Depth finder way off

emilime75

New Member
Mar 12, 2020
29
Boat Info
2006 185 Sport
Engines
3.0
The factory depth finder in my new to me 06 185 Sport is way off. Its an in hull transducer, so there's no adjustment to be made there. Is there some sort of calibration process needed, or does it just need to be replaced?
 
How off is "way off"? If you have the smartcraft smart gauges there is an offset function to adjust the read out. I'm not sure the limits, but the idea is to let you adjust to show the depth of water for either under the keel or at the water line.
 
The factory depth finder in my new to me 06 185 Sport is way off. Its an in hull transducer, so there's no adjustment to be made there. Is there some sort of calibration process needed, or does it just need to be replaced?

Why don't either tell us the model depth gauge you have, or post a picture? Knowing what it is will help us help you. Many depth gauges have an adjustment to compensate for the distance from the transducer face to either the waterline (so gauge matches charts) or the very bottom of the boat (so you don't drag your OB in the mud). Some depth systems do not have an adjustment.
 
Like showing 500' when the known max depth of the lake I'm in is around 100' during normal pool.

No smart gauges, just a digital read out display in a 2" gauge size format with an in hull transducer. It has some settings for depth alarms, wasn't sure if there was a way to calibrate it using the 3 buttons it has - (UP arrow) (SET) (DOWN arrow) - I believe it's made by Humminbird, possibly the HDR6xx line, but not at the boat right now to confirm.
 
Found a manual for the HDR600, it has keel offset adjustment, but its range is only +/- 10'. That wouldn't come anywhere close to calibrating out an error of hundreds of feet.
 
Like showing 500' when the known max depth of the lake I'm in is around 100' during normal pool.

No smart gauges, just a digital read out display in a 2" gauge size format with an in hull transducer. It has some settings for depth alarms, wasn't sure if there was a way to calibrate it using the 3 buttons it has - (UP arrow) (SET) (DOWN arrow) - I believe it's made by Humminbird, possibly the HDR6xx line, but not at the boat right now to confirm.
What about when you in more shallow water? Does it show 10 feet or 20 feet of water, or does it always show 500 feet?
 
Didn't pay a ton of attention because we know the lake well, but one cove that we know should be about 10-15' was showing 200'. There were a handful of times where it apeared to be right, or close to it, but most times way off. Didn't seem to make a difference if we were moving, or staionary.
 
Didn't pay a ton of attention because we know the lake well, but one cove that we know should be about 10-15' was showing 200'. There were a handful of times where it apeared to be right, or close to it, but most times way off. Didn't seem to make a difference if we were moving, or staionary.

I had a transducer that had similarly erratic readings. Sometimes was ok, sometimes read too deep, sometimes just blinked a static depth. It ended up being the black box sonar unit that went bad. It was a through hull, so Garmin sent me compatible transom mount transducer to troubleshoot if the problem was the 'ducer or the sonar unit.
 
It is time to replace transducer and possibly head unit too. For less than $200 you can get depthfinder with gps and more
 
I bought a Hummingbird Helix 5 Chirp GPS SI G2 today, just don't like having things that don't work. Might just pull out the depth finder gauge and put something else in its place, like a voltage gauge.
 
If there is a setup screen, open it up and see if it has a dual frequency transducer. If it does, change it to the 200 khz setting and try it again.
 

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