Displays

[PabloPicasso]

I see the cheapest depth displays are the NASA type. But I also see cheap WATERPROOF digital displays for rev counters, volts, amps etc for very cheap

Is there a cheap digital display that could show depth only? I seem to have got through expensive "marine" displays fairly quickly over the years. Water ingress seems to be the main fault.

Would it be straight forward to change the use if a voltmeter, for example, to show the readout from a depth sounder?

 

[Minerva]

You do know that the display goes in the dry cockpit and it's the transducer that gets mounted to the wet bit on the underside of the hull yeah? Not the other way around.

To answer your actual question, no I do not think it would be trivial to change a random mass produced with no QC voltmeter into a depth gauge. Nor do I think it would last terribly long in a marine environment either.

That said, our Nasa depth gauge has been faultless for well over 15 years now...

 

[PabloPicasso]

I'm sure you're right minerva, othetwise people would be doing that already.

I just was curious as to the format of the impulses from a depth transducer? And how eas/hard it would be to get a display to read that of course.

My experience of log and depth transducers and displays has been that they are not very reliable. Depth seem to randomly stop displaying, then start again. Log wheels foul, lose their magnets, and the buttons fall off displays, and even if they don't they allow water ingress, and stop working.

More expensive brands on flashier boats than mine don't seem to perform and better from what I have seen. They're just more costly to fix/replace.

Often they've not even used tinned cables. Seems all very poor to me.

We deserve better