to make this as "low budget" as possible. Heres the info: Lowrance x4 fish finder, got it on sale from ebay for like $60. A 10 pack AA battery holder for $1.53, a 9v style connector for like $.75, a glad tupperware container for like $.33, a few aluminum pieces from the hardware store along with a couple of nuts and bolts for under $6 and a high end suction cup from McMaster carr for $9 and a clamp i took off one of my shoplights with a bunch of black tape to hold it in place.

Thank you to everyone whos posts contributed to my project.

Looks good. Did you field test it yet? If so what was the battery life? ~JOE~

Looks like a winner! You can choose to display how many volts you have left on the x-4. I have the same one and if your battery setup works I would love to ditch my big battery.

quote joetrain: "Looks good. Did you field test it yet? If so what was the battery life? ~JOE~
"

Only enough to power it up and play around a bit so no real idea on bat life. I will do one soon and post results.

quote DeanL: "Looks like a winner! You can choose to display how many volts you have left on the x-4. I have the same one and if your battery setup works I would love to ditch my big battery."

Im real happy with this fish finder! It was important for me to be able to do it with AA batts. I plan to use lithium ultimates when I go back to bwca to save a bit on weight and get more life.

I will do a run with it soon and see how much time I get out of the fresh alkalines that I have in there and then compare it to the lithiums for the next run.

Is the 3 amp fuse attached to the red wire? I am sure it is there, just cant see it.

quote YumDinger: "Is the 3 amp fuse attached to the red wire? I am sure it is there, just cant see it. "

It isnt in this shot, but yes it is on the other end of the line. I had taken it apart because I am going to make better connections etc. But the fuse mounts right in line on the red wire between the battery pack and the wire that plugs into the back of the unit.

I am looking at a more suitable mount besides black tape, so I will be making some mods over the winter. Also going to read up on how to shorten the transducer cable. I haven't been brave enough to try that yet.

Just wrap the wire and zip tie it to something...what if you "need" the reach some day?

drglock-
Tell me about the arm between the suction cup and the transducer. I've got my 'ducer right on the cup; do you stick the cup on the canoe above the water line? Just wondering as I am always looking to improve mine.

Looks really good.

Why use the suction cup with the extension? I just let my transducer sit on the floor and shoot through the hull. Is there advantage to the suction cup mount?

T

quote timatkn: "Looks really good.


Why use the suction cup with the extension? I just let my transducer sit on the floor and shoot through the hull. Is there advantage to the suction cup mount?


T"

+1 on this. I have alwasy found it best to just shoot through the hull -- no water resistance. The only hulls that won't work well are Royalex, and some Kevlar that have a foam core.

Thanks for posting, that looks great. I remember your post from before. I also just finished nearly the same project:





Field testing yielded 8 hours of use on 10 Lithium AAs. I slotted the "dashboard" so that it may be mounted on the multiple canoes that we rent out while tripping. My home canoe is Royalex, and shooting through the hull is poor, so I'm sticking with the suction cup for now. I like the piece of aluminum idea for decreasing resistance, but I'm a little too close to departure to add that mod on for now.
A ruler on the dashboard: the veritable kiss of death on catching big fish.
This entire project was also completed mostly from ideas and threads on this web site, so thank you all from me as well!

quote lundojam: "drglock-
Tell me about the arm between the suction cup and the transducer. I've got my 'ducer right on the cup; do you stick the cup on the canoe above the water line? Just wondering as I am always looking to improve mine."

I chose to do it this way based on some other threads I saw. I didn't want to get out there and find out it wouldn't shoot through the hull properly. Also thought setting it in the bottom of the canoe at the proper angle could be tricky, getting bumped around etc.

I placed the suction cup just above the waterline. The trans is mounted at the bottom with a wingnut so i can adjust the angle easily if necessary.

I was also on a short time line to get this done for my trip so I just went to the hardware store and found what i could that looked like it would work. There are lots of ways to do accomplish this i imagine. This worked for me and gave me a little project to do.

quote timatkn: "Looks really good.


Why use the suction cup with the extension? I just let my transducer sit on the floor and shoot through the hull. Is there advantage to the suction cup mount?


T"

I dont know if there is any advantage or not. My reason was that I was renting a canoe and I didn;t want to find out once on the water that it wouldn't work shooting through the hull, so this was very easy and cheap to accomplish and I knew it would work. It doesnt produce much resistance since it is pretty thin metal. Next year i will try shooting thru the hull and see if it works for me, i guess some people use a foam ring to keep it stable?

quote MeatGun: "Thanks for posting, that looks great. I remember your post from before. I also just finished nearly the same project:







Field testing yielded 8 hours of use on 10 Lithium AAs. I slotted the "dashboard" so that it may be mounted on the multiple canoes that we rent out while tripping. My home canoe is Royalex, and shooting through the hull is poor, so I'm sticking with the suction cup for now. I like the piece of aluminum idea for decreasing resistance, but I'm a little too close to departure to add that mod on for now.
A ruler on the dashboard: the veritable kiss of death on catching big fish.
This entire project was also completed mostly from ideas and threads on this web site, so thank you all from me as well!"

Nice looking set up! In the eventuality that I get my own canoe I am looking forward to making my own "command center" with pole holder and more properly mounted gear :)

quote drglock: "

quote timatkn: "Looks really good.



Why use the suction cup with the extension? I just let my transducer sit on the floor and shoot through the hull. Is there advantage to the suction cup mount?



T"

I dont know if there is any advantage or not. My reason was that I was renting a canoe and I didn;t want to find out once on the water that it wouldn't work shooting through the hull, so this was very easy and cheap to accomplish and I knew it would work. It doesnt produce much resistance since it is pretty thin metal. Next year i will try shooting thru the hull and see if it works for me, i guess some people use a foam ring to keep it stable?"

Makes sense, I thought maybe the transducer got a better reading or something.

I tried the foam thing on my own canoe and got rid of it. I just let it sit on the bottom of the canoe and it seems to work fine. I am not very mechanical though :)

T

Cool. I get some resistance and some noise from the suction cup in the water; I bet it would be lessened with that arm. I'm going to try it. I've got Royalex, so it sounds like through-hull is a no-go.

Haa haa cool beans, I love the Rube Goldberg inventions you have to do to a canoe when you fish seriously and are...frugal. :D

Some things come to mind:

1) That arm looks way too long, I'd shorten it by half. It may not seem like it, but drag is the enemy. And that long an arm will definitely drag enough to feel it. Which to me is too much. You just need to keep the 'Ducer in the water constantly. Don't worry about adjusting angles, you don't travel fast enough to worry about it! (Just because the transducer is not at a perfect right angle is NOT going to fudge your sonar picture, you can try and experiment when you get bored moving the arm forward & back, your depth won't change.)

2) I'm a fan of the self contained unit. Most of the online mountings you'll find are related to kayak fishing. Well you don't have the mounting limitations of a kayak, so use all that free floor space! I've bodged together a few different sonar graph setups, and have settled on ones that can all be packed into a single box for storage and ports. I screw the head unit base onto the top of an old cheap tackle box, and more recently a waterproof plastic ammo box. When I am not using it, everything gets stored in there, battery, arm, 'Ducer, wires, head unit. Just much more clean without wires, battery packs and whatnot cluttering up the bottom of the boat.







Hard to see, but my waterproof ammo box setup is on the floor between my feet in my current setup.

Problem a friend had with the long extension below the suction cup was the transducer would flow back with the current. He used two suction cups and the transducer stayed straight down.