Antifoul the echo sounder transducer?

[[2574]]

Do you keep the sounder free of antifoul or do you paint over it just as all the other hull surface?

 

[Bav32]

Very thin coat.

 

[ashtead]

Water down and mix in a few surplus antibiotics of your choice and paint on to spinning wheel with artist paintbrush . I’m sure other mixtures might work as additions to the anti fouling though.

 

[Sumara of Weymouth]

Do you keep the sounder free of antifoul or do you paint over it just as all the other hull surface?

I normally carefully mask off the transducer so there is no antifouling on it but yesterday I noticed that I had forgotten to peel off the masking tape so all last season it had two thick coats of Hempels plus the masking tape and it seemed to work fine. However I didn't test whether the accuracy had changed. I suspect the "one thin coat" is probably the best solution going forwards.

 

[nigel1]

I use this
Echo Water Based Antifouling for Transducers - Black 70ml

14 quid for 70ml sounds a lot but it only a very small amount is used at each application., and the product keeps OK in the bottle once opened.
Been using for last 3 years, no complaints.

 

[Graham376]

I have always antifouled over through-hull transducers and the current NASA one is internally glued on with antifoul over the hull below it. All have performed as expected.

 

[srm]

One or two thin coats of whatever used to work fine, now have Coppercoat that is probably better. Just avoid any air bubbles in the coating as these will absorb the sound pulses.

 

[Jonny A]

I cover mine quite happily with Seajet and it still works perfectly.

 

[SlowlyButSurely]

I just lash the antifouling on over the transducer and it works fine. I have just scraped the bottom back to the bare hull and will put three coats of antifouling on. Last time it was scraped back was 2014 so the transducer had 8 years worth of antifouling on it. The previous time was 2000 so the transducer had 14 years' layers of antifouling on it that time. No problem at all. It's a NASA echo sounder.

 

[Hermit]

They are often fitted internally so a dollop of antifoul isn't really going to trouble them.

 

[[2574]]

Thanks all, there seems to be no firm opinion either way on whether a/f impedes a sounder.

 

[srm]

Thanks all, there seems to be no firm opinion either way on whether a/f impedes a sounder.

The one thing that is guaranteed to impede the transducer is air bubbles, either in the a/f, in the hull layup for internally mounted ones, or in the water.

 

[Hermit]

Thanks all, there seems to be no firm opinion either way on whether a/f impedes a sounder.

Apart from every response saying it doesn't matter?