interchangable tranducers?

[patrick4266]

I am thinking of buying a fishfinder off of ebay. I notice that they seem to be a lot cheaper with out tranducers. Are they interchangable, or is each one specific to the make and model? Also some come with out power cards, cables batteries, ect. Are these hard to find? What do I look far in a good, cheap fishfinder?

 

[JB]

Re: interchangable tranducers?

Several brands and models of good, cheap SONARs are under $100, complete with warranty and instructions. Trying to patch together a system off eBay just doesn't seem like a practical idea to me.

 

[joed]

Re: interchangable tranducers?

Sonars within brands are sometimes interchangeable. Several models of the same brand will use the same transducer. I don't think you could use a hummingbird transducer on Lowrance for example. However Lowrance and Eagle are the same company and some are interchangeable.

 

[rndn]

Re: interchangable tranducers?

The reason they are soo cheap w/o a transducer is because transducers are expensive. Don't try to piece a system together. As stated above a decent unit sells for under a hundred dollars complete.

 

[Boatist]

Re: interchangable tranducers?

Fisrs step in buying a depth finder is to know how deep you will fish and fresh or salt water. Second step if you want to see fish is devide the maunfctures mas depth reading by 8. IF they say water up to 800 feet you can probably see fish as deep as 100 feet.

Looking for a cheap unit look at Eagle first then Lowrance then Garmin.
I would not even think of buying a maybe working unit off E-Bay with out a transducer. Even with a transducer it is a gamble.

 

[dingbat]

Re: interchangable tranducers?

I would venture to guess that 95% of all transducers are made by the same OEM, Airmar. If it's a 200 kHz or a 50 kHz unit chances are it's an Airmar transducer.

The issue you'll run into is the connector on the end of the cable. Every manufacture uses a different style connector and some even use a different connector on different models within their product lines for some reason.

Transducers are expensive which is why you’re seeing such low prices. Most transducers will run you $75 - $100 but you can spend upwards of $1,500 on one if you like.

http://airmartechnology.com/airmar2005/ex20/RMProducts/RMMain.asp?LinkID=0&NewID=