ST60 depth trouble

[SaltyGirl]

My ST60 depth reading just started displaying irregular readings. This is an Airmar transducer, with ST60 control head, connected to e7 and i70. What is the best way to diagnose? I'm located remotely with no access to experts or other equipment. It will read correctly for a several hours and then go to "last" or bad readings on the high side. I can disconnect & reconnect the Seatalk cable to the control head and good readings will resume for only a short period. This is the set up I've had for years with no problems.

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Welcome to the Raymarine Forum SaltyGirl,

As long as the vessel is operating within the minimum and maximum (the latter will be be reduced by heeling) depth range supported by the depth instrument then the fault may be rooted in either the depth instrument display or its transducer. Unfortunately, it is not possible to perform simple multi-meter based tests to fault isolate the problem. The problem would typically be isolated in the field by testing the instrument display with another compatible instrument depth transducer which has been suspended over the side of the hull while the vessel is dockside or at anchor. Should the problem be determined to be rooted in the ST60 Depth instrument, then the ST60 Depth instrument would need to be replaced with an i50 Depth/Tridata instrument or iTC-5 (would make the i70 become the system's depth Master).

[SaltyGirl]

I currently use the NMEA 0182 converter to connect my ST60 control heads. If I replace the ST60 Depth with a itc5 will the itc5 just use a spur cable from the NMEA converter or does it have to be added as a continuation of the backbone?

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

SaltyGirl,

The iTC-5 is designed to be installed as part of a SeaTalkng backbone, not in the manner which you have suggested.

[SaltyGirl]

On the Seatalk-Seatalkng Converter box, how should the 2 white Seatalkng spur connections be used? The yellow SeaTalk spur connection currently goes to a 3-junction SeaTalk hub for my ST60s, but the 2 white SeaTalkng connections are not used.
Based on your response, I need to add a T-piece & SeaTalkng Backbone cable, and connect the itc5 to a spur off the T-piece.The Seatalk-SeaTalkng Converter box is currently at the end of the backbone (with terminator plug), and I can just put the new section in the backbone before or after the converter (moving the terminator plug if I put the itc5 at the end. Is that correct?

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

SaltyGirl,

The iTC-5 must be connected to one of the blue socket of the SeaTalkng backbone via an appropriate length of SeaTalkng Backbone Cable. The white spur sockets of the iTC-5, SeaTalk to SeaTalkng Converter, SeaTalkng T-Pieces, and SeaTalkng 5-Way Connectors are designed to accommodate interfacing MFDs, i50/i50/i70 Instrument Displays, p70/p70R Autopilot Control Head, Evolution ACUs, EV Sensor Cores, AIS350/650, Ray50/60/70 VHF Radios, etc. as spurs. The iTC-5, SeaTalk to SeaTalkng Converter, SeaTalkng T-Pieces, and SeaTalkng 5-Way Connectors are designed daisy chained to one another via appropriate lengths of SeaTalkng Backbone Cable which will be connected to the blue backbone sockets of these SeaTalkng networking components. A SeaTalkng Termination Plug will be inserted into each of the two remaining two blue backbone sockets of the backbone to terminate it. A SeaTalkng Power Cable connected to a switched 12VDC power circuit will be connected to a spur socket located at the approximate mid-point of backbone's LEN load.

You can learn more about SeaTalkng networking here.