GO XSE and Elite Ti are more or less the same unit. GO has full on Touch with "pinch to zoom", Elite Ti has simple one-finger touch and a few buttons. GO supports Simrad Forwardscan, Elite supports Motorguide Xi5. Both can use TotalScan for Structurescan+2D, the sonar is the same in both.

I belive Totalscan would be ideal for your use, as long as you can mount it in a good way. 50/200/455/800-HDI will give more precise depth, simply because it has a less wide coneangle at 200 kHz then Totalscan (half of the coneangle). But in your depths that difference will be so small you will not even notice it.

Colibri, in your opinion, which model would weather the best in open air salt water conditions, with occasional direct spray. I'm thinking, the Elite TI, but I'm just guessing.

I'm guessing now, but I don't think there will be much difference. My HDS 7 Gen 2 Touch has the same screen and IPX as the Elite Ti and has survived rain and snow on my aft deck for the year it has been reziding there. These units are also mounted out in the open on bassboats doing 70 miles/ hour in hard rain.

Thanks Colibri,
I just got off the phone with Lowrance. I noticed on their website that they will give you 5 year warranty exchange on all their failed units. I have an old out of (direct) warranty Elite-5 laying here, GPS knocked out. So I thought let's give them a call and see what this exchange is about. Needless to say, they gave my an Elite-7 TI w/83/200 Black HDI transducer and additional 3 year warranty on top of the 6 months for, hold your seat. $419. total, was $325 but an extra $96 for extended warranty. I'll probably buy another unit Elite-5 TI to get the totalscan transducer and have a full back up system or the Simrad go5.

I've already paid for the new unit, you don't even need an old sales receipt, just have to send in the old one, done.

On another note, I tried to get the new black 50/200khz HDI transducer instead but they wouldn't do it or the totalscan. Who am I to complain.

CR Yaker

Don't expect too much detail when you do sidescan on bigger depths.
I start to lose detail when depth go below 15 meters and a range of 30 meters using LSS-2 transducer,
If you want good detail at bigger depth you need a tow fish. It can be built using for example an LSS-2 sensor and a CAT6 ethernet cable as extender.

/hakan

Matt wrote:
I"m in a similar situation as the original poster, I'm looking for a sonar / gps unit for custom bottom map surveys as well as search and recovery. I was about to pull the trigger on a Humminbird Helix 10 si when I ran into this thread. I'll be working entirely near shore, water depth of 50 feet or less. I'm mostly interested in structure (pipelines, moorings, rocks and debris). Your choice of the Elite 7ti plus TotalScan sounds great except that I will loose the real-time mapping capabilities of HB's "autochart live". Can I do something similar with the Lowrance and RM (running on a laptop)? What advantage(s) does the Elite 7ti have over the HB?

There is no live sonar imaging support in ReefMaster, although this is something we may think about in the future.
The main advantage of Lowrance units is that RM can create maps for display on the unit (using the Insight Map Creator). If that is not important to you, then the HB is also a great choice.

One big advantage is that I would save at least $500 by buying the Lowrance. ;) My installation will be similar to Matt's, I plan on mounting this on my inflatable boat. My budget and space are limited so saving money and using a smaller system would be a benefit for me.

Some of my work will be to survey a body of water and then produce charts for a client. The final product might be a printed chart or data for a GIS system. Accuracy for those projects is most important. I read somewhere that the accuracy of the produced maps is limited by the accuracy of the -gps time- in the file format and that Matt was working on a work-around using a separate GPS logger. I would be interested in that update when it comes out.

I am also called upon for search and recovery work, and that's where the "live" charting features would be extremely helpful. But viewing side scan mosaics on a 10" display isn't nearly as useful as watching it on a 15+ inch laptop.

Given my needs, how would I best use RM and a Lowrance Elite 7ti + totalscan? Could I transfer data from the Elite to my laptop via Wifi? Or would I need to swap an SD card back and forth?

Also, as far as quality of recordings for RM, would there be any difference between the HB and Lowrance? Or would the SI and bottom mapping data quality be the same?

The only way you could view sonar on your laptop whilst on the water would be to swap out your SD card. Wouldn't take long, but of course you wouldn't be viewing "live". You will definitely see a lot more detail on a PC, simply because the resolution is so much higher. Both Lowrance and HB will record sonar with upwards of 1500 "pixels" of sonar data on each side (so > 3k across for Port/Starboard). You can only view a fraction of that data on a unit - even the biggest 12" screens only have resolutions of ~1200 pixels across. There isn't really a lot to choose between the quality of sonar recordings, and recording quality is no better on the larger units.

Thanks Matt. So for survey work, the Lowrance would probably be the choice. Saves me money and gives me equal (or better considering I can use other people's maps) mapping capabilities.

So then for search and recovery work, how good is the side scan display on your Elite 7ti? Would it work well enough for searching for structure/objects while on the boat? Objects would vary from automobiles to sunk boats to humans. Without the "live" side imaging mosaics, I would probably watch the side imaging display and mark possible targets (with waypoints). Then review all the data (and possibly create a mosaic) on a laptop back on shore. Then go out and further investigate those targets using more side scan and/or an underwater robot (ROV). Any other suggestions?

Well it's only a 7" screen with an 800x480 display, so it won't be anything like as good as a laptop or PC. Your strategy sounds OK though, and it's actually pretty quick to scroll though an entire sonar log once on shore so you should probably review the whole thing on as big a screen as you can - and, of course, viewing sidescan full-screen on a 24-28 inch monitor is a whole different experience - you'll see a lot more detail.

Thanks Matt. I spoke with HB and it turns out that only the Onix with AutoChart Live supports real-time side imaging mosaics. The Helix and other HB models do it by post-processing on a separate computer.

So for my needs (and perhaps others) that Lowrance Elite 7ti with a TotalScan transducer, combined with ReefMaster, is the best all around value on the market today.