Raymarine Wind failure

[Genesis V]

Well I’ve tried every thing except buying another wind transducer.
Three years ago I bought a combo pack consisting of Raymarine i70 display, wind transducer, Imar depth, speed & temp transducer and all the cabling.
At a cost of another $1,500 to install (including a ITC5, mast unstepping and restepping & crane time) after which we had no info from the wind transducer. A friend lent me his masthead transducer and every thing worked great. By the time I got around to doing something about the defective unit it was out of warranty and my friend lent me his unit for a second season.
This winter I sent it from Canada to Raymarine in the US. $$ Prepaid repair. They said they found the unit functioned normally. I told them that with my friends unit every thing worked fine, but if they couldn’t find anything wrong send it back to me. When the unit came back there was a note inside the box that said “Fault found and unit repaired”.
But once again it didn’t work, and my buddies again did work. It’s $500 for a new masthead transducer but some are saying to switch to B&G or Garmin. Comments.

 

[Charlie98117]

Did you try testing the wires at the ITC5? The procedure is in the old Raymarine Forum Raymarine Masthead Wind Transducer Test

 

[Georgedoyle]

I went to the top of my mast, disconnected the transducer, and cleaned the contacts with some very fine sandpaper. There was a little corrosion on them. Now it works fine. The unit is circa 2008. A fine fingernail file might work better. I did not clean the female contacts, but the unit works like a charm now.

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

I went to the top of my mast, disconnected the transducer, and cleaned the contacts with some very fine sandpaper. There was a little corrosion on them.

If you enjoy climbing the mast, you may want to coat the contacts with a dielectric such as SuperLube and then forget it.

 

[Genesis V]

Ok I’m onboard and just tested the voltage again which shows low voltage on the Yellow to Black only 0.04 to 0.044 volts
This is the wind speed signal wire
Readings:
Red to black 8.0v
Blue to black 4.30 to 5.30
Green to black 2.15 to 2.35
Yellow to black 0.04 to 0.044
Condition’s are wind about 10Kts, Steady West
Last year I did clean all the contacts on the unit but still the yellow was low v. And a loaner unit worked just fine, telling me the female masthead connector the wiring and ITC5 are all ok. I can’t under stand how Raymarine didn’t pick up the error when it was sent in for repair.
Their initial response:
“Bench tested; Unable to duplicate customer complaint, unit powered and passed all functional tests.”

 

[Georgedoyle]

Yes, I did put some grease on the terminals. I tried to get some inside the coupling on the female contacts, but the holes were very small so I’m not sure how effective that was.

 

[artboas]

Well I’ve tried every thing except buying another wind transducer.
Three years ago I bought a combo pack consisting of Raymarine i70 display, wind transducer, Imar depth, speed & temp transducer and all the cabling.
At a cost of another $1,500 to install (including a ITC5, mast unstepping and restepping & crane time) after which we had no info from the wind transducer. A friend lent me his masthead transducer and every thing worked great. By the time I got around to doing something about the defective unit it was out of warranty and my friend lent me his unit for a second season.
This winter I sent it from Canada to Raymarine in the US. $$ Prepaid repair. They said they found the unit functioned normally. I told them that with my friends unit every thing worked fine, but if they couldn’t find anything wrong send it back to me. When the unit came back there was a note inside the box that said “Fault found and unit repaired”.
But once again it didn’t work, and my buddies again did work. It’s $500 for a new masthead transducer but some are saying to switch to B&G or Garmin. Comments.

I know what your problem is.
There is an issue with the transducer board and the itc-5. If you read the red - black voltage on the itc-5 without the mhu connected, you’ll read about 8 volts.
When you connect the itc-5, it will dip down to 4v.
This is because the mhu is taking more current than the itc-5 can supply. It’s a failure on the mhu input comparitors, and is a bear to track down.
I have 2 solutions for you…
You can buy a new pc board for your MHU, and swap it in.
Or, if you also have an i60 installed on board, wire the transducer to it, and then use its STng output to feed the system
When you sent your mhu for test, they likely hooked it up to an i60, which is why it tested fine.
The reason that the mhu works on the i60 and not it itc-5 is a little complicated.
The itc-5 is a highly integrated device which uses a single uP chip to interface to all the xducers through its I/O pins; some of which are digital, but most either A-D or D-A.
Unlike the discrete instruments, the current capacity on these outputs has lower drive current, and if the MHU inputs stray on their input impedance, it loads down the d-A outputs on the uP.
You could note that while you are only reading 4v on the wind xducer output, the voltage to the speed xducer is fine., This is because the outputs are separately regulated.
I hope this answers your question adequately, and stops the head scratching
Btw,, on the yellow output terminal, that is the wind speed.
With nothing connected, it will float at about 5v.
With the mhu connected, it will pulse proportionately to the WS
Any questions…
Pm me

 

[Genesis V]

That’s a very interesting

I know what your problem is.
There is an issue with the transducer board and the itc-5. If you read the red - black voltage on the itc-5 without the mhu connected, you’ll read about 8 volts.
When you connect the itc-5, it will dip down to 4v.
This is because the mhu is taking more current than the itc-5 can supply. It’s a failure on the mhu input comparitors, and is a bear to track down.
I have 2 solutions for you…
You can buy a new pc board for your MHU, and swap it in.
Or, if you also have an i60 installed on board, wire the transducer to it, and then use its STng output to feed the system
When you sent your mhu for test, they likely hooked it up to an i60, which is why it tested fine.
The reason that the mhu works on the i60 and not it itc-5 is a little complicated.
The itc-5 is a highly integrated device which uses a single uP chip to interface to all the xducers through its I/O pins; some of which are digital, but most either A-D or D-A.
Unlike the discrete instruments, the current capacity on these outputs has lower drive current, and if the MHU inputs stray on their input impedance, it loads down the d-A outputs on the uP.
You could note that while you are only reading 4v on the wind xducer output, the voltage to the speed xducer is fine., This is because the outputs are separately regulated.
I hope this answers your question adequately, and stops the head scratching
Btw,, on the yellow output terminal, that is the wind speed.
With nothing connected, it will float at about 5v.
With the mhu connected, it will pulse proportionately to the WS
Any questions…
Pm me
[/QUOTE
That’s a very interesting observation you make, one that I’m going to pursue. I haven’t got a i60 on board I have a i70. I am away from any marine supply stores at the moment but when I can, I’ll get ahold of a Stng connector allowing me to connect the bare wires from the MHU to the i70 through a seatalk converter. E22158 before moving on to the other avenues you suggested.

 

[NCBrew]

I have an I60 with wind detector on top of mast, it is a wired unit. I can read relative wind but if I select true wind I get - - -
Raymarine says it will not work using GPS boat speed and must use the speed impeller in the hull which is not very accurate and needs cleaning often. I find it hard to believe I must use the little impeller and not GPS speed.

 

[kappykaplan]

True wind speed calculation requires speed through the water, not speed over the ground. GPS speed is over the ground.

Have you tried removing the impeller when not using the boat to prevent marine growth from building up?

 

[Tally Ho]

True wind speed calculation requires speed through the water, not speed over the ground. GPS speed is over the ground.

Have you tried removing the impeller when not using the boat to prevent marine growth from building up?

Is that right?

I would have thought True wind would need to know “speed through the air”….which in most cases would be speed over ground”.

I am Lake Michigan, so no currents to speak of. My Chartplotter provides speed over ground, calculates True wind from that.

How does fighting a strong current have any relevancy to wind speed?

Greg

 

[kappykaplan]

Vector math will explain all . . .

 

[Tally Ho]

Vector math will explain all . . .

So, my True wind calculation is off (or wrong)?

Greg

 

[kappykaplan]

It will not be as accurate with SOG vs. STW.

 

[Tally Ho]

It will not be as accurate with SOG vs. STW.

I do have speedo in the water, but not sure I can can get it into my Chartplotter.

Still seems counter-intuitive to me though.


Greg

 

[Marmalade]

True Wind is relative to water, not ground. It's common for sailors to confuse the two, and simplistically, a lot of people think they understand True Wind, when actually their understanding is really Ground Wind. Just saw a good article from Raymarine on this very subject:

Apparent vs True vs Ground Wind

 

[kappykaplan]

True Wind is relative to water, not ground.

Tks, @Marmalade .

 

[Tally Ho]

True Wind is relative to water, not ground. It's common for sailors to confuse the two, and simplistically, a lot of people think they understand True Wind, when actually their understanding is really Ground Wind. Just saw a good article from Raymarine on this very subject:

Apparent vs True vs Ground Wind

Thanks. I will work my way through this.

At first blush, since I am on a lake without ocean currents, my Hround wind is pretty close to True wind it seems.

i will have to see if I can figure out how to feed my paddle wheel data into the mix.

I just wind I do on my CP and to my AP… so I am thankful to have some info available…now to try and make it more accurate.

Good article, thanks for sharing.


Greg

 

[Marmalade]

@Tally Ho - I should have added a little... you're probably right that without a current/tide, the difference between True and Ground wind is probably small, and really, unimportant. Would guess your STW and SOG are basically identical.

True wind also uses Compass Heading instead of GPS COG. Don't know which your instruments are using now... Heading should be used for True Wind calculations... but if your instruments are using SOG, then likely using COG, which again, is correct for Ground Wind.

Although the definition of True Wind uses Heading and STW, does it really matter? Your AP will use AWS to steer to wind, True and/or Ground has no effect.

 

[Genesis V]

I know what your problem is.
There is an issue with the transducer board and the itc-5. If you read the red - black voltage on the itc-5 without the mhu connected, you’ll read about 8 volts.
When you connect the itc-5, it will dip down to 4v.
This is because the mhu is taking more current than the itc-5 can supply. It’s a failure on the mhu input comparitors, and is a bear to track down.
I have 2 solutions for you…
You can buy a new pc board for your MHU, and swap it in.
Or, if you also have an i60 installed on board, wire the transducer to it, and then use its STng output to feed the system
When you sent your mhu for test, they likely hooked it up to an i60, which is why it tested fine.
The reason that the mhu works on the i60 and not it itc-5 is a little complicated.
The itc-5 is a highly integrated device which uses a single uP chip to interface to all the xducers through its I/O pins; some of which are digital, but most either A-D or D-A.
Unlike the discrete instruments, the current capacity on these outputs has lower drive current, and if the MHU inputs stray on their input impedance, it loads down the d-A outputs on the uP.
You could note that while you are only reading 4v on the wind xducer output, the voltage to the speed xducer is fine., This is because the outputs are separately regulated.
I hope this answers your question adequately, and stops the head scratching
Btw,, on the yellow output terminal, that is the wind speed.
With nothing connected, it will float at about 5v.
With the mhu connected, it will pulse proportionately to the WS
Any questions…
Pm me

Thank you. That’s a very interesting observation you make, one that I’m going to pursue. I haven’t got a i60 on board I have a i70. I am away from any marine supply stores at the moment but when I can, I’ll get ahold of a Stng connector allowing me to connect the bare wires from the MHU to the i70 through a seatalk converter. E22158 before moving on to the other avenues you suggested.