Lowrance ice transducers

[pisces]

Is the transducer any good that Lowrance has for ice fishing? A 20 degree transducer for shallower fishing is good but what about for deeper depths? Hummingbird has a dual degree  transducer so why doesn't Lowrance have one?

[Shack man Shoney]

I have two Lowrance units that i use on the ice. One is a Mark5 that i mounted on a genz box and the other unit is an Elite5 HDI. They both have performed very well for me in many different applications from small farm ponds to large lakes. I have not had any problems with either sonar. I will say they are great down to 40 FOW since that is really the deepest i have fish with those machines.

[Spider1]

I like having the 9^ angle on my bird even on more shallow lakes. When I'm fishing a lake that is only around 6 - 10 ft and there's a lot of weed clutter, I can turn on the more narrow beam and it cuts out a lot of the clutter. I can't see as much, but I can see my jig more often and can tell when a fish is approaching it. I figure that if you are buying new, get a dual beam. If you already got a flasher or finder but it only has the 20^ beam, well then, it's much better than nothing.

[pisces]

I was thinking about fishing Lake  Trout. They are usually deeper than 30 feet I was thinking about getting the Elite 5 Chirp ice  fishing set up, but it only has the 20 degree transducer. Any feedback on this setup would be great.  Thanks!

[RapShack]

The coverage area of a 20deg transducer is roughly 1/3 of the depth, so at 30ft your beam is about 10ft wide, and at 100ft it's about 33ft.  If you stick with the stock dual beam skimmer transducer the 60deg beam is as wide as it is deep.  I like having a wider coverage area to see the fish as soon as they start reacting to my presentation but if you're fishing an area with an uneven bottom, weeds, trees, or other structure you will see bottom at whatever depth the beam first intersects with something hard.  When that happens you end up with a dead zone where you can't actually see whats going on.  I fished a flooded quarry last year and was set up on one of the drops and had about 20ft of deadband from it hitting the wall.  FWIW I have an Elite 4 and I hate it, but for laker fishing I'm assuming you'll be running bigger jigs and tubes and it should work ok. 

[Old Goat]

if anyone has one with the uni plug and battery leads I'm looking for one

[richv]

  Can't figure out how to PM, so here goes -
Shack man Shoney, what do I need to set up an Elite5X-HDI for ice fishing?
I just got an almost new one that is set up for soft water.
The Lowrance PPI-181 package apparently needs an adapter also.
Is that because the included transducer has the six-pin connector instead of the blue seven pin connector?
Thank you for any advice you may offer.

[RapShack]

To PM you just click on the persons user name and go to their profile, on the left side of the screen is a list of options one of them is for PM.  You can E-mail Navico customer service from their website and they will tell you what you need. 

[Shack man Shoney]

Rich, you will need the blue plug for the Lowrance Elite 5 HDI. I bought the transducer with the correct configuration for the HDI, however I do know that there is an adapter available. You might want to check for which PPI-181 ice kit you order because I think that you can order it with either connector.... I will do some checking and see if i can come up with some part numbers for you.

[lefty2053]

Can't figure out how to PM, so here goes -
Shack man Shoney, what do I need to set up an Elite5X-HDI for ice fishing?
I just got an almost new one that is set up for soft water.
The Lowrance PPI-181 package apparently needs an adapter also.
Is that because the included transducer has the six-pin connector instead of the blue seven pin connector?
Thank you for any advice you may offer.

I contacted them recently to get the Part number for my 3X and got a response with in 3 days.

[Douger]

I posted this a while ago, may be of some help.  I did add a battery connector for easy battery charging, PM me if you want that info.

Packaging the Lowrance Elite 5 HDI to the Lowrance PPP-18I Ice Pack

If you have a Lowrance Elite 5 HDI and would like to use it for ice fishing with the Lowrance PPP-18I Ice Pack you will need to purchase some additional Lowrance standard parts/items that are not included in the ice pack kit.

The items that are included in the ice pack kit are the ice pack carrying bag, 2 tackle boxes (Plano # 3449), rechargeable gel cell battery (NP7-12), battery strap, battery charger, ice fishing transducer (PTI-WSU with a 3 amp fuse and holder), ice transducer float and depth adjustment cord, base plate, display unit mount, 2 sonar unit mounting brackets (one is a QRB-5 used for the Elite 5 HDI), plastic mounting nuts and bolts, accessory holders, and a plastic wing nut and stainless washer which is now not used.

The items not included that I ordered to package the HDI unit with the ice pack kit were an Elite 5 HDI power cable with 3 amp fuse and holder (PC-30-RS422) which is the same cable that comes with an Elite 5 HDI and in my case is connected in my boat, and a PTI-WBL ice transducer with the blue plug.  I also used 2 female electrical spade terminals to connect the power cables/fuse to the battery and I replaced the four plastic mounting screws and nuts with stainless steel screws and self locking nuts.

The power cable comes with the fuse holder and fuse and two crimp wire connectors.  I used one of the crimp connectors to connect one of the fuse wires to the red power input wire on the power cable.  I put female spade/push crimp connectors on the other red fuse wire and the black power wire.  The yellow wire is not used.  The NMEA wires on the power cable are not used and I just folded a piece of electrical tape over them to cover and protect them.  I connected the power cable black wire to the negative battery terminal and the red fuse wire to the positive battery terminal.  I put the battery into the bag and strapped it down per the instructions.  The power cable is now ready to be connected to the sonar unit power socket.
Note:  Charging the battery while laying on its side in the bag is pretty much a non-starter, it really either needs to be removed (pita) and charged or a charging adapter plug needs to be wired into the system.  I am going to wire a plug into the power wires that connect to the battery to make charging easier and connect the mating plug to the charging wires from the charger.

I opted to purchase the PTI-WBL ice transducer which has a blue plug which is what the sonar unit uses.  You just plug the transducer into the sonar.  According to Lowrance you can use the PTI-WSU ice transducer that comes with the ice pack kit but it has a uniplug on it so you have to purchase the TA-UQ2BL-T uni to blue plug adapter cable.  And you do not connect the battery connections that come on the PTI-WSU transducer, you use the PC-30-RS422 power cable mentioned above.  Purchasing and using the PTI-WBL ice transducer makes a nice clean installation.
Note:  I have not tried the PTI-WSU as I did not order the adapter cable.

Using stainless steel machine screws and self locking nuts I secured the sonar mounting bracket to the display unit mounting plate.  Now you just connect the power and transducer plugs to the sonar unit and set the display unit mount in either the high or low mounting position and you are ready to go.

There are separate instructions for the ice float installation and Lowrance recommends fully charging the battery before using.


Douglas H. Chyz, 17 Dec 2013

[Douger]

Oh, I did by the adapter for the PTI-WSU and have used/tested it, works fine, and now keep it as a spare transducer.

[Shack man Shoney]

Well it looks like every possible pn# you could possibly need got listed already. I must have been wrong on being able to order a ppp-18i with the blue PTI-WSU connector. I would have sworn i found it somewhere but i cant find it now. I went with a whole new transducer with the blue end beause i thought the adaptor was a little pricey and its just 1 more connection that could conceivably give me troubles. If you do choose to go the adapter route call Lowrance and order iust the adapter you need, it will save you some money.

[richv]

  Thanks to all of you who answered. The information you offered is valuable. I now have a plan. If you come to Indiana, I'll see you on the ice! Look for the PPP-181.

[richv]

Shack Man, it looks like the obsolete PPP-16i was the last Lowrance "Ice Pac" that came with the WBL transducer (and a power cord without useless extraneous cabling). Neither Google or Bing could find any of them.

[fish-kabob]

my transducer run 83 / 200 khz dual beam if you will any one else have this option I got it on my elite 4x  but not on my x67c I think is what it was...