2021 AR250 transducer communication failure. Lost depth reading.

[Davyk]

2021 AR250 transducer communication failure. Lost depth reading. Where is the transducer? What’s the most likely cause?

 

[Adrian @ JB Solutions]

Transducer can be found under the clean out port tray. They are pretty easy to swap out. They fail all the time unfortunately. We do offer a plug and play harness to install an aftermarket unit like the DT800.

 

[Davyk]

Thanks for the response! I may buy one. Is that the tray between the two clean out plugs in the rear of the boat? If so, I looked under that tray today and nothing that I thought would be a transducer stood out to me. Not sure what they look like but didn’t see anything with wires coming from it
. I’ll look again .

 

[tdonoughue]

It's way at the bottom. Easier to find on the bottom of the boat (looks like a nice black disk) typically than from the hatch. Once you find it below, you can better approximate where to find it in the hatch. Usually a black cylinder with a couple of wires coming out of it. If you look in the stuff that came with the boat, used to be they would include a 'blank' transducer, which is the same size/shape that you can pull the transducer & put the plug in (because without the transducer it leaves a 1.5" hole in your boat). But if you have that, it will show you the exact size of that for which you seek...

 

[Davyk]

It's way at the bottom. Easier to find on the bottom of the boat (looks like a nice black disk) typically than from the hatch. Once you find it below, you can better approximate where to find it in the hatch. Usually a black cylinder with a couple of wires coming out of it. If you look in the stuff that came with the boat, used to be they would include a 'blank' transducer, which is the same size/shape that you can pull the transducer & put the plug in (because without the transducer it leaves a 1.5" hole in your boat). But if you have that, it will show you the exact size of that for which you seek...

Thanks again. I took the boat back out today and the depth indicator was working perfectly for about an hour until I got into some really shallow water and it failed again. I looked back down in the hatch and found the black wire proceeding from the transducer and followed it down with my hand as far as I could but I couldn’t reach the transducer…. but I looked under the boat when I pulled it out of the water and I could see it, I was reading online that sometimes on the AR 250 you might have to remove the muffler to access the transducer. I sure hope not. I’m just wondering about some simple troubleshooting steps before I buy a new transducer and maybe just cleaning the transducer on the bottom of the boat would help. Not sure if that would help but it might be worth a try.

 

[tdonoughue]

Would not surprise me if removing the waterbox were required... That certainly looks like the cable I would expect (and I bet that label has the part number on it for the transducer).

Cleaning the bottom of the boat certainly could not hurt. Question: You said it failed when it got to shallow water--when you return to deep water, does it start working again? How shallow of shallow water is it where it fails? 1 ft? 0.3 ft? 5 ft?