planesailing said...

Just a quick inquiry, Has anybody had luck replacing speed sensor (paddlewheel)
with a newer ST60 Raymarinne sender, I been told the fitting in hull are the same
but might have wiring issues. just asking here before I get to DEEP into it. All my dials are ST50 and working great. but wiring (earth wire) has broken inside the sender unit and I cant see a way to open to fix. so thought I might buy a ST60 unit
as they are available, and replace it.

Not sure about Raymarine but a lot of instrument co's use the same brand of transducer (paddlewheel) as each other. It would be very likely that the ST60 and ST50 use an identical transducer. That shouldn't be too hard to check. I had a very old set of STOWE instruments at one stage that had both the wind transducer and paddlewheel wiring potted in epoxy. The paddlewheel wire broke and I made a repair by chipping out the epoxy, resoldering the joint and repotting. Wasn't really worth it as the instruments were shot anyway ie sun faded liquid crytals.

I am going to put a plug in for TickTack wireless instruments here. If you are going to replace instruments go for wireless. The depth and speed transducers are hard wired to a remote transmitter which sends the readings to the wireless instruments which can be moved to any location to suit. The mast head wind transducer is completely wireless which is absolutely brilliant as there is no wiring inside the mast. Its simply plug and play.
I move the instruments from the nav station inside (nice to see wind and depths when sitting at anchor at night) to outside as required. I also bought an TickTack wireless NMEA hub which grabs all of the wireless signals (ie wind speed and direction, depth, speed and water temp) and provides a hardwire NMEA output of this information. I have also hooked a GPS puck to the NMEA input of the hub. This has allowed the chartplotter to display depth,temp and windreadings and the TackTick instruments can display a lot of the chartplotter/GPS info. eg In cockpit can read lat and long GPS coordinates. C.O.G. and waypoint data. and it all talks to the autopilot.

Hi Frant

Could you give an indication as to the cost of the Tic Tack system that you have installed (if not being to personal). I have been reading up on similar systems and considering the change, the versatility of the information to be moved around on board sound great and very beneficial.

I bought my instruments about 5years ago. Not sure how their price related to other electronics at the time but installation costs are a significant saving. The feel of the construction and appearance is high class. I certainly believe that you get your moneys worth. Don't know what the fault or warranty service is like as I have not had call to try that in the five years I have used the equipment. They do have an excellent Internet technical support setup but again as the gear is so user friendly and reliable I haven't actually had to test out how they would respond to a technical or warranty problem. However I have absolutely no reason to question that they would come to the party.
All of the instruments and masthead transducer have solar charged batteries. The speed log and depth transmitter has an internal battery that is charged and or alternatively powered by the boats battery ie it is hardwired in to a fixed location. The battery life and solar charging is such that the instruments will charge when left in the cabin or daytime use outside is sufficient to charge them up enough to run all night with the screen light on.
I will unashamedly plug TickTack instruments.

How do you like Murphys law. Just finish a post about the value of remote or wireless equipment and a problem crops up. Not with the TackTick gear but with my Raymarine autopilot remote. I have an ST2000 auto helm with a wireless remote control. The autopilot is operating correctly and is steering according to the appropriate function. However and out of the blue the remote control is not working completely. It will turn the pilot to on or off and scroll through the steering functions but the course change buttons on the remote do not work. What normally happens when autopiloting to the inbuilt compass the new heading is fed back and displayed on the remote when a steer 1 deg or 10 deg button is pressed and the tiller is adjusted accordingly. Now it appears as if the send signal is operating but the feedback and course change are not. Will be interesting to see if their out of warranty technical assistance is up to the mark.

cisco said...

Thanks frant. When the time comes for me to spending bucks on instruments Tack Tick, Tick Tock and Tock Tack are brands I will be looking at.

I might leave Tic, Tac, Toe off the list.

Did I say tictac? meant to say Tacktick!!

Rec'd a prompt response from the Raymarine technical help. Heres hoping that what they suggested will work.