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Boat Forum / Cruising / January 2005Is your Raymarine 2KW radome corroded?
"Lionheart" has just received her third Raymarine 2KW radome because Raymarine couldn't save the corroded guts of numbers 1 and 2. It seems to happen every year. The dome is NOT sealed, but has only 4 screws holding the top to the bottom with a sort-of rubber seal between the flimsy halves that are easily flexed. I don't think this is leaking, though. I think the radome's little rubber tit drain vents the pressurized air inside the dome out as it sits in the hot SC sunshine, then sucks in a big gulp of 99.9% humidity sea air as the sun sets. During the night, the colder dome and POT METAL zinc chassis inside it condense the humidity into water that corrodes the hell out of it all night until the sun rises in the morning. As the POT METAL zinc chassis doesn't get sunlight, it is colder all morning and the water condensation on it actually increases as the water on the now-heating dome vaporizes into 100% humidity inside the dome in the morning. The water never drains out of this box as the bottom of it is FLAT, not pitched towards the little rubber tit drain. Opening the dome finds FRESH water sitting in the bottom, and condensing on all interior parts. I tasted it and there's no salt taste. It has rained in Charleston VERY infrequently of late. This much water couldn't have survived the long periods of fair weather. I'd like to hear from other Raymarine owners of 2KW and 4KW radomes that have opened them after many months of on-mast service to see what they've found inside. Our magnetrons have RUSTED. The unprotected pot metal chassis is all corroded. If you remove the aluminum (more galvanic action?) cover from the receiver cavity and its rubber seal, the INSIDE of the pot metal chassis looks like a zinc that's been in the river....all white corrosion and pitted. This is because this pot metal box ISN'T sealed because it's open to the high humidity inside the dome where the power and data connectors are sticking through....wide open..... Take the dome off yours and let me know what you find. This swapping out radomes every year is stupid! Hello to all I remember. The Gulfstreamer Race from Daytona Beach to Charleston was great, even though we all got becalmed 90 miles S of Charleston for hours and hours in DEAD CALM and dropped out to motor home. The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before that. We all had a ball! I have a 15 year old Raytheon set that has lived in Florida and Bahamian waters all it's life. I often open it to grease the gears. There is essentially NO corrosion of the kind you describe. I don't think your problem is with the fresh water moisture. It sure sounds like an electrolysis problem. Is your unit grounded per specs? Do you have electrolysis problems in other parts of your boat? Hope this info is useful. > "Lionheart" has just received her third Raymarine 2KW radome because > Raymarine couldn't save the corroded guts of numbers 1 and 2. It seems to [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before > that. We all had a ball! > I have a 15 year old Raytheon set that has lived in Florida and > Bahamian waters all it's life. I often open it to grease the gears. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > like an electrolysis problem. Is your unit grounded per specs? Do > you have electrolysis problems in other parts of your boat? There aren't any "gears". The new 2KW radomes have a flat piece of PC board with a phased array of stripline antennas on them. It sits on a pin where the RF enters from the waveguide. Around that is a pulley with a rubber O-ring that's driven from a stepper motor pulsed by the PC board inside the potmetal box. The motor is the same one used to pull the printhead back and forth in a PC printer. The pulse rate sets the rotation rate of the pc board antenna. No gears, it's cheap. The water in the dome is fresh water. I've tasted it. It's condensate from the air breathing in and out of the dome every day with no way of escaping until the flat bottom of the dome is flooded enough to drain out the tiny rubber tube grommeted into a hole in the flat bottom. Too bad Raytheon isn't making good radars any more for small boats. Looks like yours is much more sophisticated than ours. >> I have a 15 year old Raytheon set that has lived in Florida and >> Bahamian waters all it's life. I often open it to grease the gears. [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >Too bad Raytheon isn't making good radars any more for small boats. Looks >like yours is much more sophisticated than ours. You still need to find the problem. Every radar I have seen, Furuno or Ratheon, has the drain tube in the bottom, so the interior is open to the atmosphere, but protected from splash. Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a "Biologists think they are chemists, chemists think they are phycisists, physicists think they are gods, and God thinks He is a mathematician." Anon > You still need to find the problem. Every radar I have seen, Furuno or > Ratheon, has the drain tube in the bottom, so the interior is open to > the atmosphere, but protected from splash. Well, the problem must be with the design. There's been three DIFFERENT radomes, the first two all got water in them. Raymarine said in "some environments this happens". Sounds crazy. Charleston SC must be one of them. I'm convince the same thing is happening inside the dome as a half empty gas tank, which will just fill with water around here. Sucks in 100% humid air at dusk, condenses all night, then the dense air blows back out the drain hole when the sun shines on it until the sun set again when the process repeats. A vented gas tank does the same thing, especially if its sitting out in the sun with little gas in it. The cure is to SEAL the dome. That's pretty hard to do with such thin plastic and only 4 little screws holding the top to the bottom around the seal, which only grips the bottom well. I'm for putting in a Muffin fan to dry it out while its sitting at the dock. Hell, none of it's sealed, anyways..... Larry, Could you drill a weep hole in the bottom of the plastic? Paul > "Lionheart" has just received her third Raymarine 2KW radome because > Raymarine couldn't save the corroded guts of numbers 1 and 2. It seems to [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before > that. We all had a ball! > Larry, > Could you drill a weep hole in the bottom of the plastic? > Paul I'm sure that would void any warranty to get the 4th replacement. They specifically tell you to insert this rubber plug with the 3/4" drain tube hanging down so splashed rain or salt water can't get through a tube you describe. I'm for sealing the whole thing up tight with 4200, so we can still get it apart. But, that would void the warranty, too. Raymarine says they have this trouble in "some climates"....whatever that means. >Hello to all I remember. The Gulfstreamer Race from Daytona Beach to >Charleston was great, even though we all got becalmed 90 miles S of >Charleston for hours and hours in DEAD CALM and dropped out to motor home. >The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before >that. We all had a ball! It's about time you got back here. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. >>Hello to all I remember. The Gulfstreamer Race from Daytona Beach to >>Charleston was great, even though we all got becalmed 90 miles S of [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks, Wally. Things at Ashley Marina have gone crazy this week. The guy who owns it is selling it to some condo developer who is going to sell off the finger piers. Lionheart's they want 100,000....oh, that was last week, sorry....$125,000 plus $200/mo "regime fees"...unless they run out of money when they can assess you any more amount they want. So, Cap'n Geoffrey is moving the boat, tomorrow, with most of the rest of the sailors on E-dock, over to a new dock at the city marina next door. If they wanted to empty out the docks, I think they found a great way! >"Lionheart" has just received her third Raymarine 2KW radome because >Raymarine couldn't save the corroded guts of numbers 1 and 2. It seems to [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] >Take the dome off yours and let me know what you find. This swapping out >radomes every year is stupid! I look inside every year. Nothing like that so far (3 years). Previous radar was a Furuno 1720. Nothing like that in 11 years. The Furuno had the same sort of drain as the Ray. It does get hot and humid on the Hudson, but not as often as in SC. >Hello to all I remember. The Gulfstreamer Race from Daytona Beach to >Charleston was great, even though we all got becalmed 90 miles S of >Charleston for hours and hours in DEAD CALM and dropped out to motor home. >The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before >that. We all had a ball! Rodney Myrvaagnes J36 Gjo/a For your upscale SUV: Dingle-balls hand knit of natural Icelandic yarn I have a 4kw dome on my Hatt, and haven't had a lick of trouble with it in 4 years of ownership... Its due for its annual inspection (by me), but so far I've seen nothing out of the ordinary when I've opened it up - and certainly nothing like you're describing! --  SignatureKarl Denninger (karl@denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights Activist http://www.denninger.net My home on the net - links to everything I do! http://scubaforum.org Your UNCENSORED place to talk about DIVING! http://www.spamcuda.net SPAM FREE mailboxes - FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME! http://genesis3.blogspot.com Musings Of A Sentient Mind >"Lionheart" has just received her third Raymarine 2KW radome because >Raymarine couldn't save the corroded guts of numbers 1 and 2. It seems to [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] >The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before >that. We all had a ball! Maybe you should seal it with one of your "licenses." Rick I bought the 2KW radome because I watched THREE 4KW open arrays get replaced on my pier alone because they were full of water. Supposedly a design defect that they had corrected. I've only opened it up once, and that was to replace a bad cable. It looked fine, and I even put a dessicator packet in there just in case. I won't open it up again unless it fails. The other story... the radar just quit on me on a trip home. It was under warranty. The techs came out, couldn't get it to work, called the factory and said they had to send it all back for repair. EIGHT weeks later it came back, and still didn't work. Turned out to be a bad cable. Now I don't know if Raymarine just won't hire the staff to fix their stuff, or ALL their stuff is coming back for warranty repair, or both. I'm just glad that was a lull in my cruising. If I had been out cruising, EIGHT weeks was far too long to fix something so critical. I now tell everyone to steer clear of Raymarine and get Furuno. SignatureKeith __ The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those who got there first. > "Lionheart" has just received her third Raymarine 2KW radome because > Raymarine couldn't save the corroded guts of numbers 1 and 2. It seems to [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > The big Amel Sharki ketch saw over 13 knots on the GPS all night before > that. We all had a ball! > I now tell everyone to steer >clear of Raymarine and get Furuno. ================================= I hope that's good advice because I just got a new Furuno system. Interestingly it came with a replacement rubber seal for the radome cable entry which is slightly larger than the original. I like to look at what commercial fishing boats are using, and there seem to be a lot of Furunos out there. In defense of Raymarine however my last boat had a 20 y/o R41xx that was still going strong and never required service. My present boat came with a 20 y/o R21 that is also still working but a bit out dated. Yea, Raytheon (the older stuff) was great, but it seems that since they split from the parent company and became Raymarine, they've really cut corners and cheapened the product. SignatureKeith __ "I don't care what the tape says. I didn't say it." -Football coach Ray Malavasi "Wayne.B" <waynebatrecdotboats@hotmail.com> wrote in message > > I like to look at what commercial fishing boats are using, and there > seem to be a lot of Furunos out there. In defense of Raymarine > however my last boat had a 20 y/o R41xx that was still going strong > and never required service. My present boat came with a 20 y/o R21 > that is also still working but a bit out dated. > Yea, Raytheon (the older stuff) was great, but it seems that since they > split from the parent company and became Raymarine, they've really cut > corners and cheapened the product. I agree. Thanks to everyone who responded. Raytheon was a great company to work with. This thing is just too CHEAP! |
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