Dreaded Dashes displayed for Depth gauge

[DarkJester]

Deep breath in....
2011 270 SLX, Merc SmartCraft Gauges, DTS, Smart Tow, LCD Read out with analog speedo and tach. It's the tiny LCD Screen that has all the goodies on it: Depth, water Temp, Water PSI, Tilt, Oil Temp, pressure, etc. Last season I got the dreaded flashing Dashes for the Depth readout. Everything else is groovy. Without trouble shooting, just a shoot and holler $&it, I'm pointing at the Transducer or the cable. The Merc Techs have been playing around the transducer.
Anyway, I think what I would like to do is upgrade to a depth sounder with a contour function and a display with that, plus a GPS and a Chartplotter. I have been looking around and there are just too many options. Can any of y'all help narrow down what I need? It would be cool if the new display would connect to the smartcraft unit and display all the stuff, but let's not get too complicated, or maybe I should. I always say, if you're gonna do it, just do it once.
What do you think? It's off Season, and I have a couple of months before it's back in the water time.

 

[DarkJester]

Okay, so (queso? I need chips) looks like I can get a Garmin MFD/Chartplotter and a Smartcraft to Garmin Translator/ router from Mercury and do what I need to do. I just have to figure out which wires to unplug and plug. I think. Anyway 3 hours on Google and 14 YouTube Videos later, I think I have a direction. It may be all Afterburner, but at least I have a direction. If I get it all figured out, I will try to post some pics and some words about how I did it. Not necessarily the right way, but how I got it to work.
Later,

 

[Stick]

Thank you for sharing. I'll be interested in seeing your result because I've been thinking along the same lines.

Jeff