Raymarine problems

[CatNewBee]

Hi there,

I am looking for advise and tips how to improve our electronics. We have a Raymarine setup with 3 I70 satellite displays, Raymarine chart plotter, a second B&G plotter, raymarine autopilot, raymarine wind vane, AIS transceiver etc.

Normally the system works great, but in stormy weather the instruments just hang, do not update data, you can switch between the pages, but cannot turn them off an on, some update only once and freeze again, also suddenly no wind data any more on the bus above all instruments stop to show the values in strong winds above 26kn, so you virtually fly blind on the strength and direction, GPS and chart works.

If you turn off everything and reboot, they work again until they fail again. The problem is when singlehanding on watch you cannot go to the salon to reboot because you lose autopilot in this moment.

Is there a option for a better wind vane that has no mechanic components and can handle strong winds?

What can be the cause of this failures? They happen only in very bad weather conditions, exactly when you need the instruments most with reliable informations to make the right decisions under pressure.

[Paul L]

What do you mean by bad weather? Wet, bouncy, heeled, all???
Sounds like you might have issues with the nmea2k cabling, terminations and/or network power (seatalkng in raymarine speak). Or perhaps one bac instrument screwing up tne bus. Can you try and remove some less needed devices from the network and see if it makes a difference? Sounds like this is going to be hard to test.

[Neptune's Gear]

Problem on the bus. Look in the diag section on the raymarine MFD. If you cant find anything, disconnect the devices one at a time. Check cabling, terminators, all connections, bus power supply and fuse connections.

[CatNewBee]

The wind failure happened two days ago in rough conditions, the instruments stop receiving any wind data when the wind goes above 26kn. Sometimes they recover after a while when the wind was below 24, sometimes not. I think, this may be a problem of the wind sensor. Sea state was rough too, waves above 3m, no rain but a lot of salt water mist., no lightnings or thunderstorm, just strong winds.

The hanging instruments, especially one more often is a different issue, but it happens too during the passage. It is quite random so, and does not affect the other devices. I have disconnect and reconnect the cabling to clean the contacts, will see if it happens again.

Anyway, it would be great to have a second wind sensor preferably with no mechanical components on the network to switch to in this situation.

Power supply is not questionable in regards of voltage, I have a LFP bank 1000Ah, Rock solid 13.4V all the time., but maybe there is a contact issue somewhere. However, both chart plotter work flawlessly. Maybe I can add another power injector to the bus for redundancy...

[Captain Bill]

The chartplotter on a Seatalkng bus is not powered by the bus, but the other instruments are. I assume you are getting power to the bus through the autopilot, is that correct? When it was installed did you take care to make sure the bus was balanced?



I have problems with my raymarine wind instrument as well, but it does not appear to be the same one you are having. On occasion mine just drops out. It appears to me to be most common when I'm near radio sources or lined up with microwave antennas. Most of the failures are geographically consistent. It seems to have a problem near airports with instrument landing systems. If I get off the end of a runway with an ILS it just quits and does so every time. At Big Majors Spot in the Bahamas in the anchorage I'm pretty much lined up with the microwave link between Staniel and Highbourne. My Wind instrument never works there. I have had it drop out a couple of times in open areas but could never find a consistent pattern, though I seem to have noticed it is more likely to happen after it's been on a long time in relatively high winds. It's almost like there's a heat buildup in some component that shuts down after it gets too hot. I'm not sure how the sender works, though I would think it's either pulses or a voltage proportional to the wind speed. Does your system have an ITC-5 converter or do you have one that connects directly to an instrument?

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

The chartplotter on a Seatalkng bus is not powered by the bus, but the other instruments are. I assume you are getting power to the bus through the autopilot, is that correct? When it was installed did you take care to make sure the bus was balanced?



I have problems with my raymarine wind instrument as well, but it does not appear to be the same one you are having. On occasion mine just drops out. It appears to me to be most common when I'm near radio sources or lined up with microwave antennas. Most of the failures are geographically consistent. It seems to have a problem near airports with instrument landing systems. If I get off the end of a runway with an ILS it just quits and does so every time. At Big Majors Spot in the Bahamas in the anchorage I'm pretty much lined up with the microwave link between Staniel and Highbourne. My Wind instrument never works there. I have had it drop out a couple of times in open areas but could never find a consistent pattern, though I seem to have noticed it is more likely to happen after it's been on a long time in relatively high winds. It's almost like there's a heat buildup in some component that shuts down after it gets too hot. I'm not sure how the sender works, though I would think it's either pulses or a voltage proportional to the wind speed. Does your system have an ITC-5 converter or do you have one that connects directly to an instrument?

I think, there is an Itc5. The system is factory installed by Lagoon, I have not yed digged in too deep. There is not much of documentation on board about the installation, only the instrument manuals and some generic CD, with manuals about all raymarine products...

No wiring Diagramm whatsoever. A mix of old seatalk and N2K/seatalk NG, also a high speed switch, AIS, vhf radio, 3d radar, auto pilot... Lots of little distribution hubs in hidden places..

[Dtm67]

My lagoon 400 S2 with a similar setup if not identical will do the same in high winds occasionally. The wind indicator will freeze at 0 knots and 0 degree wind angle when winds gust over 30 while sailing. Similar to you a reset fixes it for awhile.

It only happened once last year. When we hauled for the winter we asked the local raymarine tech to take a look. He said he had “never heard of this problem” and was no help at all.

We have had high winds (gusts near 40) while docked several times this year with instruments on and haven’t had the problem. Only while sailing.

We haven’t had a recurrence of the problem yet this year but will be following this thread closely. It’s helpful to know we aren’t the only ones.

[CatNewBee]

The error was repeatable during this conditions, high waves, confused sea state, high wind speed. I guess, the sensor is then providing confusing values because of the mast motion and the strong wind and the controller cannot compute, compensate or aggregate meaningfully results, so it gives up and delivers no values. High winds at the dock are no problem here too.

So my idea was to add a second sensor of different physics, preferably an ultrasonic one with no moving parts, that could probably handle the situation better.

[Dtm67]

That’s a good diagnosis I think. I think I will work the raymarine support angle this off season and see where it gets me, now that I’m armed with more info of what to chase.

I’ll update this thread with whatever I find....

[sogin]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

The error was repeatable during this conditions, high waves, confused sea state, high wind speed. I guess, the sensor is then providing confusing values because of the mast motion and the strong wind and the controller cannot compute, compensate or aggregate meaningfully results, so it gives up and delivers no values. High winds at the dock are no problem here too.

So my idea was to add a second sensor of different physics, preferably an ultrasonic one with no moving parts, that could probably handle the situation better.

We also experience similar erratic behavior of our wind instruments. I retuned all components including mast head unit and wind-pod to Ray Marine where they passed all tests. After launch this spring the instruments started acting up within one or two days of sailing - mostly in rough weather. Decided to replace wind pod but they are no longer available so I purchased an ITC-5. After installing the ITC-5 the system was still erratic. Further inspection of the ITC-5 revealed that the spade connections to the wire from the mast-head needed to be tightened. So I took out my long-nose pliers and squeezed the connectors to tighten the connection. The problem has disappeared. I am not absolutely certain if the wind pod replacement with the ITC-5 did the trick because my best guess is the loose connections were the source of the problem. I thought about reinstalling the wind pod to determine the real source of the problem but I don't think it worth the effort.