depth transducer, how to wire up

simonfraser

simonfraser

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orrigional fitting for a GARMIN GPS 180, now discontinued, and display not working.

the hull still has the transducer, which is NMEA 0183 compliant, see pic below.

i am ordering a VDO depth display, round to match the rest, which can take 0183.
both are 200kHz items
interested in depth only, no fishing.

the 180 transducer is hard wired into a plug for a socket into the 180 display, no indication of wire color or codes.

so, may not work, but if i cut the cable to the transducer i am going to be faced with ? wires.
anyone willing to suggest what i am going to find, and more importantly, what color coding is likely to work.

would save removing and re-installing a sounder and save save EUR 400 ....

180 transducer:
depth%20transducer%202000.png
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VDO backplate connector:
VDO%20sounder%20connection.jpg
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I did something similar with an old Simrad (Airmar) system. It had three wires - Bare, Blue and Black, the new system that I was attaching it to wanted the wires connected separately but to get it to work I had to short together the bare wire and the black one.
 
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you could go the other way round, and see the manual (online if you don't have it) of the GPS that failed. The pinout of the sensor should give hints on what you get.
Typically you have power and signal. Minimum 3 normally 4 cables for that. Signal is often yellow, but not necessarily...

you could also get a compatibly old plotter from ebay for peanuts :rolleyes:

cheers

V.
 
vas said:
you could go the other way round, and see the manual (online if you don't have it) of the GPS that failed. The pinout of the sensor should give hints on what you get.
Typically you have power and signal. Minimum 3 normally 4 cables for that. Signal is often yellow, but not necessarily...

you could also get a compatibly old plotter from ebay for peanuts :rolleyes:

cheers

V.
Click to expand...

If i get and old one from Ebay it will tell me the power wires for the transducer using a multimeter.
That could save a lot of pfaffing around and time, good point.
Will also ensure the transducer actually works, tnx.
 
simonfraser said:
the hull still has the transducer, which is NMEA 0183 compliant, see pic below
Click to expand...
I'm afraid that's not what the pic says, and as jfm correctly spotted, the xducer itself is not an NMEA capable unit.
It's (well, it was) the Garmin display that's capable of NMEA communication, not the xducer.
That said, I can see why you misunderstood, based on that silly manual page... :ambivalence:
 
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MapisM said:
I'm afraid that's not what the pic says, and as jfm correctly spotted, the xducer itself is not an NMEA capable unit.
It's (well, it was) the Garmin display that's capable of NMEA communication, not the xducer.
That said, I can see why you misunderstood, based on that silly manual page... :ambivalence:
Click to expand...

ah, thank you :(

ok, more money and out it goes !
 
hm, this is what garmin USA just said on the Q as to how i would wire up the transducer only:

The red wire is for the positive connection for power. The black wire is the negative connection for power. The blue wire is your NMEA Out connection. The brown wire is your NMEA In connection.

are they talking rubbish ?
 
simonfraser said:
hm, this is what garmin USA just said on the Q as to how i would wire up the transducer only:

The red wire is for the positive connection for power. The black wire is the negative connection for power. The blue wire is your NMEA Out connection. The brown wire is your NMEA In connection.

are they talking rubbish ?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if jfm had other reasons to tell that the transducer in your scheme ain't an NMEA device, but my reason for confirming that he was correct is that the cable/connector in your drawing doesn't seem meant for NMEA handling at all.

That said, your question got me thinking, because in theory you could use a coaxial TV antenna cable also for carrying 220V AC, if you see what I mean... So, I just googled around a bit.
And based on the following Garmin diagram which I found on the web, indeed the NMEA compliant unit appears to be the display and not the trasnducer, as I said. And if that's true, I'm afraid that the answer to your last question is bound to be yes, in spite of the (theoretically) authoritative source... :ambivalence:

http://static.garmin.com/pumac/GPSMAP185Sounder_GPSMAP185SounderWiringDiagramAddendum.pdf
 
it's fairly easy to make out they were talking bull as there is no point for an IN signal to the depth sensor!
It should send but it has nothing to receive and I doubt that these would be "triggered" somehow to send a different Hz freq.

BTW, through hull sensors are not that cheap definitely not 400whatever money if you only want the depth info. 200 should be plenty and may even be NMEA2000 which is already available more than the other standards (imho) and definitely compared to NMEA0183 which is more or less dead and hardware manufacturers start "omitting" compatibility with it lately.

V.
 
simonfraser said:
hm, this is what garmin USA just said on the Q as to how i would wire up the transducer only:

The red wire is for the positive connection for power. The black wire is the negative connection for power. The blue wire is your NMEA Out connection. The brown wire is your NMEA In connection.

are they talking rubbish ?
Click to expand...
Yes, whoever said that is talking rubbish. You must have unfortunately connected with a Garmin person who isn't very good at this. Your transducer outputs an analogue signal that needs interpretation. It does not output any nmea sentences
 
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