Pedestal Guard

[WBurgner]

I am installing a new chart plotter and find that the pedestal guard is non-standard. No surprise to many on the list. I am looking for sugggestions from those that have been down this road. I have reviewed two previous threads and it looks like Loren has come across the solution that might fit my needs.

Loren, can you describe the extensions you had fabricated? The photo was taken from just a bit too far away to get any detail.

Thanks to all in andvance.

PS: It is a Raymarine C80 and must coexist with the three ST60 instruments in a navpod housing.

Bill Burgner
E381 SV Totem
Orlando, FL

 

[Loren Beach]

Changing of the "Guard"

Hi Bill,
The tubing on the existing SS guard is 1" OD. The shop added a 1' piece of tubing to the straight bottom leg of each side. They put a short piece of smaller OD ss tubing inside of each to act as sleave, and then joined the tubing with wire-feed weld, and ground all smooth and then polished the whole piece to a mirror polish. I had no problem feeding the AP cable up one side and the new GPS cable up the other, so the sleave did not reduce the ID too much.

Invisible... is the approx. half inch metal tube, about 4 inches tall, that I glued into place on the cockpit sole inside the ss base piece on each side. That way, if enough water runs down inside the ss base and overflows, it will not get inside the boat or into the wood core under the fittings.

FWIW, all the Garmin connections are made under the cockpit with a terminal strip. Their connecting cable has a factory plug only on the end that goes into the back of the outside gps charting instrument.

Hope this helps a little.

Loren

 

[Graham Cole]

www.oceanequipment.com has a 12" wide guard in both 1 and 1.25" dia. tube. Will fit C80 pod with the 3 instrument navpod for the st60's above. (double bend) I like the bigger section for stiffness, you will need to hog out the yoke or order theirs if you do it this way. Just did a 1989 e34 with the above set up but it was Edson not YS.

 

[WBurgner]

Thanks for the input.

I will likely go Loren's route if I can find a good fabricator. Going to another thicker guard is problematic with the 12.5 -13" spacing between the shafts, but I will see if enlarging the holes in the yoke absorbs the difference and the base fittings can be moved enough.

The use of terminal strips for instrument wiring is something I was considering for several applications, but was concerned about having a negative affect on performance of the instrument. The manufacturers of some products caution against against cutting the cables.

Any thoughts on when terminal strips are or are not appropriate?

Bill Burgner
E381 Totem
Orlando, FL

 

[Tom Metzger]

Terminal strips

Terminal strips are appropriate for everything other than coaxial cables. They are preferred where multiple connections are required such as power connections.

 

[Loren Beach]

All the wires in the Garmin cable were stripped and pre-tinned... on the end destined for the inside of the boat. Mightly small wire size, though -- had to be careful about putting them into my smallest crimp lug.


LB

 

[Tom Metzger]

Small wires

I have had good luck putting small wires into terminals by bending the stripped wire back on itself once or twice to increase the bulk of the wire in the crimp.

It would seem obvious that you should use the smallest size terminal possible, not a #10 terminal for #30 wire.

BTW, I have found Harbor Freight a good source for terminals at a reasonable price.

 

[Loren Beach]

www.oceanequipment.com has a 12" wide guard in both 1 and 1.25" dia. tube. Will fit C80 pod with the 3 instrument navpod for the st60's above. (double bend) I like the bigger section for stiffness, you will need to hog out the yoke or order theirs if you do it this way. Just did a 1989 e34 with the above set up but it was Edson not YS.

Sounds great but we could not easily go that route. The Edson standard is 9.5 or 12 inches. They won the "wheel wars" and so get to declare the standard!


The guard width used by Yacht Specialties was 12.5 inches. (at least on the ones I have seen.

Just to have more room for wiring and for the rigidity, the larger OD tubing would be preferable if we were starting over, for sure.

Actually, if Starting Over ($$$) completely, I would either change to a tiller with new hi-tech rudder shaft bearings, or go with a "drag link" type of wheel steering and have no cables or chains...

Loren

ps: Tom, we did indeed double over the wires to better fill the crimp.

 

[Graham Cole]

oops, of course you're correct! I remember now that we did an old Cat 30 and had to 'customize' a double bend guard to get the ys spacing. Been a while though. I am further chagrined to note that I have just that same old YS set up on my boat! But then I offer the fact that I have just returned from 4 weeks in Desolation and points north as an excuse. (lol)

 

[treilley]

What about 1.25" fittings? It is easy to find all kinds of fittings for 1" and 7/8" dia. tubing but I have not found a good source for 1.25". I will be replacing my guard this winter with a single bend guard and I would love to go 1.25" but want to make sure I have a good choice of fittings first.

 

[dcoyle]

This past spring I installed a Garmin 192C chart plotter on my E 33. Likewise I did not like the fit on my original pedestal guard with the Edson bracket purchased for $100. I contacted a ss fabricator located a short distance from my home in Maine and he solved my problem for $200 cash!! He made me a brand new guard with square corners rather than the radius at the top, then he made a beautiful bracket welded in between the legs, all pre drilled to mount my gps. It is centered in the pedestal guard just forward of my compass. I easily reach over the wheel to use the gps and am very happy with the results. We talked about extending the original guard but I also have an auto helm and its cable passes through a drilled hole in the guard and made the extension plan unusable. I can take pictures and get the shops name and number if you need.

 

[treilley]

That would be great. Although I have a 3206. It would take a fairly large guard to fit that GPS inside the tubing. I am planning on building a bracket that will let me place the GPS over the compass in a navpod that swivels. I like to drive from the coaming and still eyeball the chartplotter. Essential when racing in shallow water.

 

[dcoyle]

I will get pictures this weekend. The ss guy is Matt at Cumberland Iron Works, located in Pownal about 17 miles from Cumberland Center. He is a nice guy and did nice work at great price.

 

[Loren Beach]

Garmin mounted

That would be great. Although I have a 3206. It would take a fairly large guard to fit that GPS inside the tubing. I am planning on building a bracket that will let me place the GPS over the compass in a navpod that swivels. I like to drive from the coaming and still eyeball the chartplotter. Essential when racing in shallow water.

Did you see the picture of my Garmin 3005C on its new support in this thread?
http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=5393

My YS guard is 12.5" center to center. Here is more of a close up of the installation.

Loren

 

[Loren Beach]

custom instrument mounting

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=2391&referrerid=28

This previous thread has some pics of a home made instrument cluster on a ss pedistal guard. Before spending a ton of money for a "pod" that still may not fit right --- you might want to consider fabricating a custom solution.
Loren

 

[WBurgner]

Going with NavPod

OK, here we go. I have a NavPod double bend 1.25" pedestal guard and their pod for the C80. It is my intent to replace the existing PY guard. I will try to hog out the supporting bracket beneath the compass, but it looks like there will be very little metal left. If it appears to be problematic I have considered fabricating a starboard piece to bolt over it and add support. The other choice would be to have a machine shop fabricate a new metal one with relocated larger holes.

I will try to document with pictures as I go to help to the next person that tackles this task.

I don't expect to start cutting anything until next Wednesday, so comments and suggestions are welcome.

 

[treilley]

A friend of mine replaced his with a piece of starboard that was fairly easy to fabricate. He made it larger so he could mount instruments around the sides of the pedestal.
http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=5099

 

[WBurgner]

Starboard

Thanks Tim. I saw that thread. He did a great job on that project and it inspired me to consider using Starboard myself. I will not need to go that large, but will likely go a little larger than the existing bracket.

 

[Greg Ross]

Binnacle Guard Options

With a heavy harness to service Radar and GPS Map I was forced to cut a very large hole in the 1" tubing sidewall of the Binnacle Guard. I have power in, radar cable, GPS antenna, and GPS-NMEA 0183 cable out. Total cross section pretty well fills a 1" tube. The opening is approximately 1/3 of the radius of the tube, had to be drilled, dressed and ground to eliminate burrs and raw endges that might damage wire insulation.
Solution to reinforce/ replace the strength lost from the cutaway material was to add a 60 deg. Railing Tee over top of that opening. The 60 deg. angle of the Tee fitting gives a nice entry angle for the wires/ cables and gives a finished appearance. Electrical Glanding putty is used to seal the harness where it enters the "Tee" The "TEE" is the mechanical style that has two set screws to lock it in place.
A little difficult to see but it's immediately below the Edson Pod mounting arm. The Pod BTW being mounted on a single swing arm allows it to be positioned/ posed where ever you need to to center it between the uprights or swing it off to the side, etc. I had an extra tall guard bent to give sufficient height to get the Pod to clear the compass and still leave headroom for the GPS mounted on top.

image link
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-1/1138028/Binnacle07web.JPG

 

[WBurgner]

Good use of the Tee

Thanks Greg,
That is good use of the rail fitting. You are right, it makes a cleaner appearance, but it also adds support to the exiting wire.

Since I was going to need to replace the pedestal guard to have room for the C80 pod I went with the 1.25" tubing to have room for all the wire. I also have three ST60 instruments in a pod on the pedestal. Admittedly, that is going to be a lot of stuff at the helm but I would prefer the radar there rather than at the nav station where the previous radar was located.