I want to mount an elite 5 down imaging unit on the bottom of an ipilot trolling motor but am having trouble running wires due to the sliding shaft design of the ipilot. It keeps me from being able to run electronics wires all the way up the shaft. What have y'all done to mount electronic to your ipilots?

I assume you are referring to a Terrova? If so, there are plenty of YouTube videos showing how to do it. You run the cable up the side of the shaft in the groove. It requires taking off the control head and unwiring and rewiring, but it well worth the effort. Use some silicone inside the groove to hold the transducer cable in place. Takes a while to do it right, but you want have to worry about the cable anymore.

I found this information below in the Bass Cat forum some time ago...looks like a good solution...was going to try myself...

I used to run the regular 1198 HDSI transducer in the groove of the Terrova shaft until I bought the Onix and the cable was too thick. After looking around I found a picture on BBC forums of someone that had used a curled hose. I messed with that idea for a while and this is what I am using at the moment. Once the new Ulterra auto deploy is available I will try the same set up on it and will post my results.

I went to Lowes and bought one of those green curly hoses for $10. I then split the hose in half with a knife and fed the cable in. At first I did too much, so I cut the hose shorter. I then installed a small D ring on the front pin of the motor and ran the rest of the cable inside a cable cover (rod cover material). From there I just routed it under deck and back out to the Onix. I've been able to turn the Terrova head 5 revolutions without any problems. Usually the Terrova will go 3 turns and then self correct anyway. I haven't had any problems with pinching the cable either (that's why the D-ring is in the front).

Hope this helps.

That's my boat there. Funny how stuff gets around, I never posted it on the Bass Cat forum. I have been using this set up for almost a year now with no problems. You just have to make sure the cable is not caught under the pivot point. But so far so good. I am about to start using the new Ulterra self deploying trolling motor so I will have to revisit the whole problem again.

It may not have been on the Bass Cat forum but I thought that is where I found it...I had to remove the transducer on my terrova because of the cabling issue...after I took it off I found this...somewhere on a forum and thought ...that's the solution, and when it warms up will try it out on my boat...I am sure you can solve any new problems,looks like you are a pretty good problem solver..thanks for the tips and thanks for sharing...

I ended up using the second method and it worked great. Saved me some headache with wiring and all too. Thanks guys for the tips. Can't wait to see what it's like to have a down scan unit up front.

If you use the slot there is one wire in the head that will need to be cut and then spliced back together