IceShanty Main > General Ice Fishing Chit Chat

Frankenstein Flasher

(1/4) > >>

Just a random icefisherma:
Saw this lowrance flasher at an auction, and got it for a cheap 10 bucks. After cleaning it up, I found that the original contact board was corroded beyond repair. After a little tinkering and jerryrigging to the batteries, I turned it on, and it ran. The ducer was faintly clicking away, and showed a false bottom at 37 ft. that was the wall I assume. It does squeak a small bit when it runs, but it also appears to have not run for 1+ year before it was put on auction. Also, does anyone have a serial number lookup for these machines or know how to find when it was made? It's a lowrance fish lo-k-tor, model LFP-300D, serial number 211439. I have seen that people have rewired them to run on flasher batteries as well. Now the waiting sets in to test it, as there is about 5 months till ice in, and 5-6 months before the ice is thick enough to fish on.







 The bottom pic is the contact board

hays47:
No need to wait. Go to public dock and test there. Simple to re-wire for standard flasher battery. Remove the corroded plate and use those leads.

esox_xtm:
Those old Lowrance "green boxes" go way back circa 1960s. They were one of the first. If it still runs it should still work. They originally ran on a pair of 6v dry cells (you know, the big rectangular ones with springy things for connections) and that likely explains the corrosion as they were notorious leakers.

You can easily power with a more modern sealed lead acid (SLA) battery. Find the two wires coming off the circuit board and attach the red one to the positive (+) terminal on the battery and the black one to the negative (-) terminal.

Now for the bad news/good news. This unit will work but has limitations. First the depth range is (usually) 60 feet and will not give you much resolution or target separation. No fancy colors like the current sonar tools and simple adjustments. One knob is on/off and sensitivity (gain or signal power/strength) and the other adjustable for suppression to reduce interference from other electronic sources.

What's the good news? When I started ice fishing my budget was pretty much zero but I did have a Humminbird super 60 and found an old yellow Bird Trap (the H-bird version of the green box) at a rummage sale sans locator for $5. I used it clear into the 90's when I was able to score a Vexilar FL-18. Thing is, it helped me catch more than fishing blind. Indispensable for finding depth and, with practice you will be able to determine fish from weeds, ID rocky areas, hard/soft bottom transitions basically everything you can do with current units only not as fancy and not as "definite".

Again, especially if you're not practiced using a flasher to begin with, it will take a lot of practice before you feel confident in what you think you're seeing. Start in areas you know well and compare that with what the locator is showing you. A whole generation of anglers got their start with these things and served them well until technology took off. Once you're really good with that one, the leap to a more modern tool will not only advance your tools but you'll get more out of it having spent your learning curve on one that requires much more skill to read.

Raquettedacker:
Used one for years on the ice and in the rowboat..    Wish i still had it..... :-\

UFCreel:
Yep i had one. It was state of the art in its time. Gave mine away once i got a Vexilar. Sort of wish i had kept it.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page