Thruster remote failing?

[Diatom]

My 2011 Sleipner/Sidepower remote suddenly fails to engage rear thruster, yet controls front thruster fine.
Nothing wrong with the thrusters themselves, helm controls work fine.
New batteries, power down/restart - no help.
New remote would mean new receiver by the looks of Sleipner adverts (new frequency). $1000 CAD.
Do these things have two separate radios - one front / on rear - is it possible I'm not "paired" on rear only?

/tmm

 

[Martin610]

I replaced my thruster remote and paired it with the existing receiver just this spring. Works great now.

Why would you need a new receiver?

-Martin610

 

[Diatom]

I understood Sleipner had upgraded to a less congested channel/frequency. If not, I'll just replace the handheld transmitter.
/tmm

 

[Diatom]

Imtra confirms: current remote looks identical but will not communicate with older receiver (2011 C26).
/tmm

 

[Diatom]

Mystery solved: "Remote failure" progressed to "complete failure" within a couple of days. Canoe Cove instantly suspected thruster integrity not control failure - confirmed by swapping plugs at helm control - rear thruster has failed. Pulled the motor and discovered a crack in the casing (plus gasket appreciably perished). Opened the motor to expose a gravelly mush of rust and cuprous corrosion filling the casing.

The case crack is only half the story here - coincidentally I had temporarily moved my dinghy inside the "fence" while doing some work on the swim grid. The extreme "fire-hose" jet from the exhaust at high speeds was impinging the dinghy, and apparently bouncing back at the stern. I had noted a wee dribble of seawater making it back to the port stern limber hole into the bilge, with rust streaks showing up last week. Well - now I know where the rust was coming from.

Can't complain, 12 years service from a thruster is reasonable! Would love to experiment with a fairing to fix the fire-hose issue, but fooling with exhaust strikes me as a potentially fatal adventure.

/tmm

 

[glider4]

Glad you found the real problem. I guess 12 years for a stern thruster is a About the service life…About the same as I’d expect from the windlass.
I made a number of changes to get the dinghy of my stern heavy C-28 out of the spray. First I moved about 250 pounds out of the area - either moving most heavy things forward or off the boat completely. Then I strapped the dinghy up on the davits using the method Red Raven recommended. Finally I upgraded the trim tabs from 12” wide to 18” wide and added drop fins. Now the dinghy doesn’t get sprayed and the swim platform is mostly dry up to 2950 RPM.