furuno tech help needed

gday all

wondering if anyone here can help me out last year i purchased a furuno 585 off a member with a 1kw tranny to upgrade from my older furuno rdp 131 1kw (nav net 1722c i think) .

now the tranducers are both transom mount  and the same shape but are different in thickness the old one has the tag on the cable but the new thinner one does not i have looked at the airmar site and it does not have the m256 on site.

the old unit had gain 0-100 and i ran that on 22-28 for 20-50m of water for dhuies and have fished for hapuka on the shelf and it was ok in 380m with higher gain.

however the new transducer i fitted with the 585 i have found needs to run gain about 7 out of 10 to fish 20-50m . i am asking for help because after the recent shelf pics (harro/buxey) i am planning a trip out wide before the ban (weather permitting) and hoping someone can shed some light on this so i dont get out there and have to fish blind because i have the wrong transducer on .

the tag on the old one reads    airmar   sealcast m256  pn:41-140-1-01  rev01  customer part#:152900 .

any help appreciated   thanks.


snappermiles's picture

Posts: 2100

Date Joined: 05/11/10

there is something wrong if you need the gain that high

Tue, 2011-10-04 20:36

you should be running it on a max of three for 50 metres and 0 to 2 for twenty metres

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Posts: 93

Date Joined: 07/10/10

I'm not familiar with Furuno

Tue, 2011-10-04 20:39

I'm not familiar with Furuno gear, but what frequency are you using for sounding in those depths ? 50khz or 200khz ? Does the sounder change frequency automatically ?

nackers's picture

Posts: 341

Date Joined: 23/10/09

high

Tue, 2011-10-04 20:58

high freq 200khz for shallow up to 200m then low 50khz for deeper up to 420m on the old unit but i havent been out past 50m with the 585 .

 

nackers's picture

Posts: 341

Date Joined: 23/10/09

you maybe right

Tue, 2011-10-04 21:10

on the money snappemiles , i think i will check the plugs are the same and maybe refit the older sounder and transducer as a back up , hamo i only use the sounder on manual , can anyone dig up some performance info on the airmar model m256 tranny ie scope beam width etc , i have tried to but i am not real computer savy . 

Posts: 614

Date Joined: 24/02/11

Yes

Tue, 2011-10-04 21:48

Go to goggle hull truth have some info on them sounds like they stopped making them in 2004

Simon C's picture

Posts: 801

Date Joined: 01/05/07

go into setup and have a look

Tue, 2011-10-04 22:05

go into setup and have a look at the setting for gain in there. The old user may well have turned 200hz right down. If you go into setting you can tune the 50 and 200 settings so that when you turn the gain knob they do not react the same - sorry if that doesn't make sense. EG you can set 50hz to be -3 of whatever your gain is. So if nothing is changed from new both read zero on dual screen then you trun the gain up with the knob. When you do this you will notice that 50hz fuzzes out way before 200 on the split. By using what I am talking about in setup you can run 200 on 7 with the knob but 50 will only be on 4 if you just set 50 to -3. Turn it on you will see what I mean. Just something to check

nackers's picture

Posts: 341

Date Joined: 23/10/09

will check

Wed, 2011-10-05 05:53

will check that out thanks

Posts: 401

Date Joined: 01/02/09

Another setting

Wed, 2011-10-05 06:05

Check if the sounder unit has 600w or 1kw tranny setting turned to 600w.

Posts: 93

Date Joined: 07/10/10

Sort of along the same lines,

Wed, 2011-10-05 17:07

Sort of along the same lines, I was going to suggest that if there is a setting for it, you have selected the right transducer in your settings somewhere.

harro's picture

Posts: 1959

Date Joined: 07/02/08

yea nackers

Wed, 2011-10-05 18:13

definatly make sure the unit is sending out the 1KW, atm i can sound to around 350, then she bottoms out, I have played with TVG and setting to low out deeper does help, also making the pic advance 1/1

i also increased some clutter to around 15% but i recommend more,  as out deep I uses bottom Zoom, and the clutter doesnt seem to effect it that deep, colours only 16, 9if it makes a diff but easier work on the sounder, plus easier to distinguish fish, i have found the 200khz drops now at 150m, so then 50khz works fine but 5knots max,

i have the tm260, not sure about which one you have i think some of the older models are not that good for deep, if its the 256 then its outdated and i dont think it would work for 300m+, but cannot give a deff on that,

if you need any more infoe let me know bud,

 

 

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nackers's picture

Posts: 341

Date Joined: 23/10/09

furuno tech

Wed, 2011-10-05 23:35

yeah guys sounder is set to 1 kw , simon c the setting for gain is both 50/200  = 0 so not sure what is wrong , harro the old unit picked up bottom in 420m running 65 gain out of 100 (spose 6.5 out of 10) and yes pic adv 1/1 and have to go slow have not played with tvg .

the old transducer is the 256 and it did find fish and structure in 420m with the old 1722c unit i did fish out there a bit in the past .

since fitting the 585 and new tranny that came with i have not been out deep but i agree with snappermiles something must be wrong with this set up to have 7 gain (200khz) to fish 50m so it will def not work out deep .

i am fitting the old unit and tranny back before i go  for insurance (preying to the weather gods )   

three furunos on the dash   oh yeah!

thanks for the replies

 

harro's picture

Posts: 1959

Date Joined: 07/02/08

no worries

Thu, 2011-10-06 08:38

i have my gain up max to see around the 350m mark, as yet havent been able to tweak it any better,but will keep trying,

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 :::: Bass Hunter ::::