Raymarine Radar Installation

This is a true story, told a bit tongue in cheek. When a sailing buddy on the east coast upgraded his system, he offered the Raymarine C80 and RD218 radome for the price of shipping. I readily accepted and started on a search for a radar pole on which to mount it aboard Vanishing Animal. Bright, shiny new ones on the Internet typically approached the (as Gary Salvo calls it) "Boat Buck" range ($1,000). Thanks to the wonderful Islander Association we all love, it turned out that Rich Watters had a simple stainless pole he'd taken off Tacoma Blue and offered it for a (great) bottle of Scotch! The rest of the story is how it all came together.

Color code:
Saturday 1/7/2012 in black.
Sunday 1/8 in maroon
Wednesday 1/11 in green

(Sat. 1/7) My I-36 friend, Rich Watters & wife Takae, showed up with his old radar mast. It's all stainless with a flat plate on top and cup on the bottom for mounting - plus a multi-tapered wood shim to compensate for the curvature of the small area of deck between the aft cockpit combing and the toe rail.

Given the large connector fitting on the end of the radar cable, we wound up cutting - with a Dremel - two 1.3" rectangles for the cable to go in at the top and out at the bottom. Lots of sparks flew to get that done.

One of the two diagonal braces would work well, but the one running across the stern wasn't long enough. I'm in the process of fabricating a 2.5" high, 3" round block to go under the fitting that would normally be on the deck, with three 4" long 1/4" bolts to hold it down. So far it's made with two 3" rounds I cut from 1.5" redwood with a big hole saw and is clamped and glued. I think I'm going to leave it at least 24 hours before I fine sand it and put it in the chop saw to take off the top inch. OK, didn't wait 24 hours and cut the block to size and took it along. though the hole saw is 3", the plug wound up at 2 3/4" and just barely equaled the base of the deck fitting. Given how close 4" bolts would be to the edge of the bock, and how it looked, we played with the end fittings and determined that a 2" longer stainless tube would get the fitting down on the deck. One step backwards. On Monday I had a retired C&L Partners lunch in San Francisco, so, after a few phone calls, wound up driving around SF Bay to stop at Svendsen's Boatworks in Alameda and they cut me a new 1" SS tube 38" long in ten minutes. Continued on home for a 100 mile circumnavigation around the Bay. When it came time to attach the stern brace, I carefully passed up to Sandy in the cockpit: the deck fitting with an Allen wrench for the set screws, three 1/4" x 2" bolts, three washers; three nuts; cordless drill and 1/4" bit, 3M 4000 caulk, roll of paper towels ... then froze. I realized I'd left the new 38" tube at home. An hour and a quarter, at 1335, I was back. It came together in about 30 minutes and the mast was now secure.

At the top, the thin stainless plate originally held a Furuno and is too narrow for the Raymarine. So, on my way home last night I stopped at Orchard Supply and picked up some 6" x 18" steel plate and made extensions for each side. That's two 3" x 8" plates with 4 holes in each plate. They are currently drying in a spray box in the sun in the front yard after three coats of Rustolium metal primer/paint.

At the end of the day yesterday we bolted down the base plate with three 3/8" bolts, but because of the shim, the 4th 2" bolt didn't stick through the backing plate enough to get a nut on - so picked up a 3" one on the way home. We also bolted home the brace going forward. Used 3M 4000 caulk for both. So at the moment, the pole is standing back aft.

Today's trip (Sun. 1/8) to the boat will be to put in the 4th bolt in the base plate (Fourth bolt went in perfectly. One step forward.) and see if the extension plates at the top of the pole will now match up with the bolts holes on the Raymarine. The good news: the two plates went on easily and the holes matched those on the RD218 Radome. Two steps forward. Went to tighten the radome onto the plates and discovered that the bolts are too long (1.5") and bottom out because the plate is so thin. One step back. Hum... Plan A: get spacer washers? Plan B, why not just get shorter bolts. (Obviously larger than 1/4" and smaller than 3/8", so 5/16" - right? Got four only 3/4" long at OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware). Re-reading Raymarine mounting instructions - says insert 4 bolts, but doesn't give size or length, but does say use 10 mm drill and 13 mm socket. Oops, sure looks to be metric. Plan C, cut existing bolts shorter with Dremel. Sure enough, a small portable vice and the trusty Dremel cut-off blade, with lots of sparks flying, soon did the job. Won't mount the pole with the radar until I get the stern brace secured. With the stern brace now secure, we took the pole back below to use the shortened bolts to nicely fit the radome to the pole. As I gingerly lifted it up through the companionway, Sandy guided the base into the cup and held it while I reconnected the two braces.

Also have to enlarge an existing hole on the aft side of the cockpit combing for the end fitting to get below, (Nicely done with router bit in Dremel. One Step forward.) and a second hole to get through a small bulkhead at the far aft end of the port quarter berth so the cable can run along the shelf to the nav station. (Nicely done with hole saw in cordless drill. One Step forward.) May also go ahead and mount the C80 unit on the nav station shelf. Tried - but drill and bit were too long to get between nav shelf and cabin top. One step back. Borrowed neighbor's right angle cordless for today's try. With the radar now mounted on the pole and the holes enlarged, the cable quickly fed through to the nav station. The right angle drill made short work of the two mounting holes, and a few minutes later the C80 was in place with the radar cable attached.

Having made the large entry/exit holes, I now need to work out a way to weather-proof them. My current thought is to use 1/8" acrylic and heat form it around the 4" stainless pole using a paint stripper heat gun, then drill a hole for the cable (about 1/2") with a slot to the hole and then possibly make a copy upside down and secure them all with clear silicon. Made 2 acrylic pieces with heat gun and wrapped softened acrylic around 3/5" pole. got them home and successfully drilled 1/2 hole for cable and cut slot to install. Two steps forward. Another option is to check out rubber grommets at Orchard Supply to see if they have something that might work. The acrylic pieces slipped over the cable and covered the large opening, held in place with some caulk. Installed the top one before the pole went up, and the bottom one last.

Finally, will need to double check the electrical wire gauge to the nav station to see if it's big enough for the radar load. I'll probably have to install a new circuit breaker, since I think the fuse for the little rocker switch for "Instruments" is only about 5 amps. Good news here. Have a short, dedicated 14 AWG lead to the nav station and the fuse is 15 amps and the C80 with radar requires 15 amp fuse. One step forward. Now it was time to connect the power leads. Conveniently a mini-distribution point was right below the nav shelf and it was short work to connect the positive and negative leads to the power lead. A very small hose clamp attached a spare pice of wire to the exposed cable shield and the other end was temporarily clamped to the negative battery terminal.

After all of that I get to cross my fingers and see what fires up! Held my breath, turned on the Master Switch and the Instrument circuit and pushed the Power button. Nothing happened. A minute of fluster and the possible problem was found. Hadn't connected the other end of the power cable to the C80. Tried again - lights, camera, action, and the radar screen came to life! I'll send back the Navionics card after I see that it at least works with a card. And yes, the chart functions worked too. Now to get a Navionics card for the West Coast.

Cheers,

Rick

First stage ...	fwd brace in place ...	Stern brace not down...	Deck mount ...
Needed longer bolt ...	Plates to match ...	radar base ...	Trimming washer clearance
Tools of the trade!	To shorten bolts ...	sparks fly.	Now they fit ...
radome mounted	It's in place ...	cable led to nav ...	display in place.
Nav area ...	wise words!	It works!	Cable sealed
She gleams.