Raymarine Standard Arm Forward Wind Transducer, For Sale

[mthackray]

Raymarine Standard Arm Forward Wind Transducer, For Sale

Does not include cable or mast top base.

Installed (presumably) new on a 2007 Jeanneau 39i in a ST60+ system.  

Functionality is unclear. Wind direction at ST60+ instrument head was always displayed correctly. Wind speed was occasionally displayed correctly, occasionally zero. Climbed the mast, installed a brand new transducer unit, and got the same results. Then on the chart plotter display, changed the chart plotter to display True and Apparent Wind in the data bar and from then on, all has been correct. Thus it is unclear if the issue was the original transducer, the chart plotter interaction with the ST+ Instrument, or something else.

Asking $75.

[Charlie-Bravo]

Hi, what plotter do you have?

I have similar issues with my ST60 , and have ordered a new cable and transducer for the mast top, and a trained monkey to climb the mast, I am , having read your post, feeling the need to fiddle with the plotter menus first ........ if it all comes alive again I can cancel the order of new parts and save some money.

CB

[mthackray]

My chart plotter is a Raymarine E80.

I can't say exactly what menu or button I used, as I am not at the boat.  There are various things one can have displayed across the top of the screen, above the chart itself.  As I stated, I was able to change the display to show True and Apparent Wind speed. This was not what was on the display before.

I cannot explain why this worked.  I am an old electrical engineer.  In trouble shooting, I had put an oscilloscope on the signals from the mast head transducer.  I probed both at the junction box at the bottom of the mast and back at the master instrument. The wind speed signals were "somewhat" correct - the expected square wave was there, but seemed to be shifted up in voltage.

How changing the chart plotter display could fix all this makes no engineering sense to me, but it did, or at least coincidentally did. Let me know if it also works for you.  Having it work twice would give me better confidence in the fix.

Best of luck.

Mark

[Charlie-Bravo]

Hi Mark,
Slightly different plotter, mine is an old C70 Raymarine, but I did find an option to display true and apparent wind and also .... strangely, ground wind speed.
Alas no miracle cure for my St60 wind, but you gave me hope .... thanks,  and as the so called marine engineers have not turned up, I am contemplating climbing the mast,  I figure that the connections up there are possibly the problem and unplugging and re connecting the transducer with perhaps a little contact cleaning may be the issue, perhaps with yours as well, I suppose you could connect your old unit at deck level and see if it works ...... just for mental closure of the issue .... but you are probably too busy sailing and rightly so, but if you could say it is a working transducer it would sell quickly I'm sure.
I'm ok with altitude , just the arthritis in hands and a worn out knee that has put me off the challenge, a good excuse to buy some ascenders and a harness .... it might even be fun ! if I can get it down I can connect it up at the binnacle and test it fully, ... and or rip it to component level to see what has failed, I kind of enjoy this sort of thing.
I metered the cables at the mast base and they read within Raymarine specs, metered the display and that seems ok, but the 'marine engineers' looked and declared that a new cable and transducer would be required ...... they may be correct, but a quick unplug and re connect would seem a sensible first move , ..... especially if it was at deck level, ...... perhaps they need to recover some lost revenue, ...... perhaps i'm just poor and sceptical and reluctant to spend without fully testing and understanding the problem.

 Thanks again for the glimmer of hope.
CB

[ghenkelmann]

Sept 16, 2020 19:39:44 GMT mthackray said:

Raymarine Standard Arm Forward Wind Transducer, For Sale

Does not include cable or mast top base.

Installed (presumably) new on a 2007 Jeanneau 39i in a ST60+ system.  

Functionality is unclear. Wind direction at ST60+ instrument head was always displayed correctly. Wind speed was occasionally displayed correctly, occasionally zero. Climbed the mast, installed a brand new transducer unit, and got the same results. Then on the chart plotter display, changed the chart plotter to display True and Apparent Wind in the data bar and from then on, all has been correct. Thus it is unclear if the issue was the original transducer, the chart plotter interaction with the ST+ Instrument, or something else.

Asking $75.

[mthackray]

CB,

Sorry for the slow reply - yes up to the boat for some sailing.

Good luck with the debugging.  As I can tell you understand, one of the good tenets of getting to root cause of any problem is being able to "turn iit on, turn it off".  As you can also tell, I am skeptical I made it to this point.  But, the system is still working since I installed the new wind vane and made the change to the chart plotter.  And this is since last Spring.  So for now I am keeping fingers crossed.

I do suspect a degraded connection at the top of the mast.  As an old electronics engineer, I was often asked to fix a printer, a VCR, or whatever.  Of course I had no schematic or such.  My usual trick was to take it apart, and put it back together.  90% of the time this fixed it.  Often the cause was a loose or corroded connector.  

I hope the trip up the mast goes well.

Mark

[mthackray]

I have sold the Raymarine Transducer.

Regards,
Mark