IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! => Equipment => Ice Fishing With Electronics => Topic started by: klem on Dec 18, 2019, 08:15 AM
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thought i would start a topic on transducers (NOT THE HEAD UNIT.). what brand, garmin, humminbirds ,marcum, vexilar or any other. how careful people are with the way they handle them and deploy them. just doing some research on their durability. i currently own a humminbird ice helix 7 g2 and have been through 2 ducers in 2 years. and my buddy has been through a couple also with his marcum. now i really don't want to get into the topic of peoples abuse of their units or transducers as to why they fail that's self explanatory. as i am definitely not one of those.(these units now are way to expensive now for that) i have talked to a least 15 ice fisherpeople with different brands on this topic to see if they have experienced ice ducer failure without the abuse. and was surprised to hear that it happens quite often.? i myself deploy the ducer down below the bottom of the ice even with 3 or more feet of ice. and heard and seen others using a marcum lx7 just an inch or so in the water. i know having the ducer down 2 or 3' odds are they will get nicked up at some point causing failure. would just like to hear others opinions on ice transducers and the fragility of them.( please no chest pounding on how good their units are) just honesty. thx
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Going on 5 or 6 years with a couple marcum lx1 ducers.
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i would say it's more about how people handle them when catching a fish.
having it just wet or only in the water just enough to remove the air yields the least problem landing fish and that is what is instructed to do in the marcum manual for lx-6/7/9 at least and that's what i do unless i drill a dedicated hole for it. keeping it centered is also key.
being they are crystals and fragile, and the ice being not user friendly can make for an expensive day on the ice at any given time for any brand.
to me it seems like they weaken with time. you can't really tell it because of how slow it happens, but installing new lets you know it was weak.
working on 2-way radio showed me this is true with sensitive power microphones. they built the better ones (Asiatic d104, eagles, ect) so you could replace the head unit which is the microphone with the crystal in it.
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Vexilar ducers are pretty durable the rubber dont seem to cut by line.i have never wrecked a ducer on any make or model .big fish i take it out.
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I have a Lowrance Ice Transducer. The first one I got with the ice kit went bad after about 3 months. Don't know why, just wasn't getting good signals anymore. Got it replaced under warranty. Have had the replacement for about three years now and haven't had any issues. All depends on what is going on whether I leave it in the hole or take it out.
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Only Vexilar transducer I have wrecked happened when it popped out and wrapped around the track of a snowmobile.
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Only Vexilar transducer I have wrecked happened when it popped out and wrapped around the track of a snowmobile.
yeah i'm not talking about accidental or intentional abuse. just working fine one day then the next getting funky readings and then total failure out of nowhere. a couple people i had talked to said that they used to have their transducer high in the hole or just down the hole about 4-5" and thought maybe the transducer was getting to much funky signals bouncing up and around the column of the hole and eventually damaging the ducer. ? not sure about that.
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Have you tried a different ducer on your unit?
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Have you tried a different ducer on your unit?
on mine personally i'm on my 3rd and have tried friends transducers... again i'm just doing research on transducer failure with ice fishing units only. is it the cold temps ? or are they just cheaply made now a days with the demand.?
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on mine personally i'm on my 3rd and have tried friends transducers... again i'm just doing research on transducer failure with ice fishing units only. is it the cold temps ? or are they just cheaply made now a days with the demand.?
Ok...for your research:
1) I've never had a ducer failure in 20 years
2) They are designed for cold temps
3) Cheaply made because of demand? I doubt it.
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on mine personally i'm on my 3rd and have tried friends transducers... again i'm just doing research on transducer failure with ice fishing units only. is it the cold temps ? or are they just cheaply made now a days with the demand.?
The manufacturers have an inherent desire to IMPROVE quality because quality issues (returns, support, shipping) are very expensive and the damage done to their brand is even more expensive.
No real company would knowingly sacrifice quality, the costs are too high.
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I have been using ice ducers since about 1979 and have never had one fail. At this time I have Vexilar, Marcum and Humminbird units for the ice. I'm sure dropping them on the ice or letting them get banged around in a sled doesn't help them.
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Vexilar had some defective TriBeams several years ago..they replaced mine EZPZ..I believe it was an epoxy issue ..Marcum had some epoxy issues several years ago too .
I don't recall many IceShanty members having systemic transducer issues of one make/model in particular.. after years of use ..yes transducers go bad ..but that a lot more rare then the moving parts of the units .
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I'm sure some of the unseen damage to transducers comes from flopping around in the carry case or wherever they are stored. Banging around on a speed run getting to your favourite hole and then wondering why it doesn't work right comes to mind. My Lowrance ice transducer rides in a home made support made from foam pipe insulation. A pool noodle will probably work too.
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yeah i'm not talking about accidental or intentional abuse. just working fine one day then the next getting funky readings and then total failure out of nowhere. a couple people i had talked to said that they used to have their transducer high in the hole or just down the hole about 4-5" and thought maybe the transducer was getting to much funky signals bouncing up and around the column of the hole and eventually damaging the ducer. ? not sure about that.
My point was that in all my years the only one that has failed me was one that was damaged by the sled. Never seen one quit that was not bounced around, beaten up, or generally not cared for.
My FL-8 just kept going. I wanted it to die so I could justify upgrading. I finally justified a new FLX-28 by telling myself that the FL-8 would be a spare.