Upgrading Raymarine Tridata

[sgr143]

Osprey has a rather elderly set of instruments: ST50 wind, and ST50 Tridata (speed and depth). The wind instrument works OK, but the Tridata is dying. It loses its memory on switch-off, so that it has to be reset to read in metres rather than feet each time. The default speed calibration is way off reality and it's too much of a pain to try to re-jig that each time. It's also got bad readability issues - faded display and always fogging up. All in all, a pain. So - time for a change, ST50 Tridata units not being findable on eBay or similar. The question is: what's the least financially painful way of doing it?

The boat is in the water, so if I can do something that works without taking it out, and especially without drilling new holes in the bottom, that would be much preferred.

I did think of replacing the whole lot, with, say, a Garmin GNX set (the speed/depth transducer will fit in the existing through-hull ), but that's alarmingly (to me) expensive.

Another possibility would be to grit my teeth and stick with Raymarine, keeping the ST50 wind instrument for now at least, and replacing the Tridata with, say, an i50 unit. But I don't know if that can use the existing transducers for speed (ST850 ) and depth (dunno what it is) . And would the i50 be able to be linked to the ST50 wind?

Any thoughts ? Thanks - Steve

 

[prv]

Any of the ST50 or ST60 instruments you can find on eBay should be a drop-in replacement, apart from cutting an additional mounting hole if you end up with separate speed and depth rather than combined. The transducers will be compatible. If you go to ST60 then you'll need to cut off the ST50 round plugs and replace with standard spade terminals, but that's cheap and easy to do.

Pete

 

[jwilson]

As PRV says - but ST60 Tridata instrument heads are often difficult to find used in good condition, particularly master Tridatas. Slave Tridatas are common but probably no use to you. Often easier to find a ST60+ than a ST60: either will replace a ST50.