New electronics question.....

I must admit I have had a nice christmas and birthday. Got a new Terrova with IPilot, a Lowrance Elite Seven HDI and a Lowrance Elite 5. My question is about storage. I do not have a shed or garage for my boat. It does stay covered with a fitted water-resistant boat cover. How water resistant are these peices of electronics. Should I plan to remove them frrom the boat and store them indoors when I am not fishing? That is a lot of trouble but I do not want anything to get ruined by getting wet. Should I just make waterproof covers to slide over the electronics before I cover the boat? Do they make such a thing? I plan to get a covered boat shed this fall, but I have to have a new driveway and break the curb to do it.......

Mine sit outside covered all the time. I do take the depth finders in and have never had any problems due to weather.

Iwanna fish. This is from experience, if you are covering your boat for more than overnight take your electronics off. I made the mistake of leaving mine on under a cover when we first moved into this house and didnt have shop finished. Killed both depth finders. Later read a report on doing that. They did some testing and found that interior of boat covered could get high as 180 on a 85-90 degree day which ruined the screens. I'm thinking that might also be true for the electronics in head of your Terova. If you have to cover it I would try to tent it instead of tying it down to hull so you could have as much circulation as possible. For the cost of everything you have gotten the 15 min or so to remove and reinstall is well worth the effort.

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Originally Posted by cray

Iwanna fish. This is from experience, if you are covering your boat for more than overnight take your electronics off. I made the mistake of leaving mine on under a cover when we first moved into this house and didnt have shop finished. Killed both depth finders. Later read a report on doing that. They did some testing and found that interior of boat covered could get high as 180 on a 85-90 degree day which ruined the screens. I'm thinking that might also be true for the electronics in head of your Terova. If you have to cover it I would try to tent it instead of tying it down to hull so you could have as much circulation as possible. For the cost of everything you have gotten the 15 min or so to remove and reinstall is well worth the effort.

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Wow...Never even considered the temperature issue. But you are right, it gets as hot as an oven under there in the full sun of mid-day.........

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Originally Posted by Iwannafish

Wow...Never even considered the temperature issue. But you are right, it gets as hot as an oven under there in the full sun of mid-day.........

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and that doesn't mention the people that might "borrow" it over night. I never leave mine on the boat under cover away or at home like cray said better safe than sorry.

What about the Terrova? Is the IPilot electronics inside of the tm head in danger from weather? I did not buy the easy remove MK plate. It is bolted to the fron deck, so I am not concerned with it being stolen, but sure would hate to ruin it thru neglect?????

I believe there could be damage to the display of the sonars, but as far as damage to electronics in the heat/cold, well the industrial specs on typical electronic components such as in the Ipilot is -50*C to 125*C. When you get into mil spec stuff, well I know it works on the moon.

This is storage temps not operating temps. That is another story.

With all that money invested......a cheap $700 metal car port would be my next move