Ultrasonic Weather Stations

[SV Windrush II]

I am considering purchasing a Ultrasonic Weather Station for offshore sailing. I am curious if any of you have experience with these, what the advantages are compared to traditional wind vanes, sensors, etc, and which ones would be the best. I am looking at a Furuno 200WX.

[twistedtree]

I've got a Furuno WS200 - not sure if that's what you are looking at or if they have changed - mine is just a relabeled Airmar.

I've been very happy with it. The only time I have questioned it's readings is when the wind is coming from a certain direction, and I think it's all about my installation, not the instrument. It want's unobstructed windflow, and I ended up a slight obstruction from one direction. It's part of the inevitable compromises on a boat.

[colemj]

We have the Maretron ultrasonic and it works well. The advantage over traditional is that birds don't sit on it, spider webs don't wrap the cups and they have additional components in them like temp/pressure/humidity sensors and compass and gps for some.

Mark

[s/v Jedi]

+1 on theMaretron WSO100. Mark copied my network in detail

[Paul L]

Are these mast head units? Does this mean you have your nmea2000 backbone terminated at the masthead? Anyway to give it some lightening protection?

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Are these mast head units? Does this mean you have your nmea2000 backbone terminated at the masthead? Anyway to give it some lightening protection?

Indeed; Maretron has a special in-line terminator to make it easy to terminate the network up there.

A lightning hit will vaporize metal parts as well as plastics up there so I don't know about protecting it. I do try to let the lightning find somewhere else to hit by using static dissipators.

[smac999]

I've had to replace a few maritron ones after only a year of service. one was full of water...

[colemj]

Garmin provides a "lightning suppressor" as well as an in-line terminator with their N2K masthead whirlybirds. I have failed to find information on what this "lightning suppressor" actually does, as well as find a source to purchase one.

So it may be possible to provide some type of lightning protection, but I can't imagine anything working for a direct strike. Perhaps it is some type of emp choke for protection from electrified air around lightning storms?

Mark

[EwenT]

Originally Posted by colemj

Garmin provides a "lightning suppressor" as well as an in-line terminator with their N2K masthead whirlybirds. I have failed to find information on what this "lightning suppressor" actually does, as well as find a source to purchase one.

So it may be possible to provide some type of lightning protection, but I can't imagine anything working for a direct strike. Perhaps it is some type of emp choke for protection from electrified air around lightning storms?

Mark

Typically "lightning suppressors" or "lightning arrestors" for networks such as NMEA 2000 consist of voltage-clamping devices that absorb the electrical energy in the overvoltage and convert it to heat. Mark is correct that these are not designed to handle a direct strike. However, larger capacity devices such as TVS diodes can be expected to do a very good job of absorbing the surge energy of emi pulses from either close strikes or lightning currents flowing in a well-designed lightning grounding system.
Ewen.

[darylat8750]

I have a "Furuno" that is an Airmar also. My only irritation with the unit was during instalation it required a very old version of Windows to set up. Luckily one of my dock mates had an OLD laptop and knew how to use it.

I love the "no moving parts" bit. We have a cabin in the mountains where the wind blows hard. Keeping wind speed sensors on my wx station there is a problem.