wireless wind indicators

[djw2477]

Anyone had any experience of wireless wind Instruments eg NASA clipper. Do they work? Any problems

[xslim]

Any wireless instrument has 2 things you need to consider:
- frequency - be sure there is no interference
- battery life - be sure you will be able to change it easily when it will die

[bstreep]

We have Nexus, now Garmin. Nexus support was great. Garmin. Not so much. To change the batteries requires a trip up the mast.


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[electronicmarin]

as in anny battery powereddevice the problem is the battery andbattery charging circuit, NAsa and tactick are the worse, seems that the new garmin is a litle bit better but there are still new, i presume that in 4-5years will have a high rate of faulty units... not always changing the battery solves the problem and the repair out of waranty is realy expensive.
Just think about the mobile phones: how long the battery will serve you... not more than a couple of years... I totaly advice against anny wireless solutions for the mastheads...

[Neptune's Gear]

Originally Posted by electronicmarin

as in anny battery powereddevice the problem is the battery andbattery charging circuit, NAsa and tactick are the worse, seems that the new garmin is a litle bit better but there are still new, i presume that in 4-5years will have a high rate of faulty units... not always changing the battery solves the problem and the repair out of waranty is realy expensive.
Just think about the mobile phones: how long the battery will serve you... not more than a couple of years... I totaly advice against anny wireless solutions for the mastheads...

Agreed. +1

[xslim]

From my own experience on aluminum boat - I tried wireless wind instrument, but because of metal boat, signal was not reliable.

[bgallinger]

I have been using the TackTick for 7 years. Service is by Raymarine now and they are terrific. The instrument will run and run forever. I generally just leave it on unless I get several days in a row of overcast. I found that it is subject to electromagnetic interference. If I am close to a power plant it will shut down. Once I'm further away, I re-boot and it comes right up.
Thumbs up for Tacktick!.

[Sails Rock]

I have a Nexus wireless wind instrument that frequently fails and requires a trip up and down the mast to do a reset / match with the base station. When I finally get sick of it I will replace with a hard wired instrument!

[u4ea32]

I'm redoing our new-to-us Olson 40. The guy who did the integrated electronics on the boat, the technical principal of Tecnautics (not Technautics, the refrigeration company), says the gold standard for masthead units is the wired B&G 213.

I am intrigued by the Garmin wireless masthead unit, and may do some tests (or, maybe just stick with the B&G 213 MH unit I already have installed).

[donradcliffe]

Congrats on the Olson 40! Great sailing boat.

While B&G may be the gold standard, my friends are currently fighting intermittent B&G problems on a couple of boats. One is the venerable Merlin, where the instruments work at the dock, then cut out when sailing. The other boat is definitely a wiring problem, but hasn't been resolved after multiple wands and mast wiring harnesses.

[jkishel]

Originally Posted by bgallinger

I have been using the TackTick for 7 years. Service is by Raymarine now and they are terrific. The instrument will run and run forever. I generally just leave it on unless I get several days in a row of overcast. I found that it is subject to electromagnetic interference. If I am close to a power plant it will shut down. Once I'm further away, I re-boot and it comes right up.
Thumbs up for Tacktick!.

My experience has been just the opposite. Equipment failed and Raymarine has been useless.

[electronicmarin]

The 213MHU's from b&g are known for electronic board failures, the board cost around 350€, the whole unit cost around 1200€, the cable costs around 350€... if you're on a regatta boat only b&g and NKE are able to steer the boat efficiently, but as a cruising/occasioal regatta boat the only one I feel to racomand is the raymarine, not only they keept the compatibility from the first autohelm till the newest itc5, the spares are cheap: the whole new trasducer is 350€, the electronic board is 120€, the 30m long cabl is 130€... When onboard you have problems with the gooseneck in the mast (it "bruises" or "eat" the cable insulation) you have the same problem either is a b&g or a raymarine....
Last week I had the first call with a garmin wireless trasducer that around 3 am it stops working so i guess the battery is near to it's end of life...
Then there is always the availailability of the spares part, for b&g and raymarine you can find people that know how to troubleshoot and have the parts in stock or you can order them with short waiting times, meanwhile for all the others the waiting times are longer and the technicians have almost non clew on how to solve the problems...
Then the most annoing thing is that in a couple of years you'll non going to find anny king of spares on systems like garmin, humminbird ecc, do I have to remember you systems like standard horizon, Geonav ecc? the jhonson group that made geonav closed everything and now they are selling the geonav systems as huminbird but modified the firmware so that the old geonav parts are not compatible with the humminbird systems, I have an autopilot payed 4000€ with a small problem that humminbird will not fix and now they do not sell only the cpu and display but they only sell the complete pack so the client has to buy all new again... You have the same thing with the garmin wind wireless trasducers since they are wornig on different radio frecvencyes on US and europe and seems that garmin will only make country specific models from now on (untill now you had double frecvency so depending on the country you where in tyou can chose the frecvency you like, as well as tacktick)...
*I'm doing marine electronics as a job so I see 200 boats a year, on my youtube channel ElectronicMarine you can find a couple of videos with fixing solutions and troubleshooting tips, for now the videos are in italian but youtube will put subtitles for them in english*

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by bgallinger

I have been using the TackTick for 7 years. Service is by Raymarine now and they are terrific. The instrument will run and run forever. I generally just leave it on unless I get several days in a row of overcast. I found that it is subject to electromagnetic interference. If I am close to a power plant it will shut down. Once I'm further away, I re-boot and it comes right up.
Thumbs up for Tacktick!.

I inherited an old (~8 year) Tacktick windy with the current boat. Ran for another four or five years. Started getting some problems with the speed; cups would stick. Likely a bearing issue. Finally it stopped sending any data, which was likely the battery/charging issue. Talked to Raymarine. They had me send in the old unit to have it repaired. I’m sure they sent me a new (or refurbished) unit for about 1/4 the price of new. Seemed like pretty good customer service on a unit that was 10+ years old, and with a previous company.

Our new Tacktick (Raymarine) windy has been running fine for the last three years now. So far, no issues. I’m sure the battery will die in a few more years. I’ll have to replace it, but the simplicity of not having to run wire through the mast is worth it. Not that I would replace a functioning hard-wired windy … not at all. But the Tacktick has served me fairly well so far.

[toddedger]

I wonder what Alex Thompson would say if he were to post on this thread?

[jean lenaerts]

I have installed a Nexus wireless windtransducer on my Dehler 34 5 years ago. Worked fine until end of last season, no indication on the display anymore. Seems that battery was wornout. Placed a new one beginning this season and after 2 weeks again no signals on the display. Seems that the battery is not charging anymore due to erosion of the plastic screen ( went mat ) protecting the suncells to load the battery. After consulting Garmin, the new owner of Nexus Marine, they said the platic screen couldn't be replaced and I had to buy a new windtransducer.
BUT it comes in a package with a wireless box and gnd 10 box, which both are already installed in my boat. Buying only the transducer is not possible !... Very bad aftersales service from Garmin ...
Had anybody any experience with same issue ?