Experience with Raytheon ST50 series instruments

[Ron Doescher]

I'm interested in purchasing a Catalina 320 & see they come with factory-installed Raytheon ST50-series electronics packages. I'm a little leary of these "integrated systems solutions" holding up under marine conditions. Can anyone provide some insight on their reliabilty? What items failed or were intermittent in operation, after how long, etc.? Tnx.

 

[scott may]

they work well

As a formed marine electronics tech, i can tell you these instruments work well. The things you have to watch out for (besides it being a raytheon-high failure rate in field) mast head units tend to die after short periods, keep all your connections watertite, and learn your equipment well. These units have tons of bells and whistles most people don't know exist or how to use. If you have a choice go with datamarine, or if you have the money B&G.

 

[Ralph Winkler]

Autohelm Works

In 9/99 we bought a '96 C320 loaded with a ST50 system, Navcenter 300 and radar. On a scale of 1 to 10 its a 7.Previous boat had a Nexus 3000 with Garmin 180 GPS. Rating 9 1/2.

 

[Charlie]

ST50

I have all ST50 instruments,Depth , Speed and ST4000 autohelm. I just installed a ST50 Wind instrument and I have them all tied together. The only bitch I have with Raytheon is that their parts prices are out of sight-- 12 inch connection cable between inst. $35 but I guess that there all like that. My units are 4 years old (except the Wind Inst) and I have not had any problems. On my last boat I had Datamarine and they were never worked right but I learned a lot troubleshooting them and what I determined was that it was not the instrument that had the problem, It was the transducesr placement. Beware!!

 

[Ron Doescher]

ST50 Responses

Thanks to all who responded. Charlie: $35 for a factory fabricated marine environment computer cable (e.g., SeaTalk) is probably quite comparable with the prices you'd see for PC cables these days. Good point about the transducer placement, though.--Ron