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Airmar / Raymarine DST800 Transducer Issue

15641 Views 44 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  wopalx, 
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We have an Airmar DST800 triducer fitted to our XP38 supplied by Raymarine and installed by a professional marine electronics company of good standing.

The original installation was done when the boat was launched in 2012.

We had a failure of the automatic flap (which prevents water ingress when removing the transducer) after about 2 months and the installer hauled out the boat and replaced the faulty unit at their cost.

During 2013 we again had the flap fail.

In March 2014 we replaced the transducer and through hull with another DST800 during our annual haul out at our own cost, again it was installed by the same company.

After the second use the flap again failed...

From discussions I've had with the installer they don't believe they have done anything wrong, so hence I need to have the discussion with Raymarine. While I'm sure they will come to the party and replace the faulty unit I doubt they will cover any haul out or installation costs which obviously sucks big time!


So I am interested in finding out if other people have had issues with the Airmar DST800 tri-ducer, specifically in regards to the flap failing.

Also what are peoples opinion regarding installation / haul out costs? Should I push Raymarine into covering these..

Information I have from Raymarine is that Airmar made adjustments to the design in 2010 as they had issues with flap failures, I suspect they may not have sorted the issue.
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Nature of the failure is the flap falls out of the transducer tube and disappears. Hence we get a massive gush of water each time we change over the transducer for the blanking plug which is generally weekly in summer.

The water is easy enough to clean up however we would prefer to keep as much water out of the boat as possible for obvious reasons, hence wanting a flap that works more than once or twice :)

The company that has done the installation for us is one of the largest Raymarine installers in the area, and we have used them for fitting out of our past 3 yachts we have owned over the years. So I don't think they are installing it incorrectly.

Furthermore they are aware of all the tricks to look for during the installation from the following information from Airmar;

"The risk of the original valve becoming dislodged requires the ring to be positioned with the gap positioned directly over the valve hinge. Assembly instructions include the orientation of the snap ring with ring gap 180 deg from the valve hinge. An incorrectly positioned ring could occur during assembly, or during post-delivery handling. The ring can be rotated by hand from the "as assembled" orientation (180 deg from the valve hinge) during installation or subsequent handling. Please note, that with the snap ring gap located over the valve hinge (incorrect placement or subsequent manual rotation), the valve body remains securely retained within the housing, but includes a higher risk of failure due to the size of the snap ring gap and valve hinge. "


As indicated in my original post I'm curious to see if others have had similar issues with this transducer.
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We normally remove the transducer after sailing if we are not using the boat for more than a few days.

Stops it from getting gummed up with growth on the speed sensor / paddle wheel.
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Well if you pay for a product, several times, that is faulty it's a problem IMHO.

Issue with the water ingress is the transducer is located forward of an electrical distribution panel and all the electronic networks backbone. Salt water and electronics don't mix too well over the long term.

Also the water splashes all over the bow thruster, causing the s/s parts to corrode (s/s I don't think is as good as it used to be).

Have no issues with cleaning the bilge but fail to see why I should need to if the product worked as it's supposed to.

Classic30 said:
Nah.. not really.

Even with only one flap, you get a darned sight less wet than doing the same thing 20 years ago. Anyways it's a good excuse to (a) wash the bilges out and (b) test the bilge pump. :)
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Classic30 said:
So.. you hold the manufacturer responsible for the transducer being located in close proximity to gear that can get damaged by salt water? Why do you have all that stuff located in the bilge anyway?? :confused:
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The thru hull is not in the bilge, it's forward in the forepeak area.

I don't hold the manufacturer responsible for damage to other items, simply I want the item to work as advertised / designed :)
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Whispering Wind I responded to your post on SA.

In both cases the flapper has dissapeared. When the flapper was still in place we would get barely a drop of water coming in but we have always been pretty fast with swapping them over.

Likewise we had the older style Airmar transducers in our last boat and never once had an issue.

I've considered going to the older style and replacing the tri-ducer with separate depth and speed. However it would require a iTC5 box to interface and involve installing another hole into the hull which I'd prefer to avoid.
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Whispering Wind said:
You mentioned going back to the older ducers combined with the Raymarine iTC-5 Instrument Transducer Converter as a possible fix. Does this convert the ducer output to N2K? I have B&G instruments so SeaTalk wouldn't work for me.
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Yes it converts the transducer output into what the ray marine displays need.

I've sent you a pm with my email address as I'd be interested in seeing your video.
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Im going sailing on Sunday weather permitting so will video the removal of the blanking plug to compare.

My issue isn't so much the quantum of water, more so it's the fact we have installed 3 of these and on all 3 the flap has fallen off shortly after relaunch. So either our installer is an idiot (I doubt that), or the product is defective.

Raymarine have not been very helpful to date. I emailed their warranty manager here in Australia about the latest failure on 12th of May, he indicated they needed to seek advise from the UK. I followed up on the 12th of June and have not had any response.
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Whispering Wind said:
Wopalx, get a chance to pull the plug?
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No the weather was ****. Will do it this weekend, as I really need to put the screws on Raymarine for a fix.
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I was out for a sail yesterday so took a quick video of the water flow when changing the balancing plug for the transducer.

You can see clearly (through the water flow) that there is no flap or anything slowing the flow of water.

http://http://s789.photobucket.com/user/wopalx/library/Transducer
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SVAuspicious said:
I expect you were using one hand for the video. Ignoring that you are taking too long.

Have the plug going in ready to go in one hand with the arrow aligned. Use the other hand to unscrew the plug in place. With one plug in each hand you should be able to switch in two or three seconds. Fast lets in much less water than enters in 15 seconds.
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Yes normally it takes me significantly less time. I was however wanting to show the water flow.
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It was installed according to the instructions by a Raymarine agent so I can only assume they did it correctly.

There is heaps of lubricant on the transducer and the blanking plug so I doubt it's a lack of lubricant causing the issue.

I know from Raymarine that Airmar had some issues and altered the design a couple of years ago, below is what Raymarine sent me prior to us having the new one installed;

"Regarding the DST800 snap ring, the the ring design was revised as a result of NCR712, reducing the ring gap from 0.56 to 0.112112 in on Airmar ECO 09E0197 with an effectivity date of 02/18/2010. Airmar has implemented the change on all affected products and has purged all of the "old" snap ring stock. If you can provide the serial number(s) or date code of the affected units I will confirm the mfg date and whether these units were assembled with the old or new snap ring version.

As you may recall, the risk of the original valve becoming dislodged requires the ring to be positioned with the gap positioned directly over the valve hinge. Assembly instructions include the orientation of the snap ring with ring gap 180 deg from the valve hinge. An incorrectly positioned ring could occur during assembly, or during post-delivery handling. The ring can be rotated by hand from the "as assembled" orientation (180 deg from the valve hinge) during installation or subsequent handling. Please note, that with the snap ring gap located over the valve hinge (incorrect placement or subsequent manual rotation), the valve body remains securely retained within the housing, but includes a higher risk of failure due to the size of the snap ring gap and valve hinge. "
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Okay so after involving our local department of fair trading, being told Raymarine was on the case and still not hearing anything I gave them one last phone call to see if they wanted to rectify the issue or involve lawyers.

So to Raymarine's credit they have offered to replace the DST800 with the following to avoid having the same issue of the flapper failing again, and to avoid us having to put another hole in the bottom of the boat;

Speed / Temp Transducer (older style, we have had this on our last boat and it was very reliable)
Wet box in hull Depth Transducer
ITC5 Transducer to SeatalkNG interface so they will talk to the rest of the gear

They will also cover the installation costs of their service dealer.

As we have a haul out planned for February we will wait until then to get it all installed.

Happy to have a resolution finally.
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crypttos said:
Hi I have the same problem, DST800 after 3 times insert the flap is gone. No reply from Airmar now.
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That does not sound too good. I'd suggest dealing with the retailer / installer rather than the manufacturer. We dealt with Raymarine, purely as the dealer / installer had done as much as was reasonable to expect in terms of trying to fix the issue.

On a good note they installed the new items the other week and apart from some calibration issues they seem to be working just fine. Plus the amount of water that comes in when changing the speed transducer is minimal.
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