NX2 Wind Transducer Woes Part II, or III, or IV

Over the last couple of years my NX2 wind transducer has frozen on three different occasions. The first time I sprayed it out with water and it worked again for a year. The second time I sprayed it with water and it maintained a small bit of friction running forwards. In the end I resorted to some silicon grease and it worked again for a couple of regattas but froze once more within a month.

Oddly it ran perfectly backwards.

Talking to a couple of people I ascertained that these were tricky to take apart and you can't get spare parts. Given it's frozen nature and the fact that replacement is very expensive I decided to have a go taking it apart anyway.

The transducer is on top of a carbon pole and I pushed a knife in between the two sides of the casing. When levering it apart the flange making a seal between the two sides sheared off - I'm not sure if this is UV damage or because I'm missing some technique. Inside one of the bearings supporting the propeller spindle was very rusty. Makes me think that spraying water in there to free it a year ago was NOT a good idea. Sadly this was the only advice on maintenance I've actually found online. I do wonder though it was already rusting at that point.

Cleaning up the rust I got my transducer going again, the other interior piece look okay. I've sealed the unit with tape for now and am going to try and source a new spindle or bearing and a new case. Or just keep fixing this one until there is no recovery. There is a little more friction than there used to be but I would expect it to work down to ~2 knots.

Other than the issue taking the unit apart its pretty neat inside. The spindle has a black and white ball on the end and a couple of sensors give the instrument information on rotation and frequency. There is no contact between the spindle and the sensors so friction is minimal, weight is also minimal.

Seems a shame not to be able to repair it properly!

This time I remembered to take piccies while up there (and wow - now I've got this blogspot account linked to my phone's backup on google getting the pictures is SUPER easy).