RAYMARINE C80 AND RADAR INSTALLATION

R

Rabbits Hutch

New member
Greetings all,

I presently own a 2006 22' Cruiser with the short radar arch w/ rocket launchers. I have just purchased a new C80 and the 2KW Radome from Raymarine.

I've received a few quotes for installation from the various Northeast dealers and am discovering a large disparity in estimates.

The low estimate is 10 hours of labor and the high estimate is 20 hours. These are authorized Raymarine facilities.

Any ideas why the quotes would be so different? Is this the norm?

This is my first time installing such electronics and I honestly dont know a good install timetable versus something unreasonable.

Thanks,

Gary R.
 
Has the 10 hour guy got a higher labor rate? Ten seems reasonable, I've installed these and am about to do it again on my TC but with an E80 and a 4KW. Wish you lived closer and I had time!

Charlie
 
Gary, you may want to consider doing this yourself. It isn't that hard, but can be intimidating to your confidence if you haven't done something like this before. As you have the radar arch already on the boat, the real intimidating part is or should be done (drilling holes through the cabin roof).

Use a section of wire to fish the cable for your radar through the arch. If I remember correctly there is a flat connector on the radome end of the radar cable. Just make sure it is protected. You can fair the wire and cable joint using tape. There is quite a bit of extra cable which can be coiled and hidden under the galley, or in the vee berth area. Use plastic wire ties and clamps to route things as you would like.

If you put your gps puck on the arch, probably on some type of an antenna extension, I believe that you need to feed that down from the arch into the cabin. There are about 4 or 5 wires that are spliced into the C80 seatalk cable using supplied splices. The instructions are pretty clear. My only caveat here is to be certain you do not (NOT) over tighten the screws that hold the puck onto the little football mount. It can crack the gps sensor and ultimately lead to another puck at about $300. Voice of experience here. It took three years to allow moisture penetration, but it eventually got there.

You may want to talk to your Raymarine dealer about whether or not the gps should have a separate power switch. My instructions did not indicate it did, but I have heard rumors that the gps sensor is powered up all of the time that the battery is on and your C80 display is connected. I stayed with the instructions and have not routed power over to a switch.

If you get the fishfinder module, it does come with instructions to have a separate power switch. I used the switch for the LH wiper, since our boat has a manual wiper on that side. I just relabeled the switch.

Hope this helps. I bet you could spend the $900 to $1800 install money on other boat toys!!

If you decide to DIY, read the instructions, read the instructions, read the instructions.

Regards,

Steve
 
AFAIC, 20 hours is ridiculous. Installing the radome is the most difficult part and that varies depending on the cable run itself. 10 hours is reasonable for a technician with zero experience in regard to C-Dorys. Two techs, 1/2 day. Charlie and I could probably put it in a little faster but not by much, especially since his vision is going and I have the shakes. Add a couple of beers and you've got trouble. :wink

Don
 
If you are going to put a dinghy on top of the cabin, you may want to pick up an extra Perko base for your anchor light if it is not currently mounted on your radar arch. You can route the wire at the same time you pull cable for the C80. Just takes power and a ground. When you connect to your distribution buss ahead of the helm, I suspect that it will just take a female spade connector on the power wire, and that will clip right in to the power wire for the existing anchor light. My boat had a male and female type connector that allowed me to clip right in. Connect the ground to the ground buss. Don't wire on to the nav light switch or you will not have an anchor only light. CDory used a jumper with diode to run power from the nav lights to the anchor light so that it does double duty.

Be sure to buy marine grade wire of an appropriate guage.

Just remember the analogy from the old wood butcher: "I cut this board three times and it is still too short"; or in other words use common sense before cutting anything or doing anything that is permanent!

Steve
 
Sneaks":1h9ukjzs said:
AFAIC, 20 hours is ridiculous. Installing the radome is the most difficult part and that varies depending on the cable run itself. 10 hours is reasonable for a technician with zero experience in regard to C-Dorys. Two techs, 1/2 day. Charlie and I could probably put it in a little faster but not by much, especially since his vision is going and I have the shakes. Add a couple of beers and you've got trouble. :wink

Don
Click to expand...

Trouble?? Heck, I couldn't do it without a couple!

Charlie
 
Captains Cat":1p4qnqz8 said:
Sneaks":1p4qnqz8 said:
AFAIC, 20 hours is ridiculous. Installing the radome is the most difficult part and that varies depending on the cable run itself. 10 hours is reasonable for a technician with zero experience in regard to C-Dorys. Two techs, 1/2 day. Charlie and I could probably put it in a little faster but not by much, especially since his vision is going and I have the shakes. Add a couple of beers and you've got trouble. :wink

Don
Click to expand...

Trouble?? Heck, I couldn't do it without a couple!

Charlie
Click to expand...

Ha ha, beer and power-tools are quite a combination.

I will be doing the install of my 4KW Furuno unit in the next few weeks if the boat arrives as planned. It will be my first installation as well. Knowing the details of the install will make troubleshooting a lot easier in the future should an issue arise. The units themselves are plug and play so the real challenge is in the mounting and sealing. I plan to take pictures and document the adventure (he he).
 
Gary, I have the exact setup your talking about, right down to the shorter arch. I did not install anything myself since I bought everything new from the dealer. I think this is something you could handle yourself. And of course your never alone with the c-brats. THe dealer ran the cables for the radar down and out the port side of the radar arch. I believe they might have gone the longer route so they didn't have to coil or cut cables. I'm not sure if they coiled any of the cable because I don't see any coils but there is some room between the hull and water tank and they might have coiled some there. My GPS receiver is mounted on an extension pole next to the Raydome and it's wire is also routed down the port side of the arch. My VHF antenna is mounted on the starboard side of the arch and runs down that side of the arch (inside the tubing that is). They used short screws along the top corner/edge of the cabin with plastic cable holders and zip ties to secure cabling. The DMS module was wired to it's own power switch at the dash.


I'd like to point out one thing regarding Radar and the c-80 that I found out the hard way. If you have the radar cable plugged into the c-80 and the c-80 is powered up, the radar WILL be drawing power even if you are not using radar. I'm not sure what the draw is but the power head is powered up. I'm sure it's not as much as when your actually tx and rx. So when I know I won't be using the radar I either don't plug the cable in or after the c-80 is booted up I manually power the radars scan head down. Just a tip for those that like to conserve battery power. I should ask Raymarine how many amps the radar draws in "stanby" mode.


Some pictures demonstrating cables.

Boating_2_10_2006_014.sized.jpg

boat_speaker_2_5_29_2006_005.sized.jpg
 
Spencer, you don't need to ask them. It's on the website....

For the 2KW

Power Consumption 28 W (9 W Standby)

At 12V, that's 2.33 Amps when not in Standby, 750MW (.75Amps) in Standby.

Not too bad but not trivial.

Charlie
 
It took me 16 hours +/-, working alone(help is nice), to install arch, gps puck on arch below scanner, scanner, DSM module, transducer on transom on plastic mount, C-80 on dash, and run wires. Also ran VHF antenna wires and mounted antenna on the short arch. I separately switched all electronics. One caution. DSM cable to C80 display was just barely long enough with DSM mounted below the Wallas stove. The directions caution to check all routing before final install, which I ignored, but I lucked out. Not too hard if you have some basic tools. This was my first such install.

CBG
 
Charlie, Thanks for that power info. I guess 3/4th's of an amp's not too bad but at the time I was having problems with not having enough power. I've since added a second battery to the house battery so it's probably not an issue anymore.


In regards to the DSM module. The dealer located mine under the helm seat right under the throttle control if that helps any.
 
Gary;
Congrats on the radar for the CD22. There is some fine encouragement here, as well as support. You should not have any problem if you move through this project with meticulous[sp] detail along with patience. The installation manual for the C80 does give some fine points to follow, such as the vertical angle of you mounting and the azimuth setting. Each of these can easily be compensated for during the alignment, except the tilt. With a vertical beam width of 25degrees,, this is not too much of an issue, if at all; only to a purest.

INHO you may want to pull power from an 'aux./accessory' circuit breaker switch such as the CD25's DC Power Panel. I'm not familiar with the CD22's panel, but it may be worth looking at your power distribution so you can isolate your electrical loads.

Art
 
Gary,

It's great to see that you're back and posting to the site again. As far as estimating the time to install, 10 hours is probably a good timeframe.

I installed the radar arch, Furuno 1623 Radar and Raymarine S1000 Wireless Auto Pilot last year. After I installed the radar arch, it probably took me 8-10 hours to install the radar and auto pilot. However, with you having to install the transducer, that may take some time, I've never installed one. Hopefully the bolt pattern in the radar arch match up to the radome. It was a PITA for me to have to drill holes into the stainless steel radome plate on the arch.

Good luck!

Peter
C-Dancer
 
Thanks for all the input from the group.

Peter, always good to "see" you. My last two years in the Omaha area were sterile for cruising waters with the nearest decent lake being 3.5 hours away.

My new duty station of PA now gives me access to Long Island Sound, the Chesapeake bay area and other very nice and historical waters. The radar and chart plotter should allow for some nice voyages to Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Maine this season.



Gary R.
 
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