Anyone using a DST810?

[lutz1982]

Thank u for the welcome...



thermocline could be an issue ok, however this surprises me a lot that a device supposed to plot depth sounding fails so badly, (and trigger annpying depth alarms if active!) when sailing between 20 and 9 meters.


DST810 has this behaviour...
reading at high precision always... then when u get more than 9 meters...it randomly... jumps to 3m, 1.4m.. get stuck for a couple of seconds, than it comes back to correct 10m..... than it happen again randomly until i m sailong sail in the range 20m-9m.
this is also annoying as i can t run the sonarchartLive on navionics to accurately map the area I sail/anchor most.



I can t tolerate this in such an expebsive device, Airmar already swapped once the device with a new one that fails in similar way.



I went deep.in the NEMEA2000 analysis as received by B&G triton3 instrument, and i have notice that while this happen, the depth value just disappear from the raw data collector.


My first suspect was a kind of communication error.... I spent 6 hours trying with the bluetooth airmarCast to tune the update frequency of each value, trying to switch temp/clinometer on and off but no success, the false depth reading seems not at all a nmea communication problem.



What i figured out however is that the device dst810 is somehow aware of a false reading,while it fails, despite plotting on bluetooth the wrong value, it stops sending values over nemea immediately after.
So false reading plus... a no data . Hope to go deeper in the investigation soon, and let you know.



Has anyone any electronic expertise that could figure out what the sensor really does (i have only ecpertise to check the commuication/software part).

[hzcruiser]

Have you had any more luck with the DST810 ?

What about the newer DST810 Smart, has anyone used that?

[lutz1982]

Kept the d810 fry for 3 months, and the temperature sensor started to work again.



no luck with false reading, between 10 and 20 meters, accurare in all other cases.


Some improvement gained switching off via the bluetooth app, all the data that i do not need, to reduce the traffic on nmea bus after the false reading i have a slight faster response


so i switched off heel angle and temperarure.


never tried the smart version, to me they just changed the paddlewheel design

[mikebikeboy]

I got my DST810 a month ago. The paddlewheel worked initially, during initial testing and flicking it by hand. After the install, the boat speed never worked, always gave a 0 zero reading. Temperature worked. Depth worked. I thought, well maybe it has some growth on it. I can live without boat speed for a while. Then the depth and temp stopped working and I cannot even contact it with the bluetooth app anymore. I pulled it and it was spotlessly clean.

This thing is complete garbage, and cost me $400. I cannot believe that Airmar is the industry standard and sell complete **** like this.

[tanglewood]

It’s disappointing that the 810 doesn’t seem to be much better than the 800.

The common thread here is that it’s the smart transducers that are trash, where in my experience the non smart ones are very reliable. By Smart I mean integrated N2K, as opposed to one that connects to a fish finder

[mikebikeboy]

Is it possible to fry your electronics if they are on when you fire up the engine? I know the Airmar stuff is pretty crappy, but part of me is wondering if electronics like that can be fried if they are on when you start the engine. seems like a really unlikely, as who could ever remember to turn them off before restarting the engine in the middle of a trip.

[Captain Bill]

I had depth reading issues with my dst800 and eventually went through three of them over 12 years. I finally was able to get an device that read the NMEA 2000 sentence off of the bus and found that the issue was in part the display and in part the sensor which is why it was so hard to figure out. When I had the problem the depth would count down from the true depth to zero on the display and then beck up to the true depth. Once I saw the nmea 2000 output I saw that the depth sensor sentence did not go to zero but to .6 meters which also happens to be my offset from the sensor to the bottom of the keel. I looked up the tech specs of the dst800 on the Airmar web page and found it had a beam width of over 40 degrees. I did some quick trig and found that from the mounting position the beam did in fact hit the bottom of the keel. When it decided to report the keel instead of the depth it did so instantly. That is it either reported true depth or the bottom of the keel on the nmea 2000 bus. There were no intermediate depths reported on the nmea bus as there were on the display. Apparently this smart display is programmed such that it does not report sudden depth changes. I'm not sure why but I am guessing it's to avoid too much noise caused by biologics in a depth only instrument, not a fish finder. Airmar does in fact tell you in the installation instructions not to place it too close to the keel. The thru hull was already there for the previous depth only transducer so i used it. Its specs say the beam width is only 15 degrees so it never picked up the keel. The dst800 series is designed for sailboats and has such a wide beam to assure reliable depth readings even when heeled. Having a catamaran this isn't a big issue me so I replaced the dst800 with an ST800 and installed a shoot through the hull depth transducer with a 15 degree beam width. I now have depth, speed, and temperature, at least when the paddle wheel isn't fouled. Those of you that may have replaced a narrow beam transducer with a dst800/810 series may be seeing a reflection from your keel as they all have a wide beam.

[mikebikeboy]

Email to Airmar earlier today:

Thanks for the reply. I'm talking to Navico now, who don't seem to know why so many of the DST810's are failing. A quick search on google and there are lots of reports of these units crapping out literally within hours of installation---pretty much what happened to mine. Have you all managed to figure out what the problem is? At first I thought it was a voltage issue, but the documentation states that the DST810 works within a 9v-16v range.

Their response:

Good aftenoon Mike,
A certain production range of DST810 was identified as presenting a variety of failures, loss of depth and N2K network issues, but current production units are unaffected.

My reply:

Thanks for the information, Support Team. However, I would like to know if I can find out which serial numbers are included in the production range that has the failures. When Navico sends me another unit how will I be assured that it's from the newer production range that has addressed the issues? The reason I'm so concerned is because I am about to embark on a big trip on the boat and would appreciate knowing that the transducer will be reliable.. If it goes out while I'm somewhere remote on the Mississippi River that could be a big problem.

Will keep you updated on what I find out. At least Airmar admits there was a problem... but shouldn't there be a recall? Why are people still able to purchase these defective units? It could be a real disaster! In my case, I'll be going down the Mississippi River which having a depth readout is paramount as charts can't be trusted, because the river levels are always changing.

Anyone know of a cheapish backup depthfinder that I could rig up in case this Airmar DST810 hunka fails again?

[s/v Jedi]

Both the DST800 and 810 should work just fine. Of course there may have been production issues etc. but most of the symptoms reported here indicate a bad nmea2000 network or bad installation, like the beam hitting the keel etc.

Especially when issues change when you disable data are indicating network issues. Often this is due to connecting it as the backbone instead of a drop, missing terminators, bad connectors or T-adapters etc.

My 800 stopped reporting temperature. This happens often and mostly out of the warranty period. Also, problems are reported for transducers that are pulled from the thru-hull fitting to keep them clean but still powered on. Best to disconnect them. (Don’t drop them in a bucket of water because then you’re testing if the top really is waterproof)

[capblasters]

I've put 4 DST800s into my sailboat over nine years. Two were replaced under warranty without too much difficulty. That is far from what I expect from an ~$500 transducer.
I've been running the last few years without one. It's not too much of an issue because I've been in one location with good local knowledge of the problem areas. With plans starting now for some coastal sailing next April, I'm looking for a better solution. Is that the 810? Or is there another manufacturer out there with something more reliable?

[capblasters]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Those of you that may have replaced a narrow beam transducer with a dst800/810 series may be seeing a reflection from your keel as they all have a wide beam.

Thanks for this Captain Bill. Most production yachts would have the thru-hull in the wrong place for a wide-beam transducer. I'll check with B&G / Airmar before going further.

[torrmundi]

FYI, a delayed explanation from Airmar for at least some unit failures: https://assets-7484b3de52.cdn.insite...rt-Sensors.pdf

[hzcruiser]

Originally Posted by torrmundi

FYI, a delayed explanation from Airmar for at least some unit failures: https://assets-7484b3de52.cdn.insite...rt-Sensors.pdf

A firmware update would fix damaging a MOSFET if there are voltage spikes? That sounds a bit strange. The only way one can imagine such an improvement would be if the MOSFET was not directly connected to Vcc.

Either way, it might be prudent to put a Zener diode in the NMEA2000 supply to mitigate that risk.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by hzcruiser

A firmware update would fix damaging a MOSFET if there are voltage spikes? That sounds a bit strange. The only way one can imagine such an improvement would be if the MOSFET was not directly connected to Vcc.

Either way, it might be prudent to put a Zener diode in the NMEA2000 supply to mitigate that risk.

A buck/boost dc-dc converter for powering electronics is the way to go

[hzcruiser]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

A buck/boost dc-dc converter for powering electronics is the way to go

That might be a bit of overkill compared to a Zener diode.

Especially since you don't expect your bus voltage to ever drop that low for the boost converter to kick in just to power your N2k stuff?