Yard guy painted over the Depth Transducer and I'm having difficulty getting the antufouling off.

Paint is a normal ablative with copper.

Will 1 coat affect the transducer?

Mark

No more than fouling will!

Seriously, I have painted over mine countless times, many layers. Rest easy.

 

No more than fouling will!

Seriously, I have painted over mine countless times, many layers, and many boats. Rest easy.

 

Thanks 😊😊

 

Since it is an ablative, you should be able to easily remove it with a scrub pad after a few weeks in the water. It will probably come off on your first cleaning.

Paint isn't a problem by itself, and it should have antifouling on it - it is the solvents in the paint that are an issue. Water based paints should be used. If you used a solvent paint, then it is too late now, but doubtful there was any damage. Just don't use solvent based paints regularly on it.

Mark

 

Next time pull the transducer for painting.
Airmar have a valve model which allows them to be pulled in the water. Why leave them in just to become fouled? Insert when sailing.

 

Yard guy painted over the Depth Transducer and I'm having difficulty getting the antufouling off.

Paint is a normal ablative with copper.

Will 1 coat affect the transducer?

Mark

OH MY GOD


You going to find yourself in water that is reading as 2M deep when it really is 2.02M.

Pull out the sensor and clean it off if worried. Have painted over mine many times.

 

Mark, to paraphrase from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre and from Blazing Saddles - "Sensors? We don't need no steenkin' Sensors!".

Many pundits here will tell you to go back to lead weights and a line, that will not only give you depth but if you add some wax it'll also tell you what the bottom consists of 😂! Or just sail behind me and if I stop suddenly and hoist 2 black balls you'll know that the depth is 2.8m..

I'm still at the dock here and have to re-plug in my depth and speed transducer; despite the shutoff valve I usually get about half a bucket of water in the bilge. I leave in 2 days and head north towards St. Martin.

Fun St. Lucia Fact - the locally brewed Heineken is one of the cheapest beers here. I just bought a case of 24x 250ml cans for a mere US$43 at the grocery store. Time to return to St. Martin or just start drinking unleaded fuel as it is only half the price...

 

I'm thinking some people mount the transducer inside the hull and shoot through it. They pay a price in range, but I don't see where it would be an accuracy issue. Doesn't seem like you should pay much penalty.

 

I do this with my current transducer. It works great.

My old transducer stopped working after I had the bottom painted with Petit Hydrocoat, a water based ablative paint. Of course, they soda blasted the hull first, and then applied 2 coats of epoxy-based primer, and that may have had something to do with the failure.

 

I have 2 in-hull transducers (solid resin) and antifoul the whole boat with 4-5 layers of ablative . Never makes a difference !

 

I just had my bot hauled and “shaved” 1/2” of fuzzy growth off my depth transducer and painted with copper based transducer paint. No difference in the accuracy or stability of the readings. When it reads 4 point something feet, I’m stuck in the mud. When it reads five point something I have a chance of getting out of my slip.

 

Airmar recommends using antilfoul paint on the transducer. I just painted mine on purpose last month, but of course I used the airmar recommended transducer paint. LIke others have said, I think it’s fairly common practice to use antifoul on the transducer, but dont use solvents, abrasives, etc.. and the kind of paint should be compatible.

 

Not gonna matter. When sound travels between two different media, the amount of sound energy that's reflected (instead of transmitted) depends on the density difference between the two. The smaller the density difference, the less energy that's reflected (so the more sound energy that's transmitted to the target media - the water in this case).

The density of paint, finished fiberglass, and water are close enough that it has a negligible effect on the efficacy of sonar. That's why you can mount a transducer embedded in epoxy on the inside of your hull, and it'll shoot through to the water just fine. The epoxy, fiberglass hull, and water look almost like one continuous medium to the sound waves and you get ~99% transmission.

OTOH there's a huge difference in density between air and water, and air will totally disrupt your signal. So you want to mount the transducer in a location where it won't break the surface, and won't occasionally get air bubbles underneath it. That means if you mount it at the stern of the boat it should be low enough that it's completely submerged all the time. And you want to avoid mounting it behind rakes and thru-hulls which might trap an air bubble behind it (right under the transducer) at speed.

And Airmar probably recommends putting antifoul paint over the transducer, because a barnacle shell growing on it is going to have a significantly different density than the water.

 

Yard guy painted over the Depth Transducer and I'm having difficulty getting the antufouling off.

Paint is a normal ablative with copper.

Will 1 coat affect the transducer?

Mark

Hi,
The best way to clean transducers that I have found is using the product "Sea to Sky, Coating Remover." It is a water based paint stripper. That assumes you want to clean it.

 

A few coats of bottom paint will do a lot less harm than a few coats of barnacles.

 

Ours was painted several times over the years without any affect. However, if you have someone skim the bottom I highly recommend removing it...

 

What does "skim the bottom" mean?

 

On those boats that come out of the water with significant osmosis problems they use a planar-like device that removes 1 millimeter (or 2 or 3) at a time instead of trying to sand the entire bottom, dig out, fill, etc. Then apply new fiberglass layer, or other, then barrier, then paint. I might be over simplifying the process a bit.