Hi Dennis,
I don't have any recommendations to use as direct replacements.
My old (8+ years) Nicros are okay for now. I say okay because the
"head' unit is starting to get noisy and the deck mount unit will let
in small amounts of water in blustery conditions and probably wets
the motor, it's not okay. I was able to improve it with Moovit
penetrating (similar to PB Blaster) to the motor shaft and let it sit
overnight upside down.
Due to the actions of the head unit I am going to replace the battery
in each unit and do the oil thing.
Since you raise the unreliability issues with the new units I'm glad
I didn't buy replacements when they were on sale this summer. I
wonder if it might be best to replace The Nicros with good passive
units and then vent the boat with a positive pressure fan. Say,
install a muffin fan in the aft partition of the port quarter berth
to blow INTO the boat. This is outta the way and will use existing
aft vents, so there's no competition.
This is a practical strategy for me since I have been gifted a soar
panel kit from Go Power (Carmannah) at the recent West Coast Rendezvous.
Cheers, Russ
Sweet 35 mk-1
east Vancouver Island
At 09:19 AM 14/09/2012, you wrote:
Touche's Nicro day/night solar vent has died. This is the 3rd or
4th one in about 12 years. The existing vent is a 3 inch.
I can only find 2 active brands out there, Nicro and
Sunforce. There is another brand, Sunsei or ICP, but it doesn't
seem to be designed for "green water". More for being installed on
backyard storage sheds. The Sunforce only comes in a 4 inch which
will require enlarging the existing cutout.
Many of the reviews on the Nicro brand cite early failures, like a
year or less. Most of the failures seem to occur with the newer
vents. Many boatowners cited good experiences with Nicro vents
lasting a decade or better.
There are threads on cruising forums about repairing them with parts
from the internet. There are also discussions about NiCAD vs NiMH
batteries. There are also the DIY projects on installing a muffin
fan in the companionway hatch boards, something I'm not really wanting to do.
All in all, most seem to roll the dice, buy the Nicro and cross
their fingers that it will last a few years.
I just sent an email to Marinco/Nicro citing the poor reviews their
Nicro vents get and asking if they've made any improvements to
increase the service life of the vents.
I'll wait and see what they say.
Any listers want to chime in on this?
Dennis C.
Touche' 35-1 #83
Mandeville, LA
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