depth gauge for a 82' 25d

[Jack Aboulafia]

My old Data Marine depth gauge for my 82' 25d is on the fritz. I want to replace it and the transducer.I spoke to Steve Meled@ DMI Marine and he said he could recondition it or I could buy a replacement from him for $495 plus $250 for a transducer. Has anyone delt with him or purchased anything from him? Would anyone recommend I purchase a different brand? The existing hole for my old data marine gauge is 4".Can anyone tell me the best way to remove and replace the gauge and transducer? I have never done this before. Thanks Jack Aboulafia

[Bob L]

Jack,

What brand is your fritzed unit? The reason I ask is that I have an old Standard Horizon depth meter/transducer that's about 20 years old that began having problems. I borrowed another head unit from a friend and determined my problem was the transducer. I was able to replace the transducer to an in-hull type (doesn't need a through-hull) that works with the head unit. Cost ~$120 from AirMar (www.airmar.com).

If you have to replace both head and transducer, then airmar may not work for you.

Bob L

[Leo MacDonald]

Hi Jack,
As I understand, DMI Marine has some former Data Marine Instrument people involved. I sent my depthsounder and knotmeter to them for refurbishment. The instruments now work fine - no complaints.
AIRMAR [www.airmar.com, 603-673-9570] is the transducer manufacturer. If you have questions in that area contact them direct – very knowledgeable.

[seadog6532]

When I replaced the depth and speed on my CD30K I removed the old guages and covered the hole with a nice piece of teak. I made a mount for my GPS and I use a fish finder for depth. The fish finder was a lot cheaper and gives me depth, bottom conture, and water temp. I made a PVC water box for the transducer so I didn't have to drill any new holes. Everything works fine and looks good, with the added bonus of being able to remove everything and put it inside the boat when not needed. Total cost was just a little over $100.00 including the fishfinder, teak, PVC, and 12 volt waterproof receptical I modified to run the wires for everything.

[bottomscraper]

We replaced our Datamarine instruments with Raymarine on Mahalo. We did get a perfect fit transducer directly from Aimar's distributer Gemeco. The transducer was actually made by Radarsonics rather than Airmar. Physically it was identical to the original Datamarine but electrically compatible with the new Raymarine depth sounder. On our previous boat we had a fish finder. I actually like the fish finder better but since we replaced all of our instruments the Raymarine setup worked out better. Below is a picture of the fish finder on a swing out hinged mount on our previous boat.

[img]http://home.earthlink.net/~mlabato/fs/stbdaft.jpg[/img]

http://www.gemeco.com/

http://www.radarsonics.com/Model_201R.htm