Spring Projects: Who is doing what?

[ian ashton]

Slowly but surely I'm checking things off the list. I guess its a good thing that the weather is so bad here in Michigan - we've only had the boat out once this season - more time for projects!

Anyway, I've got all the Exile speakers in, and LED's wired up. The other night I bit the bullet and ordered a Lowrance LST-3800 depth/temp gauge, and a Kenwood 107MR remote, and they both arrived yesterday!



So, I popped the gauge into where the factory "blank" was;




I'm still waiting for the transducer and temp sending unit to arrive, so its not functional yet, but I wanted to see how it looks. So far this is the closest to a 'factory' look that I've come across that does dept and temperature, and it was fairly inexpensive.

I need to get a rotozip or something to do the install of the 107MR, I'm not super excited about cutting a large hole in the boat (seems like a pretty permanent modification for something electronic, that I seem to change / upgrade frequently, lol) but I guess I don't really have a reason to change after this is in, the MR440U and 107MR do everything I want, so I should be good for at least a few weeks, lol.

[viking]

Ian,
Is that a "stretch-n-slide" dockline in the bow? I've got a couple of those and they are the cat's meow.

Looking good on the upgrades. I can relate to the "good for a few weeks" comment.

[ian ashton]

No, thats actually my wire stripper/crimper. I don't have any 'strech-n-slide' lines - I keep the boat in a marina and have pre-tied lines that I leave on the boat slip, so I just pull up and pop the rope through the cleats. All my ropes, fenders, throwables, and other thingamajigs are blue, to match the boat

[bergermaister]

And I had friends/family regularly pitching me crap about having a yellow rope/handle, yellow anchor buddy and yellow buoy, yellow beach line, yellow on my board shorts, yellow lifejackets,... What do you expect - the boat's YELLOW!

(And that way I know that any yellow stuff left laying around is most likely mine.)

[ian ashton]

I figured that it would be a good idea to get the Kenwood 107MR installed before I did the interior cleanup, since it has been my experience that cutting fiberglass is pretty messy, lol. I started by removing the current Kenwood Marine remote;



Next I was liberal with the masking tape, and place the cutout template;


I ran up to Home Depot and picked up a RotoZip DR1, which is meant for Drywall, but its a 30,000 RPM rotary tool, so I figured it would work - I was right! This thing chopped through the fiberglass like a hot knife through butter. I just used the provided bit (didn't even have to break into the extra bits I bought, which surprised me!)


A nice flush mount:

[ian ashton]

I also decided that I would re-purpose the old remote up to the bow (I can't remember who I stole this idea from, but I know it was someone on here)


(Don't judge the nasty interior - this was pre-cleaning! I have since Malco'd it, and it looks awesome)
I haven't wired it yet, but thats not too hard, just gotta tape back into the same wires I cut to remove it.



Not sure if I posted these, but here is how I did the LEDs for the tower (which are also only partially wired, and thus don't work yet, lol) Basically the same way I did the Exile inboat spekers, just with the larger LED strips;

[mmandley]

Looks really nice Ian you will love that remote man i got the same one and i like it a lot. The only thing to get used to is if the Deck buttons get pushed and its not on the home screen there is no way to fix that from the remote and the remote will act like it doesnt work.

Other then that its an awesome remote, easy to see in the sunlight and the buttons work well.

Only thing i would want different is the volume is slow to go up and down, as you have to push on it a lot or hold it for a few seconds to get the tunes up and down, the Mute feature works great but only mutes your system to like 15%

[viking]

I like that remote and looks good flush mounted right there! Nice work!

[sandm]

looks good ian. I like the look of the depthfinder. not an exact, but really looks like a factory option.

[ian ashton]

Exactly my thoughts. If the factory gauge did water temp I would have gotten it.