Lowance HDS 5 mounting on a pontoon boat questions

[garyv]

Hey Guys ,
I read the electronics thread and did not want to get off subject with their thread .
But I now have a Lowrance 522 which works great but my brother has a HDS-5 that he kept when he sold the boat because the buyer already had a bottom machine Sooo , He does not have a boat now and is going to trade me my 522 for the HDS-5 for mine but I still need to get the LSS-1 unit with tranducer to get the SI from the unit.
But my main concern is where to mount the tranducer with it being a lot larger than my regular tranducer off the right sponson on the boat . I checked the Lowrance website and they did not have any options for mounting to a pontoon boat.
And I was wandering how much side clearance do you need without it interfering with the side scan capabilities . I was thinking of mounting it under the motor on the Mount that sticks down a bit and is usually in the water even under plane.
i dont want to keep mounting in all different places and wanted to know if anyone here has mounted the longer transducer on the motor mount under the motor of a pontoon boat and wante to know if you had any luck with it. I could always just mount it to the sponson but thought the motor mount would be out of the way more than the sponson because we have snagged the regular transduce just pulling in the anchor as well..
Ok hope you can help me before I spend $550.00 on the LSS-1 SI transducer.
Thanks
Gary

[jimp]

never seen a pic of a LSS 1 ducer mounted on a 'toon, but suggest you try google and bet you would come up with some images. I have seen SI ducers mounted on jack plates, on the motor mount you mentioned, you can always raise the motor up a bit if it were to be blocking the SI. The google search may give you some more ideas or possiblities.

[Crappiegirl1]

I have a 22 foot pontoon that i put an hds7 with structure scan on last year. we mounted the sonar unit on 1 pontoon that already had a "box" welded on to attatch to and then had the local boat company weld another "box" on the other pontoon to mount the stucture scan to. works find with the exception that i do not get the full advantage of the overlap of sonar and structure scan. i get quite a bit even that far apart. one other "tip"----my pontoon sits much lower in the water in the back than in the front due to a lot of batteries and the motor being in the back, therefore the transducers needed to compensate to make them parallel to the bottom when i was moving. a lot of experimenting. if you have any problems more than likely your ducers will need to be reangled with i can do when my boat is in my boat dock in the sling. any other questions , feel free.

[garyv]

Thanks Crappiegirl1,
I have the brackets on the back of the sponsons for transducer mounting , but I trailer the boat and dont want to damage $ 200 transducer , and as you said I would have to mount one on each side .
I was wondering if I could mount them on the motor mount that sets low to the water but then the pontoons would be on both sides and might block the view as well..
Thanks for the information on how you mounted yours , that might be the way I have to go . Or I can weld a large plate to the bottom of the one pontoon so I can get both tranducers on the single one..
Gary

[Crappiegirl1]

the large plate sounds great. it would really be nice if we could figure out a way to put a through hull transducer inside the pontoon looking down. wouldnt that be great.

[garyv]

Crappiegirl1 , Luckily my boat has a bracket on both pontoons , one side is for a re transducer and the other is for a livewell pump , I thought abought using that side becasue it is large then just moving my livwell pump that is righ behind the sponson , I am going to call Lowrance and see if they have more info from their tech guys for info as well.
But from what I understand you need both transducers on the boat not just the longer 3d one ? So I would asume that the closer together they would be the better and like you had said it might get rid of the dead spot in the view..
I have a CNC maching and have been thinking of desighning one that will fit on the lower part of the motor mount , ( the bottom part that is in the wat most of the time) them make up a mount that will just bolt on withou drilling out the motor mound so I have no cracking issues in the future or void the warranty on the boat. They get picky when it comes to warranty work.. And you never know maybe I could sell some to Lowrance if it works , Or you as well for helping with ideas..( I would not sell it to you but just send you one for materials if you wanted one..
Gary

[garyv]

OK , after being on the boat yesterday ( didnt do too well) but having my brother run the boat I went to the back looked over the transom of the boat and by far the cleanest water is coming off of the pontoon where I have the reg transducer mounted .
I called and spoke to a lowrance rep early this week and spoke to him about mounting to a pontoon . He knows it has been done like Crappiegirl1 had mentioned but the transducers need to be mounted closer together to get an overlay picture and the side scan tranducer is a 70 degree tranducer so it needs at least 15 degrees of side clearance so there are not blacked out spots on it . So after a few measurements I cant use the motor mount because 15 degrees would be blocked on bothe sides by the pontoons.
So what I am planning on doing is mounting a plate curved to fit the back of the pontoon like a trim tab but still have the 24 in radius like the pontoon on it and mount that to the existing transducer mount . I work with 3/4 inch starboard material all the time so have plenty to mess with. So the tech also said that the minimum that you should mount the 2 tranducers is 6" apart and the reg transducer needs to be a littl higher than the side scan. SO I see it as being doable on one side with 2 sheets of 3/4 starboard and CNC cut out for pass throught transducers for better reception.So basically it will be an extention of the pontoon for less turbulance and better reception.
I will post pictures when I get it designed or cut out if anyone wants to see it..
Gary