Thread: Will thruhull work for DI on an aluminum hull?

I expect that you will continue to hear conflicting reports too Wood_Duck.

Humminbird’s response for DI (or any sonar type) working through an aluminum hull would be “No”.
The fact is that it could work in a few cases but not in most. It has to do with the thickness and alloy of the metal and also whether you can locate the transducer in an area where there will not be any air bubbles flowing across the hull in that location. There will be quite a bit of signal loss in doing this and I believe that the lower the sonar frequency used the less this loss will be. Over the years I too have heard from many who have successfully used our transducers inside the hull of an aluminum boat and yet I have heard from many more whom this did not work for, though I have not yet heard from anyone using a DI model transducer inside the hull of an aluminum boat but you could certainly test this. You can do so by installing a large enough piece of PVC to the inside of the hull, sealing it at the bottom to the hull and filling it with water. Put the transducer inside and place a plastic bag of sand or gravel on it to keep it in place and test away. Please let us know what you results were.

Whats wrong with mounting the transducer to the pods?

Originally Posted by Danny2072

Whats wrong with mounting the transducer to the pods?

Its on the back of a jet, and DI/SI transducers costs too much to bust on rocks, especially way back on a flotation pod.

Cut a hole in the alum hull and fiberglass a patch in.

Thats funny there

Originally Posted by jigflip

Thats funny there

I think he was being serious. I’ve heard of a few that have done this but only saw one in person. It worked but not sure that I would want to do that to a tin boat that I owned.