Raymarine Instruments Problem

[jim_thomsen]

Tenaya has a complete Raymarine setup, E-120 chart plotter, ST7001 autopilot, S3G Smartpilot Controller, GPS and the normal speed, depth and wind instruments.

Yesterday while sailing between the islands of Guadaloupe and Dominica all the instruments went off (lucky it's an easy island to arrive at - and I do carry a GPS backup and paper charts).

When anchored I traced the problem to the 5 amp SesTalk fuse on the Smartpilot Controller. I replaced it and it blew again. I have checked all connections I can find, but everything looks OK. I guess I could disconnect one instrument at a time and see which one blows the fuse, but I only have 3 fuses to experiment with.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Having all the instuments connected together makes wiring easy, but this small fuse caused us to lose everything.

Thank you for your help,

[Tim B]

A 5 amp fuse blowing sounds like a short circuit. First thing to establish is that the controller is OK.

I presume that the fuse is in the power circuit. Unplug the controller and measure the resistance between the power contacts with the fuse in. It should be reasonably large (at 12volts 2.4ohms gives 5 amps. 4.8ohms at 24v). If this is ok, start testing the other components and signal cables in the same way. This should tell you what is acting up.

Hope this helps,

Tim B.

[r.furborough]

The fuse protects the 'SeaTalk' Bus, you probably have a short in the cable or one of the instruments has failed and is drawing too much current. Try a process of elimination by disconnecting one instrument at a time from the system and/or substituting a known good 'SeaTalk' cable. When disconnected check inside each side of the connector for water damage and corrosion.

[MC01]

I've experienced the same problem with a C70 chartplotter and linear drive autopilot with SG3 Smartpilot Controller - all new components, wiring, etc.. One thing to check based on debugging my problem with Raymarine Tech Support . . . Be sure power to the Seatalk bus is only ever coming from a single source. The installation manual suggests setting up an independent power source for Seatalk so that data can be sent even if the primary devices are switched off (for example, so the GPS sensor can send data to a connected DSC VHF radio to show position even when the Chartplotter and Autopilot are off). In this case, you need to ensure the Seatalk +power wire is not connected to either the Chartplotter or the SG3 Controller so that Seatalk always derives power only from its dedicated source.