NorthWest Kayak Anglers
Kayak Fishing => Drillin' & Cuttin' => Topic started by: Captain Redbeard on May 18, 2021, 11:09:39 AM
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I found a few references to similar solutions online but no pictures, and so I thought I could add to the conversation for someone else.
Lowrance and I are seeing other people (it's complicated), and I wanted to outfit my wife's 2016 Hobie Outback LE with her first fish finder. I felt the Garmin Striker 4 was a good value, so that's the direction I went.
After a little research it looked like there were a few aftermarket options for a new transducer plate that would accommodate the Garmin hardware but I wasn't convinced it was necessary, so I bought some small angle aluminum and used some stainless steel hardware and plastic to make the adaptor pictured below.
The gray plastic is a piece of solid plastic rod that I cut to fit and then drilled out for the bolt. (You could also use nuts to preserve the spacing.) I cut the aluminum on my miter saw and used the bench sander for the edge shaping. The most difficult part was just fitting it in the tight space allotted under the Outback and getting the right amount of washers to space everything out correctly. Notice that I had to cut the front bolt short to fit it in the cavity.
The first on-the-water test was successful and everything seems to work with no problems. I already had the stainless nuts and bolts and plastic left over from other projects, so the cost to me was a piece of angle aluminum from Home Depot.
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Nice, never thought to use those gray rods that come with the new Hobies for that (they are used to tether the drive to the boat for shipping. I've always kept a couple (I work at a dealer) figuring that they'd be useful for something, now I know!
Kevin
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Nice, never thought to use those gray rods that come with the new Hobies for that (they are used to tether the drive to the boat for shipping. I've always kept a couple (I work at a dealer) figuring that they'd be useful for something, now I know!
Kevin
Haha that's awesome, I was wondering where that came from.
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I went with a bit more simplistic adapter for my solution back in 2016 when mounting my Striker 4dv transducer. Same result though in the end. Your solution is more impervious to the elements for sure.
https://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=18361.0
I run the 4dv when on lakes but put a 5dv on the boat when running in saltwater for the extra signal power and resolution. They are both compatible with this particular transducer. I do find that the transducer pod area still collects sand and gravel in it that needs to be flushed out or shaken out now and then.
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I actually bought an EchoMap and returned it because I did not want to go through the installation modifications. I was being lazy. :laugh: :laugh:
I didn't have a vise at the time and didn't want to buy one to make the modifications to the angle aluminum.
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I went with a bit more simplistic adapter for my solution back in 2016 when mounting my Striker 4dv transducer. Same result though in the end. Your solution is more impervious to the elements for sure.
https://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=18361.0
Dang! That's like the same post! I googled for it but I should have looked here specifically. Live'n'learn.
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Why is it I see these modification posts "after" I do something that is soo much more complicated....... :(