Garmin GMR 18hd Radar Problem

[Eddie]

I just installed the radar with a chartplotter two months ago. Initially the radar seemed to work, but two days ago I ran it for the first time for a longer period of time. It works for 15-30 minutes then will stop working and give me a code 5 error. Then the unit will fail to work. If it rest for a while it will again run for 15-30 minutes. The only other thing it will do is lose 10-20% of the image on each subsequent sweep until the screen is blank-then the sweep will seem to hang up for a second or two and the image may be completely back. This doesn't seem to be a power problem to the unit. We were planning on sailing south in a week ,and don't want to go without the radar. Garmin wants us to send the unit in for repair. Any other suggestions or others with this problem? Thanks Ed

[Ti' Punch]

The October issue of Practical Sailor has a story about this on page 4. In part it reads: "Garmin USA recently issued a recall regarding its new GPSMap 700 series chartplotters. The devices, touted for their radar interface capability, do not communicate properly with the GMR18 HD or GMR24 HD radars." It goes on to describe essentially the same symptoms you are describing. If you registered your chartplotter, you should be getting a letter from Garmin soon. If not, I'd give them a call.

[msulc]

I have the Garmin 4208 with the 18HD radar (very new). The radar stopped communicating with the 4208 going north at Cape Hatteras in calm weather. After trying different network cables (since we had to splice to get the two connected), I ended up sending in my 18HD. They returned it later. The explanation I got from Garmin was that they had to replace a processing board.

I think you probably need to send it in. You could try a different network cable just to see if that is the issue.

A couple things dealing with Garmin… I had to talk to two different people to see what was actually wrong with it. One said they didn’t have that information anywhere, the other said it was the processing board. I also had to ask them if they would create a shipping ticket for me (so I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping to Garmin). One rep said they would create a shipping ticket for me after asking, but he stated it wasn’t their responsibility in the warranty to pay for shipping to Garmin (only return).

[Eddie]

Thanks for the replies. I have the 4210 chartplotter. We had a hard time pulling the cables though the mast-I hope we didn't damage the cable. It seems like it would not be a cable or connection as it works for less than an hour before it fails to work. I will check the power at the mast head prior to sending in the radome.

[CarlF]

It sounds like a hardware problem but a few easy checks:

1. Is your software up to date? You can check the software version number under the "communications" part of the 4210. Current chartplotter version is 6.10 and radar 3.1. Both matter. It's easy to update software on a Garmin if you you have an SD memory card reader on a computer and an SD card - like from a camera. The readers are cheap to buy these days too. You download the update free from the Garmin support web site to your computer and then copy it to the SD card (Garmin provides a program with the download to do this). Then stick the card into your 4210. It takes it from there - updating everything on the network.

2. Try unplugging everything but the radar from the 4210 (eg. NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183 cables and any 2nd chartplotter ). There's an outside chance that another device is messing up the radar or causing network problems. Not likely, but easy to check.

3. Did you cut and splice the network cable during installation at the mast? If so, go back and check that splice. Try seperating the wires at the splice a little more. These are Ethernet cables and they don't take splicing very happily.

Carl

[ShaunJ]

I hope you don't have as many problems as I did with my Garmin GMR40. It did not work when I first bought it. I have since sent it back 3 times, have invested over $450 on shipping and about $350 when the warranty ran out. At this time the unit stopped working again and Garmin discontinued the unit and no-longer will repair this unit. I bought this unit in 2005 for over $1700 and it is now useless.
Garmin told me the newer 18HD unit will work with my GPSMAP 3010C, I am not so sure after reading about the problems they are having again.
It seemed like a good idea to buy the Garmin 10' that will overlay the radar and weather data, but now I am not so sure........

[timjosephphd]

Originally Posted by Eddie

I just installed the radar with a chartplotter two months ago. Initially the radar seemed to work, but two days ago I ran it for the first time for a longer period of time. It works for 15-30 minutes then will stop working and give me a code 5 error. Then the unit will fail to work. If it rest for a while it will again run for 15-30 minutes. The only other thing it will do is lose 10-20% of the image on each subsequent sweep until the screen is blank-then the sweep will seem to hang up for a second or two and the image may be completely back. This doesn't seem to be a power problem to the unit. We were planning on sailing south in a week ,and don't want to go without the radar. Garmin wants us to send the unit in for repair. Any other suggestions or others with this problem? Thanks Ed

I have the same problem, did you ever figure out what error code 5 meant and how to fix it. Thanks. If so please let me know: timjosephphd@gmail.com