Hi all, I have a couple of questions regarding my radio.
I have a Lowrance LVR-880U VHF radio and today as I was installing it on my boat I noticed that the microphone cable is deteriorating and falling apart.
1) Does anyone know if it is possible to just get this cable replaced? Or do I have to get the whole microphone and cable replaced.
2) Does the microphone cable screw in/pop in to the case or it internally wired?
Thanks.
The dog ate the cord on my Lowrance Link-8. I went through this....Lowrance dont offer spares or replace. An aftermarket replacement was about $120 from memory and with those fine little wires, I did not think my soldering skills or equipment up to it (despite 30 years in telecommunications) so another $60 or so to have it fitted . Tried cutting and joining but it looked like a train wreck.
I bought a new Link-5 for just over $200 in the end.
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Thanks for your reply, looks like I may be out of luck as well. It turns out that my unit which was bought from Keogh's Marine Electrics down Labrador way was a "grey import", so I have supplied my invoice to APAC and just waiting to hear back from them. The excuse for the cable covering breaking apart was that the microphone cord has to be stretched regularly otherwise it goes brittle.
The rep I spoke to said there may be a slim chance of getting a discount on a replacement model, either a Link 5 or an 8, but not holding my breath for a decent price drop, in which case I will be changing brands.
25% i recall - if they honour it given it's a grey. Plenty of others out there but they're all disposable items now. Except maybe Icom but even then the repair wouldn't be cheap.
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These really are getting to be a cheap throwaway bit of consumer electrics, much cheaper than they previously were. I bought a Standard Horizon with the GPS thingy inbuilt for $160 from Whitworths.
Yeah although I paid $363 for it, because I bought it from a marine electrics store the subject of grey importing didn't even enter my mind. The reason I got that one was that it also had a FM stereo radio built in and as the unit was also water resistant I did not have to worry about a separate marine radio. The new ones don't have the FM receiver built in, not that it is a deal breaker but would be nice to listen to some music when anchored up and not have to install an additional water resistant FM radio.
If I do get a replacement I might just tape up the cord on this one with insulation tape and just leave it in and use it for the FM radio part, it just irks me that Lowrance for the sake of not spending a couple of more dollars on a better quality cable the whole unit is potentially useless, or even putting a sticker on it warning that the cable must be stretched out regularly to stop it going brittle.
I certainly sympathise, I grew up with commercial fishing gear that was always repairable--Furuno, JRC, JVC, Codan, Koden, Robertson, later , Simrad--and by christ it was expensive. You had to be able to fix it, because you couldn't afford to throw it away.. my first GPS, a JRC and about the best you could get , had a pissy little CRT display, plenty of gaps in coverage, and a grand total of 5000 marks capacity. And a button that would delete EVERYTHING without the "are you sure? " promptit cost $10,000 , late eighties. Now, the advances in miniaturization and compact design almost mean that very little is repairable, the smaller pieces of equipment are just a solid lump of processing power and power supply. And it is also far more affordable and powerful than they were. And with the rapid advances in technology we are seeing, the whole 'planned obsolescence ' thing really isn't so relevant any more--these things just make themselves obsolete after a few years.
Looks like I may have solved the problem after a bit of drama, well at least delayed the inevitable, I pulled the deteriorating insulation off completely, gave it a wipe with acetone and dunked it in a small batch of mold making silicone...... big, big mistake, that stuff seems to stick only to itself and nothing else, unlike the other silicone which is an adhesive which sticks like the proverbial. Wiped off all I could before it set with an acetone soaked rag as it would have been huge mess. What I didn't get off later on just simply rubbed off, so back to square one.
After a bit more searching on the web came across a product called amalgamating tape, which seemed to do the trick, about $23 for a 3mt roll, but you have to stretch it about 2-3 times it's length before winding it around something for it to do its job properly, but it seems to have encased the cable reasonably well, even managed to get it to spiral up a bit, I did a rough job on it as I hadn't used it before and it ended up being a bit butt ugly and if I did it again it would end up looking much better. Don't know how long it will last but at least for the time being I don't have to throw the radio away for the sake of a cheap coiled cable. I haven't communicated with anyone over it yet as I am inland so too far away, but at least all the buttons still seem to work OK.
Now in the process of rewiring the console and fitting all the electronics back. The wiring is about as bad as I have seen, I mean why use a single piece of cable when you can just join 4 short lengths together into one and they are all different thicknesses and colours too!. I also need to replace 3 switch panels as virtually nothing works that is wired up to them. One of the panels has a circuit board at the back and it is completely covered in rust.
Trying to sort out what wiring does what isn't easy, but slowly making some sense of it all, there seems to be a lot of positive wires going to a relay but not sure if it is even necessary so I might rip it out and replace it with a 50A circuit breaker as I don't think the relay is working anyway. I am hoping that it doesn't have anything to do with the motor and that it has all it's controls inside the motor. There also seem to be a lot of negative wires joined by a a set screw so will just connect them via a buss bar.
I had forgotten how much fun this sort of work is
Amalgamating tape will last forever, not sure what width you bought but as I have stuff that is 35 mm wide I just cut strips 10 mm wide and about half the length of the job it is going to do. Another use for it is on aerials that fold down, often there is a spot on the boat where there is some contact, a clears clip or other such thing, wrap dome amalgamating tape around that section and the insulation will never crack and wear out.
With your wiring it sounds like you are better off stripping it completely and replacing it, you could use one of these to tidy it all up.
https://www.whitworths.com.au/media/...12circuits.jpg
At least doing it this way you will know what is what if anything should ever go wrong. I'm not sure about replacing a relay with a CB, is there electric winch on the boat as that would have a relay and a CB.
I used to have one of those panels from when I did up my last boat but sold it off as I didn't have anywhere to put it where I could access it easily and couldn't leave it outside exposed. I am picking up 2 of these tomorrow https://www.whitworths.com.au/swtch-pan-c6-rocker two of them will be more than I need and might have to cut one in half to make it fit into the console and hide the existing hole.Whilst I would prefer circuit breakers the panels I have seen usually don't have the right amp ratings for all the gear, for example on the existing panels all of them are 16A ones and the radios only need 5A each, so with fuses I can just put the right sized ones in to suit.
As for the relay, there is nothing that I have that would need it, the biggest power drain is an electric toilet which has a separate 30A resetable fuse wired directly to the battery and a deck wash down pump at 20A. Hence the reason I will probably remove the relay it as it is just another complication.
The tape I bought was 25mm and almost used the full roll but at least it should do the job for a while. I am leaving the existing VHF radio in the boat as well, just as a backup, primarily as I can't be bothered with filling up the hole in the console, and a backup might come in handy should this one ever go on the blink because of my dodgy repair job. Just might seem a bit strange to have two aerials on my sized boat.
Remove everything from the console, fill the big holes with some ply, get a piece of black or smokey perpex or acrylic the same size as your console screw it on then you have a fresh start for all your switches an gauges and will look schmick. A pic of your console would be good, lots of ideas floating out there.
Relays are used to allow a switch not rated to carry heavy current to be used - find out what it does before you cut it all out by either tracing the wires to the device or the switch that triggers the relay. Only thing to watch with the amalgamating tape is that if the cord is still a "curly" cord and the coils are touching each other, in the hot weather the coils may end up stuck together as the tape ages a bit. I usually run a layer of normal insulation tape over the amalgamating tape to stop this - replacing if required over time if the glue lets go.Originally Posted by EdBerg
I used to have one of those panels from when I did up my last boat but sold it off as I didn't have anywhere to put it where I could access it easily and couldn't leave it outside exposed. I am picking up 2 of these tomorrow https://www.whitworths.com.au/swtch-pan-c6-rocker two of them will be more than I need and might have to cut one in half to make it fit into the console and hide the existing hole.Whilst I would prefer circuit breakers the panels I have seen usually don't have the right amp ratings for all the gear, for example on the existing panels all of them are 16A ones and the radios only need 5A each, so with fuses I can just put the right sized ones in to suit.
As for the relay, there is nothing that I have that would need it, the biggest power drain is an electric toilet which has a separate 30A resetable fuse wired directly to the battery and a deck wash down pump at 20A. Hence the reason I will probably remove the relay it as it is just another complication.
The tape I bought was 25mm and almost used the full roll but at least it should do the job for a while. I am leaving the existing VHF radio in the boat as well, just as a backup, primarily as I can't be bothered with filling up the hole in the console, and a backup might come in handy should this one ever go on the blink because of my dodgy repair job. Just might seem a bit strange to have two aerials on my sized boat.
Thanks for the reply's guys, The coils at this stage are not touching and I will assume that a few days in the direct sunlight may open them up a bit more so might not be a problem. I went and got the 2 switch panels today and after I got home, I checked and one 6 switch panel may supply all the connections that I need and it lines up perfectly with the existing holes from the 2 panels and I can always use one of those other 2 now unused panels to replace the rusty one on the bottom if I need 4 more circuits although those ones only have 16A breakers.
The only heavy current device on the boat is the 20A deck wash down pump and a 30A toilet pump, which I might wire up to separate switches and fuses, I think that they are wired separately at the moment anyway but I haven't traced the wires yet so I can't work out why there is a relay as there isn't anything else that requires it. The only thing I am not certain of is the outboard motor requirements. I would think that anything to do with the starting and running of it would be internal to the motor as when the guy sold it to me we went for a spin and it worked fine and at that stage the circuit panels and relay weren't working. They are just a couple of small bilge pumps and LED lights left and that is it.
I also got a NMEA 2000 kit and so will connect the radio with the GPS/chartplotter/sounder together.
So might just take a punt and see what happens as I am running out of time, my son in law and my daughter are coming up from Melbourne in about 10 days so need to have it ready as I would like to take them out fishing in it. Not much left to do now except tidy up the wiring and assemble it all back together again, which probably will be harder than I think.
You could also find that one of your high current devices has it's own power supply wires straight from the battery and the relay is allowing the switch panel to turn it on and off without drawing heavy current from a smaller house supply wire
The only concern will be having a toilet pump working for the missus and daughter, the deck wash down pump I can live without for the time being, all the rest are minor amp draws. This is always a problem when repairing a boat, you have to spend a lot of time figuring out how the wiring is done and why? but from what I have seen so far I should be able to get rid of a lot of it and make it much simpler not to mention neater.
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