How I Replaced Yamaha's AIRMAR Transducer for half the cost (WITH PICTURES)

[CBallr]

it started out that way with me, then became constant

Ok thanks.

 

[Stephane Poirier]

Have you solved the problem? did you replace the transducer?

 

[CBallr]

The transducer is replaced but it did not fix the issue. It worked for 10-15 minutes and is back to erroring. Now its immediately erroring. I saw another thread where another person had to go through 3 before it fixed the issue. I'll be contacting Yamaha this week to see how they want to proceed.

 

[Jonsmith02]

So I was able to get the transducer today. Went smoothly. I dont think I was there more than 15 min. They gave me the transducer, downloaded what they needed from in back of the screen and I was out of there. Here are the pics.
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@jpdaley1026 what dealer did you get this at? Any information you can send me? I like that there is no splice on it. I’d like to give them a call and does this replace for an SX190? Speed/depth/temp?

 

[Jonsmith02]

Hey all,

I got sick of waiting form my warranty transducer to arrive, so I bought a new one... installed it... then the warranty item arrived. My shop let me keep the warranty part, so I'm offering it up here for sale first. It is part number F2K-U8K1W-00. Same as the image in post #180 of this thread, which you can see is $660 retail. I'll take a reasonable offer here before I dump it on eBay. PM with offer. Still brand new in sealed box

@nonissan do you still have this? Assume it fits sx190? Does it have the same cable end as this?

 

[jpdaley1026]

@jpdaley1026 what dealer did you get this at? Any information you can send me? I like that there is no splice on it. I’d like to give them a call and does this replace for an SX190? Speed/depth/temp?

I got it at Lynnhaven Marine in VA Beach, Va. Cant say for sure if it is the same one for you or not. If you call them , they might know for sure.

 

[CBallr]

https://www.partzilla.com/product/yamaha/F2K-U8K1W-00-00 it's been regularly in stock although be warned, pretty sure I got a faulty one.

 

[Kevin Krantz]

Cyclops, thanks for taking the time to start this thread. Airmar will not acknowledge this post due to Yamaha stopping them. I have a Yamaha 2019 limited SE that had the error (Communication Error Check NMEA0183 connection). I checked my fuses before placing my order for a new transducer. View my photo from Hodges Marine. The adapter Engine Bus to J1939 does not fit my Yamaha OEM connector. It is very close except the male pins have a wider blade. No issue though, I used the old transducer connection and solder, shrink wrap to adaptor. No wires cut in the boat or the new transducer. See my pic of the old transducer. The arrow pointed straight forward parallel to the centerline of the boat (Keel). Yamaha routed the original transducer wire over the Exhaust support board. This damaged the transducer cable (see pic). Everything went as planned due to all of your help. Thanks again, Kevin K.

 

[Stephane Poirier]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the tip about the transducer. I have a 2020 242 XE and was experiencing the same issue with the depth and temperature readings on the dashboard. I ordered an AIRMAR DT800 from Amazon for 384 CAD and an extension cable for 48 CAD, delivered in 3 days. I cut the end of the extension cable, bought an deucth connector and 4 pin 20 ga, crimped and made a new connector. I removed the clean-out plug panel completely and accessed the transducer without touching the exhaust. Overall, it took me 1.5 hours and I tested it for 1 hour, and it works perfectly. The dealer had the part on backorder until July 1st for 1123 CAD. The moral of the story: take the time to do it yourself!

 

[Waltner]

TL;DR - I saved about $250 on a single item when replacing the defective AIRMAR transducer in my Yamaha jet boat with an equally valid but "non-OEM" option.

Hopefully this helps someone... In my 2015 242 Ltd S, the transducer went bad. Read about how I came to that conclusion via this post.

This particular post is to document how I replaced my Yamaha transducer (F2D-U8K1W-01-00) with an identical AIRMAR transducer for half the price of the Yamaha OEM part. (Retail $697.99, Boats.net currently $505 and backordered with no estimated ship date available)

Bought this AIRMAR DT800 transducer for $263, shipped. This proved to be identical to the one in my boat, minus the connector difference. The Yamaha version has the connector that connects the transducer seamlessly to the house umbilical wiring, providing N2K connection thru the SPU to the Connext system.

In case you are wondering, NMEA 2000 wiring is as follows. This corresponds to the pinouts on the Yamaha connector for the AIRMAR transducer, except there is no pin for shielding. My supposition is that Yamaha decided to not implement shielding in their minor N2K backbone.
Red—Positive Voltage
Black—Negative Voltage
White—NMEA +
Blue—NMEA -
Bare—Shield

I did not want to void the warranty of my brand new transducer by cutting the end of the cable off, so I created a pigtail by lopping a foot or so off the prior transducer cable, and buying an N2K patch cable off Amazon. This cable cost me $22.57 shipped, Amazon prime. Add some 3:1 heat shrink adhesive tubing and some marine tinned copper crimp connectors w/ 3:1 integrated heat shrink adhesive tubing, all of which I had in shop supply from prior boat projects, I have about $25 invested in this pigtail. The final pigtail is shown here. The build photos follow.
View attachment 166066

First, I dummy proofed my cutting by attaching the new N2K cable to my new transducer. Shown below. Again I totally could have lopped off the end of the new transducer cable and spliced in the Yamaha connector directly, but that would have voided the transducer's two year warranty. I would rather spend $20 to have a pigtail that allows me to just screw on a new transducer, than have to ever do this connector splicing game again, and likewise lose the transducer warranty.

View attachment 166068

I then proceeded to lop off a foot of cable from the old transducer, and likewise lopped one of the ends off my new N2K cable from Amazon. Cutting open both cables, you can see they are each color coded for easy wiring. Nice. Again, I provided the details above in case you require further troubleshooting, but you could have done this wiring without knowing red meant DC+. Red goes to Red. Oh well, I like to know how things work.
View attachment 166067

I spliced them together, and heat shrinked them.
View attachment 166069

Connected to the new transducer, and tested in the boat. Worked great. Depth comm error went away, got a temp reading, and low depth alarm. Good! Considering I have the transducer still sitting on the floor of my boat..
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Another

View attachment 166071

Heat shrink tubing over top... 1/2" worked for me.. I put the 1/2 inch tubing on each side of the pigtail wires before splicing, as they would not fit over the connectors on either side. (Do this BEFORE you wire it up!). The last piece was a 3/4 inch tubing that I placed over top in the end to seal the two 1/2" ones together. I found it useful to step up in sizes of heat shrink even though I'm using 3:1 due to the way I did the connections being so much larger than the cable diameters.

View attachment 166073

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Final complete kit:

View attachment 166077


BTW, here's a pic of the new transducer:
View attachment 166078

And the old:
View attachment 166079

View attachment 166080

I own a 2013 Yamaha 242 Limited S. I assume this solution will work for me also. Still can't get a new transducer from Yamaha. Crazy.
What did you use for sealant when putting the transducer back in? One service center told me that a customer tried doing this themselves and sunk their boat because it was not put back in correctly? Also, do I need to fish the other end of the cord down from somewhere or can I do all of this from under the boat? I see the cord looks like it is pretty long. Can you explain that process of getting to the wire harness end of the transducer? Thanks a ton!

 

[whamalek]

Thank you for this tread, Just did mine exactly same way and it is working perfectly and all is good.

 

[Waltner]

Thank you for this tread, Just did mine exactly same way and it is working perfectly and all is good.

Do you have any photos from the replacement? What year and model is your boat? Did you have to remove the exhaust or whatever that large metal cylinder looking thing is in the access port? Is that tough to do if so? Looking for some confidence to do this myself.

 

[hallbox]

Do not order the DST800 if you need the paddlewheel speedometer! The stock images on most sites show the paddlewheel but it is NOT there. Check to make sure it's DST810 and says "speed" in the title or description.

Airmar Dst810 Plastic Smart Sensor 235khz - Nmea 2000 - Bluetooth

Airmar Dst810 Plastic Smart Sensor 235khz - Nmea 2000 - Bluetooth
DST810 Plastic Smart Sensor 235kHz - NMEA 2000 - Bluetooth

Depth, Speed-Through-Water, Water Temperature, Boat Attitude

For a product to be considered a “breakthrough,” it has to vastly change conventional behavior and enhance abilities. The DST810 Smart Multisensor, featuring the new Gen2 paddlewheel together with Airmar's CAST™ App, is the convergence of advanced hull data, matched with a simple and reliable way to calibrate accurate speed via a wireless device. This changes how boaters receive and deliver information to get greater performance from their hull. It is a simple, consistent way to calibrate speed-through-water regardless of what display system is on board. The DST810 and Airmar CAST App deliver capabilities that until now, were only available through expensive PC-based software.

Besides water temperature, depth, and upgraded 5 Hz (5X per second) speed-through-water output, the DST810 features an integrated attitude sensor for heel and trim data. This information, combined with Airmar’s powerful and simple CAST App, makes heel-compensated speed calibration across multiple heel angles and speed ranges both fast and intuitive and is independent of the onboard instruments.

All speed calibrations and NMEA configurations are stored in the DST810 sensor—not in the displays.

 

[hallbox]

Do you have any photos from the replacement? What year and model is your boat? Did you have to remove the exhaust or whatever that large metal cylinder looking thing is in the access port? Is that tough to do if so? Looking for some confidence to do this myself.

Hardest part is building the new wire coverter. And by hard I just mean crimping wires and heat shrinking over the top. I've done the crimping before without a heat gun and used electrical tape which is jenky. Just get a heat gun from Amazon and it's nice and neat looking when you're done. And once you get the conversion cable, you can forever replace your transducer with the half price version (it's the same part no, just different connector).

 

[Hikes]

I am in the process of of installing a DST810 on my 2019 SX210 and the speed does not seem to show on connext when I manually spin the paddle wheel. I can see the speed on the app when connected via bluetooth, so the sensor works, and it is showing the "water temp", just no speed on the connext screen. I soldered up the patch cable nicely. I want to get out on the water tomorrow, so I will probably finish the install. Any thoughts on this?

ETA: I never connected the shields together from the two cable halves, didnt think it was important. Perhaps this is the issue?

ETA#2: I remade the patch cable and connected the shields, did not make a difference. Going to finish the job anyway and figure it out later.

ETA#3: once I got on the water everything worked flawlessly! So note to others installing a DST810…for some reason spinning the paddle wheel to test when installing won’t necessarily register speed on the connext for some silly reason.

 

[Waltner]

Hardest part is building the new wire coverter. And by hard I just mean crimping wires and heat shrinking over the top. I've done the crimping before without a heat gun and used electrical tape which is jenky. Just get a heat gun from Amazon and it's nice and neat looking when you're done. And once you get the conversion cable, you can forever replace your transducer with the half price version (it's the same part no, just different connector).

Thank you! I ended up completing this last week and it is working well! I made some stupid mistakes which cost me some time but overall, it worked well. It will be much quicker next time! Glad to have my Depth Finder back!

 

[cyclops]

Mine didn’t have a spinning wheel..interesting..

 

[Hikes]

Mine didn’t have a spinning wheel..interesting..

Some transducers do speed in addition to the depth and water temp, this is the spinning wheel. Seems to vary based on boat model. Anyway, thanks to this great thread I had no problem making the repair!

 

[Nick Hughes]

A long, old, but useful thread, thanks. At this point today, with the DST-810 out, should I be buying this for my 2015 242 LS, even though I don't need the speedometer? Or should I still be getting the DT800? Seems that the newer would be better with so many failures of the 800. TIA.

 

[Nick Hughes]

I'm going to reply for future repairs. I ordered the DT800, install of the DT800 itself was simple. However, getting the frickin muffler out and back in was a BI-ITCH to say the least. Having seen the transducer free and clear, I wish I just reached down there and pulled out. Was thinking I'd need a monkey wrench to get it off, but a towel gave enough grip. Save yourself the hassle, do what you can to not remove the muffler. Taking off the cleanout port cover was pretty simple and gave room to work.