Making a fish locator portable.

[luvtoicefish]

 Hi Guys,
   A few weeks ago I bought a X51 Lowrance locator off ebay. It didn't have a power cord or transducer. I just recieved them from LEI extras today. Now I have several questions. Having never seen a Ice fishing fish flasher accept on the net what is the best way to put this all together? Should I get a small plastic battery box like whats on my hovercraft (garden tractor size battery) and mount it to the top of it or, build one out of wood and fiberglass it? What it the best way to mount the transducer? Put it on the end or a rod and the run the rod down the hole? I am very antsy to see if this thing works! can I power the unit with out the transducer to see if it even works? Or can I power it with the transducer?? The bug has bit me bad I need to just slow down and do it right... but I have lots of dollars invested now and I am worried if this was a smart move. Any Help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!
   Dan

    

[Swift]

Seen a guy use the battery box idea sitting in a compact wood box with the screen mounted above, then mounted the transducer to the bottom of an old stick tip-up. Awkward but seemed to work well enough, the guy did catch fish

[jdisci]

You can either build your own box for it or look into a blue box that clam corp. makes . I think they might come with a tranducer arm that you can mount to. you can make your own transducer arm(similar to a wooden 3 pole  tip-up)but get a 1"square bubble level and glue it to the top of the transducer to make sure it's pointing straight down.

[mud_n_fun]

To answer your questions Yes you can power it up without the trans ducer being in the water. We always power up our units on the ice and hop from hole to hole with the transducer just hanging in the air and nothing happens to them. If you would like a nice light plastic box for it the genz box is nice(i built my own as I like to tincker). I am not sure what your transducer looks like though, if it is a puck style just get an arts and crafts foam ball or by a vexilar foam for it.  Hope this helps.

[stumper]

Here is my Humminbird 797. I mounted it on a carrier I had laying around that I bought from Cabelas a few yrs ago.

[Drifter_016]

Lowrance makes a portable mount for it. Model# PPP-10 Part #16-40 and currently on sale for $35.95
They also have an icefishing portable accessory pack Model# PPP-16I Part #16-46 $174.95 it includes the portable mount, icefishing transducer, custom soft side case, rechargable battery and charger.

[minnowguy]

Use the smaller sealed rechargeable battery, cabelas has them get 2 while your at it and keep one charged they work great and the blue box work well with the battery. I will post a pic of mine later.

[minnowguy]

Here is a couple pics of my setup:

[mud_n_fun]

Here is one of mine. Oops forgot to turn it in for ya.

[luvtoicefish]

   Nice setup! Where did you get the box minnowguy? O wow very nice to mud-n-fun!!! Thanks to all your replies guys. Keep them coming. Picts are great!! I did know about the battery box portable that fits my rig I thought though the d cell batteries would not last that long. I changed the battery in the hover this year so I have an extra garden tractor size battery so I was wanting to use it. I tried to look for the blue box mentioned by Clam corp but, I am unable to find it on their site. I don't want to invest much more in to this project so I may just build something. Please though if anyone has more pictures I would love to see them. Would give me ideas on constructing one on my own if I have to.

   Dan

 

[luvtoicefish]

O btw guys my transducer looks like Minnowguys. Mentioned earlier was to use a float? will this keep my transducer level? do I have to worry about that with the type I have or does it have to be a diffrent type transducer?

    Thanks,
    Dan
  

[Drifter_016]

   Nice setup! Where did you get the box minnowguy? O wow very nice to mud-n-fun!!! Thanks to all your replies guys. Keep them coming. Picts are great!! I did know about the battery box portable that fits my rig I thought though the d cell batteries would not last that long. I changed the battery in the hover this year so I have an extra garden tractor size battery so I was wanting to use it. I tried to look for the blue box mentioned by Clam corp but, I am unable to find it on their site. I don't want to invest much more in to this project so I may just build something. Please though if anyone has more pictures I would love to see them. Would give me ideas on constructing one on my own if I have to.

   Dan

 

I believe the battery holder is removable. I have a portable Garmin and removed the battery holder and replaced with a sealed 12V rechargable like the VEX batteries.
Here is a shot of my Lowrance LMS 350 mounted in a home made portable case that fits a motorcycle type battery.





And my Lowrance flasher set up for ice fishing.

[mud_n_fun]

O btw guys my transducer looks like Minnowguys. Mentioned earlier was to use a float? will this keep my transducer level? do I have to worry about that with the type I have or does it have to be a diffrent type transducer?

    Thanks,
    Dan
  

Yes it is very important that the transducer sit level. If you are going to use a float< which I am going to switch over to< you will need to balance the transducer to sit level. The nice thing abou a float is you can ajust it for the ice thickness.

[Doubles Shooter]

Look at this thread. There are pic's of my setup for my Hummindird 60.http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=70397.msg694861#msg694861

[brokenline]

are those fish finders? how good do they work for you?

[mud_n_fun]

Mine performs absolutely perfectly. On some really cold days the LCD screem has started to slow down. That's when I break out a little hand warmer and stick it behind th unit and I am good for the rest of the day. Most of the time I am in the shanty so this is very rarely a problem.

[brokenline]

ill have to try it out with my eagle!

[luvtoicefish]

Guys,
  Do the transducers need to be below the ice or can it just float on the surface?

   Happy Thanksgiving to all !!


  Dan

[John_Boy]

In my opinion it needs to be below the ice .
                                          John

[mud_n_fun]

If the transducer is not below the ice you will get alot of surface clutter on the screen.I recommend it be below the ice.

[darkhousefisher]

Here is how I set up my Jimmy Houston Proflasher

http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=37756.0




I just hang the transducer in the water.  It was originally a transom mount transducer, so I glued some foam on one end so it will hang level.  Works good enough for me.  If I pour a little water on the ice, it will read through the ice and give the water depth.

[filetandrelease]

heres one I put together on my old fl8 about 15 yrs. ago fits in 5 gal. pail and no trouble with battery freezing

[luvtoicefish]

Nice setups... I started building one this weekend and yet again I think I am overbuilding it like I do everything else.  . I am tring to build it like a couple I have seen here. I will need something to coil up all 25 ft of my transducer wire on. Wish I had the proper tools to do stuff like this and not cobble everything LOL. Thanks guys I appreciate all the picts I can get. Still undecided about using an arm or a float for the transducer

Dan

[basser]

Put this together for this season. I used an old Genz box and mounted my 383c color GPS/sonar unit on it. Will be able to have GPS and sonar in one unit. I mounted the transducer on a piece of PVC pipe which hooks on the froint of the Genz box. Hope it works out.