Raytheon question

[Rocinante33]

Hi all

I have a friend looking at a boat that has a Raytheon suite of navigation/autopilot.

I seem to remember at one time that these were really good. (I use Garmin)

They all seem to fire up and do what they are supposed to do. The owner is not clear as to the provenance, and I am hoping somebody in the forum maybe has this same set up. Can anybody (please) tell me…

1. Tell me what model year this is?

2. If part of it has to be replaced, will all of it have to be replaced?

3. The screen is pre touch screen, but interacts with the autopilot. Would the autopilot play nice with an updated touch screen chart plotter?

4. Is it conceivable that I could still find parts out there with any ease?

Raytheon has confirmed that nothing they have is going to be designed to be compatible though they are much less clear about whether things might work. Thus I am seeking real world experiences with it.

The photo quality is not great, but I guess if you have this set up you might recognize it.

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts

Cheers!

[smac999]

Lots of The st60 stuff still out there. It can be connected to current plotters and works fine.

That plotter is 20 years old and I would plan to replace right away.

[stormalong]

Is that a plotter or a radar?

Two things to be aware of: Raymarine was the split off from Raytheon circa 2000. Raymarine immediately orphaned (refused to service) Raytheon labeled hardware.

The Seatalk interface is still the same so anything Seatalk will work. And yes, there is a lot of older Raytheon stuff out there going strong and available at resale shops and Ebay.

The first and last time I bought Raymarine was 2007. It was an S3G autopilot and both the course computer and control head failed within weeks of installation. The course computer took over a month to repair immediately followed by the control head. I was in the Caribbean at the time and had to pay shipping back to the US for warranty repairs.

I will never buy Raymarine again.

[Frankly]

I have been using a similar sweet of equipment since 2005 (assuming that is a radar and or chartplotter). A few years back I did upgrade the autopilot to the new RM Evo line and added a Sea Talk to Seatalk NG converter. All playing fine together. I do have a couple of Garmin chartplotters which are a significant improvement over the old Pathfinder equipment. Using Raymarine/ Ratheon for 30 years. Wouldn't consider anything else in the instrument and autopilot business.

None of this is factory repairable, if it fails ebay or replacement.


Frankly

[Rocinante33]

Originally Posted by Frankly

I have been using a similar sweet of equipment since 2005 (assuming that is a radar and or chartplotter). A few years back I did upgrade the autopilot to the new RM Evo line and added a Sea Talk to Seatalk NG converter. All playing fine together. I do have a couple of Garmin chartplotters which are a significant improvement over the old Pathfinder equipment. Using Raymarine/ Ratheon for 30 years. Wouldn't consider anything else in the instrument and autopilot business.

None of this is factory repairable, if it fails ebay or replacement.


Frankly

Thanks for that

I looked on eBay and there does seem to be a lot of st60 for sale.

Can he assume that as each unit fails it can be replaced by any SeaTalk compatible device (like a new chart plotter or autopilot head unit)

Which, if any, of the units would have to be replaced with original, out-of-production units? Or could everything be replaced piece by piece as and when it fails? And does this hold for transducers too?

As noted above, Raymarine customer service line is useless on this. Their answer seems to be that it all must be replaced. (Notwithstanding that it is still working fine at this point!)

Thanks again

[Frankly]

AFAIK no current RM production have Sea Talk connections/ interfaces (don't quote me on that, lot of stuff). My ST to STNG converter has handled this so far. IMO there is no overriding reason to have your chart plotter connected to your AP. I can keep up with how my cross track error is progressing and adjust AP heading accordingly.

Wind and depth xducers are probably going to work with new equipment. I tossed my paddlewheel in the trash years back. The ST60/ Pathfinder equipment was good stuff just kind of dated. Still using my Pathfinder radar, have a complete set of spares in the garage (courtesy ebay).


Frankly

[muttnik]

Originally Posted by Frankly

AFAIK no current RM production have Sea Talk connections/ interfaces (don't quote me on that, lot of stuff).

Apologies for quoting you ;-). No current raymarine plotters have a seatalk interface, but the i50/i60 series instruments I believe will link into a seatalk-1 chain via a seatalk to seatalkNG cable. I'm not doing that: all my old st50s are connected via the converter you have to a seatalkNG backbone and if I upgraded instruments I'd probably directly connect them to the backbone, but I believe simply replacing them in the seatalk chain is a (potentially simpler) option.

Might not be an issue for the OP but I suspect modern charts aren't available for the pathfinder and it won't display AIS