J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Wireless Tactic

Who is using and where is the best price?

Hi David,

I have the whole suite of instruments. Some minor annoyances like all instruments but I really like them. I got mine through LayLine. Defender was a bit cheaper but I wanted LayLine to support me if I had issues vs Defender. They did work with me on the price to get it closer to the Defender price. Give me a call if you want to chat more.

David
#397

David,

I have the whole system as well. I've had them for three years and haven't had a single problem. If you get them just get a good charge displays before you use them in a race.

Chuck
319

Just ordered whole Racer's Edge wireles package from Tactick....the old Datamarine's finally bit the dust last year after 25 years of service..

Question..are the Tactick's thru hull transducers the same size as the Datamarine's? I will have the triducer with Tactick so I need only one thru hull. Will patch over the other. Datamarine had one for speed and one for depth.

Wish me luck...

I had to enlarge my through hull holes to 2". No big deal, just bought a 2" hole saw and it worked perfectly since that is all glass in that area.

I put the brain box for the thru-hull, heading and wind in the closet and ran the transducer cables forward under the v-berth. I also mounted the heading sensor on the front of the forward head bulkhead under the port side of the v-berth as close to centerline as possbile and also ran the cable around the v-berth into the closet. Then ran the power down the starboard side from the panel to the brain box. The NMEA box is back above the starboard quarter berth.

I then made a small teak panel with two TackTick clips on it and mounted it just inside the companion way. This is used to store the displays. It is great because you can see the wind speed etc when you are at anchor (-:

Hope this helps with your install.

David
#397

Didn't read your post until after install but amazing how we thought pretty much alike.

Triducer is under the floor between mast and head obviously.

Hull Transmitter I installed starboad side main cabin inside of forward storage conpartment above berth. Triducer cable runs from the Triducer, under floor, into hanging closet, out through bulkhead into storage area behind berths, bored 1/4 hole to carry cable to Hull Transmitter unit in storage compartment above.

Compass Transducer mounted inside rear wall of hanging locker up near top to be out of way, with cable routed same as triducer from there.

Power ran from breaker panel straight behind berths forward to same hole bored up into inside of starboard storage compartment.

Two interior tacktick mounts for the displays, one at nav station, one on companion way bulkhead facing forward so you can see it from anywhere in main cabon.

Three outside mounts, one on mast, and two more on each side of the companionway facing cockpit.

After install, realized I had the rigger step the mast without networking the windvane and anemometer to the wireless network --- They have to be within 3 feet of an active display to program. I was just about to go up the mast myself when I realized I didn't have to be up there, but the instrument did!
So I set a display to "autoprogram" and hoisted it in a padded bag with retrieval line to the top of the mast on the main halyard ---within the 60 second timer period.

Brought it down a minute later and voila -- networked!

A bit of advice for all of your self installers who might not read all of the directions prior to install like me...

Many thanks for the knowledge.

For those who don't know, I am a Texas Aggie. Wouldn't have though of running the wireless device up the mast. Would have accomplished this task the hard way :> )

Cheers,
David Erwin

On my trip to Marblehead, my Ritchie digital compass and wind system died. It turns out I had the same sending unit failure that David had on his old NAVMAN 3100 wind system. He let me borrow his old head unit which confirmed the problem was up the mast. After seeing the TackTick setup David Bows had on Mallorca, I decided to replace my failed NAVMAN 3100 wind instrument with the TackTick system. I purchased the TackTick T104 Super Sail system from Defender and have installed the wind sending unit, analog display and hooked the NMEA interface to my Garmin GPS. I went up the mast and drilled the mounting holes (3 trips up....plan ahead with correct size bits & tools).

I also bought the T070 Race Master Compass. I'll install the speed and depth sensors in the fall when the boat is hauled. The setup is expensive, but very easy to install and configure. The integration of the sensors and displays is nothing short of amazing.

Call Defender - I was able to get a lower price than the online ordering system showed (which was still lower than any other place I saw).

A couple of questions:
What is the best way to remove the old housings for the hull xdcrs? Once the nut is removed, will I be able to tap them out easily or will they end up having to be chiseled?

I'm using VC Offshore and the directions on the TackTick Xdcrs tell you to paint them, but not to use Ketone based paint (VC Offshore is Ketone based, as is Baltoplate I believe).

Tnx,
Bill

Bill,

My speed transducer was set with 5200 and I removed this with this stuff I bought from West Marine that removes 5200. However this was not without quite a bit of persuasion with a 4x4 and small sledge hammer. I cut a 4x4 fence post down to about 2 feet long and put this on top of the transducer and then wailed on it with the sledge hammer. It finally came out. The depth transducer was epoxied in. I used a Dremel tool to gouge out the epoxy and them gave it the same persuasion to finally remove it.

When I installed the new ones I just used 4200 and the large nut so the next owner does not have the same issues.

David
#397