Mahe 36: Instruments

[Cotemar]

JohnC,

I would recommend taking the numbers off the Furuno electronics yourself and contacting furuno@custhelp.com directly. www.furuno.com

I know from first hand experience that adding the dealer and FP in the mix will take a REAAAAALLLLYYYYY long time to get it fixed.

Just give Furuno your Hull number and purchase date and they will send a local Electronics tech to your boat to fix it. All the model numbers and serial numbers are on the back of each device and all are easy to get to.

Mark

[Wayward Wind]

Mark

Furuno Australia wants a purchase order from the boat builder who did the installation before they will do any work as FP holds the warranty, not us.

JohnC

[Cotemar]

Originally Posted by Wayward Wind

Mark

Furuno Australia wants a purchase order from the boat builder who did the installation before they will do any work as FP holds the warranty, not us.

JohnC

JohnC,

You own the boat and you have the electronics and now you own the warranty. Furuno may be a little slow to understand that, but that's the facts. I live in the US not in France, so they did have to make some calls on there own. When that was all done they asked me for my Hull # and a copy of my sale contract which I e-mailed them both as a PDF.
They said OK now we can send our US electronic support guy to your boat, but we need your Model numbers and serial numbers. Ok another e-mail containing those and a week later a guy was on my boat.
It was fixed and I sent them a nice letter explaining the great service I received and have been VERY HAPPY WITH FURUNO ever since.

Mark

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s

I finally found a distributor that will sell just a few Contura II, 12 volt switches.
I am adding a couple of 12 volt circuits to the switch panel, but wanted the original
Carling technologies, Contura II switches,www.carlingtech.com
Contura II
Part # V1D1AH0B-A9C00-000
20amp 12 volts green LED

Pin 8 is + for Green LED
Pin 7 is - for Green LED

Just use a wooden tongue depressor to remove any switch as shown in the pictures.

Stu's Switch Supply
Contact Jerry
jerry.peplau@carlingtech.com
team2@carlingtech.com
860-793-9281

Ordered 2 switches for $26 which included shipping

Mark

[Wayward Wind]

Originally Posted by Jef & Marin, Netherlands

Wayward wind, we have had exactly the same problem. The tridata sensor (depth TSW and water temp) and the wind instrument are on NMEA 2000, autopilot and GPS are on NMEA0183. Inbetween them is a Simrad NMEA2000 / NMEA0183 conversion module. It is located behind the fridge in a big space, accessible from the starboard hull, just behind the bathroom door.
Jef

Guys

The Sydney Furuno tech has been on WW . . . and could not find the conversion module, not even behind the fridge. Does anyone know where else it could be?

He is now waiting for the sparkie who originally installed the instruments in La Rochelle to get back to him, but I am hoping someone here can beat him to it as things may get lost in translation . . .

Cheers!

JohnC

[Cotemar]

John C,

The Simrad NMEA2000 / NMEA0183 conversion module is a very small device. The yellow caps make it stand out.
It has to be connected and very close to the NMEA2000 network.

Can only be in four places.
1) Behind the fridge
2) Behind the gages at the helm
3) Behind the Furuno GPS display at the Nav station
4) Next to your Autopilot controller in your Port engine compartment on the port side is a large grey box.

Mark

[Cotemar]

JohnC,

Was down at the boat, so I took a picture of where the
Simrad NMEA2000 / NMEA0183 conversion module is on my boat.

Mark

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s

The factory Cobra VHF radio was ok, but I wanted Weather Alerts and Hailing with Fog Horn.

I purchased a Uniden UM625C color online for $209 with shipping.
It has all the functions I was looking for including being able to use a wireless WHAMx4 remote.

The WHAMx4 wireless remote mimics all the features of the base unit anywhere on the boat and up to ½ mile away.
I order this from www.marinewholesales.com for $112.50

Mark

[Wayward Wind]

Guys

Is anyone using a laptop as a chart plotter and for passage making on board the Mahe 36? If so, how have you set up the system? Do you link your laptop to the Furuno GPS at the nav station? Perhaps you use a USB GPS? How do you then transfer your route on to the helm plotter?

Cheers!

JohnC

[Cotemar]

JohnC,

I use a Dell Laptop with a USB GPS antenna and MapTech Offshore Navigator software.

Charts come from:
http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/charts.htm


GPSBabel lets you move data such as Routes, Tracks and Waypoints between popular GPS systems such as those from Garmin, Magellan Raymarine or a large number of map programs
http://www.gpsbabel.org/download.html

GPSBabel software allows me to take all my MapTech Offshore Navigator Routes and Waypoints and bring them into my Garmin 5208 touch screen at the helm.

Mark

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

Hi all,
For a long time I have known that our Mahe nr 88 has a very large compass deviation between Furuno electric compass and the Plastimo compass. And that the deviation is caused by the Plastimo compass.
Last year I have made a deviation table, showing the Plastimo compass to have a deviation as follows:
+17 / -17 degrees deviation referenced to the Furuno electrical compass
+14 / -15 degrees deviation referenced to a high-quality hand compass.
See attached picture of the deviation table.

I have now found a very large source of deviation. This is the galvanized steel back plate of the steering wheel cable drive.
See attached picture.

Removal of the back plate changed the Plastimo compass course with about 7-8 degrees, from 248 to 241 degrees (this is the orientation of our winter berth). The deviation table shows 6 degrees deviation at 240 degrees. This means that probably a large part of the deviation can be explained by this back plate.
Another error might be caused by the galvanized steel end piece of the steering cable, with which the black cable is connected to the steering wheel construction (see the picture). I will try to use a demagnetizer on that piece, if necessary. Probably this is not necessary, since it is much smaller and farther away from the compass.

I intend to replace the galvanized steel back plate with a 316L stainless steel, laser cut plate, still to be produced.

Checking this is quite easy: just watch the compass turning when you remove the back plate.
Jef

[Scott730]

Jef
I adjusted my Plastimo compass to compensate for the deviation, I am now within a degree or 2 of the Furuno compass. There are 2 wheels on the back of my compass for adjustment.
As it relates to the beds, I just added a 3 inch memory foam topper to the factory mattresses, What a difference it has made, I actually told my wife that I love sleeping on the boat now.

Scott

[MKB53]

Hi John

I have been away and have just seen your query re connecting a laptop.

I used a laptop on my trip up north last year and did quite a lot of research into it.

I have used 2 types of connection in the process.

1: It can be connected serially to the Furuno server located behind the fridge. I did this as an initial trial by fitting a serial connecter (wired to the Dsub9 serial port on the server) and power point on the big flat area above the fridge. You could route this back to the Nav station with a bit of effort.

2: What I used on the trip: The boat is prewired with an NMEA output that goes back to the Navstation. This is then connected to an NMEA multiplexor (Brookhouse) which is connected to the Laptop via USB. Bluetooth is available in some models but I prefer a physical connection in this case.

There is one big advantage with using the multiplexor and that is that it facilitates connection of an AIS transponder. These often need baud rate conversion as they operate at 51K Baud normally vs 4800 for NMEA.

I fitted a Comar transponder which worked well in this configuration. It is integrated with the Nav SW rather than have a seperate AIS monitor.

I highly recommend use of an AIS transponder, it helped us safely avoid crossing traffic in the busy areas of Gladstone, Brisbane and Newcastle.

The downside is that the way I have it set up I can't feed commands back to the autopilot. This is just a question of getting down to fixing it as I did it all in a hurry before we left and the autopilot was not a priority at that time.

As you are in Sydney I can show you how my setup works if you are in the Bayview area.

I should probably do a detailed wiring diagram for my maintenance folder anyway.

Has anyone managed to get an overall detailed wiring diagram for the boat from FP? I asked the agents and got a very basic and useless diagram. It could have saved me a number of false starts in my modifications and would help any troubleshooting when things inevitably go wrong.

Cheers
Martin

[lstyles]

I see on the L and S site that there is a thing called the Ecopilot which appears to reduce the power consumption of the autopilot quite a bit (they claim 30Ah to 5Ah daily). Has anyone looked into this? Price?
thanks,
Lori

[Cotemar]

Lori

Jef & Marin on "Miss Poes" from Netherlands has one and hopefully will chime in on his experience with it. Here is the info Jef provided me a few months back.
Jef purchased one for 116 euro ($171 us).

ENERGY SAVING DEVICE "ECOPILOT"
The "Ecopilot" energy saving device was designed to meet the demand for electrical energy saving on sailing-boats. Power reserve on board is often very limited, however it is essential for the operation of an autopilot system. The "Ecopilot" acts on the electro-valve which engages the autopilot. The power consumption of this electro-valve represents a major part of the total autopilot consumption. Its action consists of letting through - during a short moment – the necessary current for the electro-valve to switch on. Then the current is significantly reduced but still sufficient to maintain the electro-valve in position.
Thanks to this system, the daily consumption of the electro-valve is reduced in average from 30Ah to 5Ah.

Power Supply - 12 ou 24VCC, 30VCC max
Own Consumption - 0,01A
Output Current at Switching (Ie) - 2,2A max
Output Current after Switching - approx. Ie / 6,5
Switching Time - 0,2s
Protection - IP65 - Power Supply Indicator
Working Temperature -20°C à +70°C

ECOPILOT 12 V # 2202047
http://www.ls-france.com/ls/uk/lsvoile-options-fr.php

Mark