Suggestions needed:

I'm replacing my 20 year old speedo and depth instruments (Datamarine) with a new set of Raymarine ST60+. I want to cover the interior, backsides of the instruments to protect them from salt spray that sometimes comes blowing in over an open companionway. Any suggestions?

Bob Rude
"Mmmmm"
#352

Bob - I'd look at the marine consignment shops. I've seen circular plastic cups with a relief cutout for the cables on some instruments that screw into the back.

The Raymarine stuff uses molded Seatalk connectors that seal pretty well. The only exposed connections are the blade connectors from the sensors. Perhaps you can get some flexible potting compound and mold your own connector for the sensor connections. That would preclude the need to cover the instruments and still provide removable connection.

Good idea, Bill. Thanks. Along this same line, has anyone done a mast mount for the Raymarine ST60+? And, did you use some kind of covering for the back of the instruments? My crew needs some entertainment while sitting on the rail and I thought of mounting a repeater on the mast.

I think Charlie Stoddard has ST60 mast mounted stuff on Falcon. I do know when I was on his boat this summer he had an intermittent connection on one of the displays that we had to wiggle the cable to get the display back on.

My first thought was wire up a TackTick maxi display repeater...

Then, on a different yet related track, how did I miss this?!

http://www.raymarine.eu/view/?id=1237

Hopefully this means better integration with my existing ("pre-me") Ray instruments with my future TackTick investments!

- Jeff

Jeff,

My hope is that Raymarine service centers pick up the TacTick service. For now the best interface between Raymaine and TackTick is the T122 NMEA interface if you have the Raymarine ST60+ multifunction display which has NMEA 0183 available. If you don't have the ST60+, I would NOT buy the Raymarine Seatalk to NMEA interface but would buy the Brookhouse NMEA multiplexer with Seatalk interface. This provides much more flexibility as you update your instruments in the future. No matter what, you will need the TackTick T122 interface for NMEA 0183 connections.

Bill-

Thanks - this is incredibly helpful. I believe I have the 60 (sans "+") unfortunately. Need to check out when I'm down at the boat later this week. Fingers crossed it's the 60+.

I could see hours of frustration trying to figure out why the T122 alone wasn't getting it done. Thank you.

I DO like the idea of the Maxi display on the mast as a repeater. And, the masthead wand looks pretty slick too. Not sure how much of an issue upwash is with a J/30 but looks like a nice way to get the indicator out in front.

My problem is that as much as I want to geek-out on the instruments, I have deck leaks to fix. ;-) And, in the PacNW, that's an issue as fall is here.

This is really helpful. Thanks again Bill!
- Jeff

Jeff - the TackTick Maxi display is sexy but really expensive. I bough my TackTicks before they introduced the Maxi display. I can read the numbers on the TackTick T110 Dual Digital display mounted on the mast bracket from the helm without my glasses. You don't need to go as large as the maxi display on the J/30 to be able to read it from the helm.

One annoying thing, only the Maxi displays calculate current set/drift. I expected to have this data once all the necessary instruments were in place, but not without a Maxi.

-dan

Dan - if you have the NMEA interface, you can actually do that with software on a PC and have is put the data back on the NMEA bus and use the TackTick custom displays. If interested, let me know. I have the TackTick development documentation that shows how the custom display formats work, and what you would send over the NMEA interface.

I asked TackTick about that function and the starting line function that are in the Maxi Displays but not in the MN100 series displays. The answer came back that they did not have enough memory in the smaller displays to handle additional software required to do that. I also think they wanted to differentiate the performance of the maxi displays for marketing reasons.

Agree with you on the motivation for omitting those features. I'll bet that code was commented out at the last moment. If it can calculate true wind speed, cant imagine set/drift is any more complex.

I looked into the PC-based route - I have access to some low power light weight PCs that would be perfect. The software that was capable of calculating that all seemed to be cost prohibitive. Do you know of any cheap software that can take the NMEA inputs, calculate set/drift, and dump it back out through NMEA?

For our Charleston offshore racing, we are often short-tacking up-current in between the deep of the channel, and the rocks of the jetties. And similar when in the harbor itself. Set/drift would be extremely useful.

That said, I still haven't had time to properly calibrate all the TackTick instruments I've installed. They tell you to "find still water" with no current - good luck with that in Charleston without going way offshore.