Fishfinder
Michel, I have read other posts that indicate the transducer can be mounted successfully without a thru-hull. I will look for the answers to this also, as I will be installing an L760 soon. Regarding the electrical connection. You definitely want to connect to the electrical panel rather than the battery. The fewer small wire connections to the battery, the better. In my opinion, even with it fused, it provides some risk in the unfused length and is just that much more that can go wrong. The connection to the electrical panel is not difficult. If you have a spare dc breaker space you can size the breaker according to the manufacturers recommendations and just hook it up. If not, it is just slightly more complex. In that instance you have to utilize an existing breaker to feed another panel, or even easier a small buss that has provisions for several fuses. These are available from several different manufacturers, such as Blue Seas. Feed the fuse block from the exisiting breaker, might be the one that currently controls your instruments for example. Size the primary (panel breaker) for total load and run an appropriately sized wire to the fuse bus. Install fuses for the disptributed load appropriately sized and run wires to the equipment. In my example that would be the existing instruments and the new fishfinder. This way all circuits are fully protected. Your fishfinder will have power to it any time the instruments are on, but it probably has a seperate on-off switch on the unit. Becasue of limited breaker space I had to do this for my dual chartplotters. One breaker provides all the power, and three fuses control the instruments and each chartploter in my system. Since the chartplotters have on-off switches, I can stil adjust the load based on what I need to run. Sounds complicated, but it is not really to difficult if you have some understanding of electrical and branch circuit protection. IF not, see if you can get the supplier of the fishfinder to draw a diagram of the circuits and provide you with the necessary equipment. Dan Jonas (S/V Feije)
