Rymarine ST60 Tridata Repeater

[Shagstlm]

We recently purchased a 36' Catalina and it came with a variety of electronics most of which are in good working shape! We have:

ST60 Wind
DSM30 Depth Sounder
ST4000 Autohelm
Fluxgate compass
GPS
Rudder transducer
RD 218 Radar
E80 chartplotter
Icom radio - needs seatalk to nmea converter (any recommendations? I've seen something other manufacturers that do more than the raymarine one)

And here's the kicker:
ST60+ Tridata repeater (I think, looks just like seatalk in/seatalk out)

The boat was billed as having the speed/temp transducer, but I've finally figured out that what it has is in fact an old signet transducer, which is in no way connected to the raymarine system. The transducer wire is actually cut before it heads up to the navpod.

Currently the Tridata instrument reads depth only which it likely gets from the seatalk network, which is useful, but it would be great to know speed over water and not just GPS speed....

So my question is: what is the best (and least expensive) way to add a speed and temperature transducer to the system. I'm assuming that the non-repeater version of the Tridata has inputs for the transducer on the back and raymarine transducers don't just output seatalk words because if they did then I could just plug it into the end of my network...

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by Shagstlm

We recently purchased a 36' Catalina and it came with a variety of electronics most of which are in good working shape! ...needs seatalk to nmea converter (any recommendations? I've seen something other manufacturers that do more than the raymarine one)

And here's the kicker: ST60+ Tridata repeater (I think, looks just like seatalk in/seatalk out) ... Currently the Tridata instrument reads depth only which it likely gets from the seatalk network, which is useful, but it would be great to know speed over water and not just GPS speed....

So my question is: what is the best (and least expensive) way to add a speed and temperature transducer to the system. I'm assuming that the non-repeater version of the Tridata has inputs for the transducer on the back and raymarine transducers don't just output seatalk words because if they did then I could just plug it into the end of my network...

Hi Shag - & Welcome to Cruisers Forum! You're correct that the ST60 Raymarine Tridata master has connections for depth & speed xducers, & the xducers themselves don't speak SeaTalk. I've also recently (& expensively) found that ST60 instruments don't always talk to older ST50 instruments. So you'll need a paddle-wheel (or similar) xducer + a display, & connect that to your system, either through a NMEA/SeaTalk converter or directly to your SeaTalk network if you go with Raymarine.

Having water-speed & heading (via fluxgate) as well as SOG/COG (from GPS) is very useful, as the 2 vectors can be compared & their difference is the current (tide, whatever) that you're in. Many GPS's can work that out for you (like our ancient AutoHelm GPS) as well as some nav programs.

I've now blown up 2 (2!) Raymarine NMEA/SeaTalk converters. They seem to be very RF sensitive, so I suggest you mount it far from SSB & etc. But if others have good info on a converter/multiplexer, I'd also like to hear about it.

[Shagstlm]

So it looks like another option may be the newer airmar smart sensors...

ST850-speed/temp-outputs NMEA2000 (however I am unsure how to incorporate this into the current setup listed above)

ST800-speed/depth/temp-outputs NMEA0183/2000 (could probably get the converter you mentioned (and fried 2 ) to connect this with my system...). My understanding of that converter is that it will not duplicate data sentences already present on the seatalk network (which if true, is good because I will already have those from the dsm30)...

Thanks for the reply...anyone have more thoughts on this idea?

[KestrelBuck]

I have the airmar depth and temp/speed transducers for sale.

temp/speed:ST800-P120-RETRO, PN: 31-487-1-02. This has the smaller diameter tube for the paddle wheel and temp.

depth: P19, PN: 31-188-4-02

These are used. My asking price is $60 each.

[claudio3181]

hi everybody,
i have NEW in box,spare display for tridata st60,easier to sold(i do myself on mine and works great),i ordered two for a friend gone.can save a tridata st60, display damage by sun,very low coast 40usd.