Placement of radar display
 

We recently bought a Furuno 1623 radar, intending to install the plasma
display in the cockpit, immediately above our Suunto D-165 compass.
However, the installation literature indicates that the display should
be "at least .5 metres from a standard compass or .3 metres from a
steering compass."

We have observed a number of boats with Raymarine radar displays
mounted that way, but so far, no Furunos. Is there really a problem
with the Furuno that the Raymarine doesn't experience? Or were the
authors of the installation guide just being over-cautious?

Any strong EM field can affect the accuracy of a compass.

Bob La Londe
www.YumaBassMan.com

Boy am i glad i went with raymarine...Radar,GPS and autopiolet.
Can you return it? Hope so.

I would say, plug in the unit and see what happens. Any device using
electricty
is a possible problem with a compass. Don't believe either Raytheon or
Furuno docs. Verify it yourself.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Akka" wrote in message
ps.com...
We recently bought a Furuno 1623 radar, intending to install the plasma
display in the cockpit, immediately above our Suunto D-165 compass.
However, the installation literature indicates that the display should
be "at least .5 metres from a standard compass or .3 metres from a
steering compass."

We have observed a number of boats with Raymarine radar displays
mounted that way, but so far, no Furunos. Is there really a problem
with the Furuno that the Raymarine doesn't experience? Or were the
authors of the installation guide just being over-cautious?

"phill" wrote in
ups.com:

Boy am i glad i went with raymarine...Radar,GPS and autopiolet.
Can you return it? Hope so.


You got the 2KW or 4KW radome on that Raymarine?

If so, you won't be glad for long....(c;

We're on our 3rd 2KW dome!

What's failing?



"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"phill" wrote in
ups.com:

Boy am i glad i went with raymarine...Radar,GPS and autopiolet.
Can you return it? Hope so.


You got the 2KW or 4KW radome on that Raymarine?

If so, you won't be glad for long....(c;

We're on our 3rd 2KW dome!

"Padeen" wrote in
:

What's failing?



The main chassis of the stupid thing is made of pot metal! Every day the
little drain tube breathes out in the sunshine then back in all that
humidity when the sun goes down and the guts of it cool, making it
literally rain inside all over this zinc. It eats the chassis, rusts the
magnetron's core and any exposed tuning screws until some of the potmetal
oxides drop off onto the PC boards inside the open-frame box. Of course,
this and the internal rainstorm shorts out the electronics, rendering it
useless.

They don't "leak". The water all over the inside is fresh, not seawater.
There's no cracks in the radome cover or the seals between the top and
bottom. It's just condensation because the damned thing breathes.

Raymarine has been quite nice about it. We send the trashed unit back,
they determine it's trashed completely, then send us a new one, even paying
the freight. But, how long can this go on? Their answer to why is "this
happens in certain climates". Yeah, any place near the ocean!....

It would seem the whole thing needs a good redesign using ELECTRONICS
ENGINEERS, this time, instead of cost accountants. They can't be making
any money building them and sending me new units every year.....

"Padeen" wrote in
:

What's failing?



Oh, by the way, the latest unit they sent had plastic feed with holes in
them the mounting bolts fit up through. Electrolysis, you say? Stainless
steel bolts screwed up into potmetal chassis makes a great battery all
shorted out. Not sure what the plastic spacer is going to do. Maybe it's
supposed to isolate the potmetal from the stainless steel radar mount on
the mizzen so it doesn't weld itself to it, again.

Replacing these things is the pits.....

I sent them the RL70CRC color chartplotter/radar display unit with the last
one. They said it had failed, too, but charged us around $200 to repair it
as it was out of warranty. The RL70 lasts beyond the end of the warranty
period, I think. I do know that now it will talk to its Raymarine
gyro/compass to give us rate of turn data that didn't work before. There
was some kind of communications issue in the display, probably Seatalk.
The NMEA ports seemed to work fine as it would react to the waypoints from
either our Yeoman paper chart interface or The Cap'n on the Dell Latitude
computer...via a Roland multiplexer.

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 05:20:13 -0700, Akka wrote:

We recently bought a Furuno 1623 radar, intending to install the plasma
display in the cockpit, immediately above our Suunto D-165 compass.
However, the installation literature indicates that the display should
be "at least .5 metres from a standard compass or .3 metres from a
steering compass."

We have observed a number of boats with Raymarine radar displays
mounted that way, but so far, no Furunos. Is there really a problem
with the Furuno that the Raymarine doesn't experience? Or were the
authors of the installation guide just being over-cautious?

Try it out.

Hold the radar head close to your compass.

Run a power cable to the radar head.

Power it up.

Move it around.

Does it affect your compass?

The radome has a magnetron, a very power magnet in it. Beyond a doubt the
radome should neither be mounted close to your steering compass for
magnetic reasons or any biological component of value for microwave
exposure reasons.


^
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/ | \ ^
/ | \ |\
/ \o | \ | \
/ |-|_____\ |__\
/____|\|_______|#
\ /|
·._._.·º°`°º·._._.·#°`°º·.

OK, that's what we'll do. The radaome mounts to the radar arch, well
above and out of the way of the binnacle; so I don't think that'll be a
problem, just the display/control panel.

Thanks.