Trouble with Tritons - B&G displays

[jr_spyder]

In the spring of last year I did an extensive refit of my electronics. The new gear is all B&G/Navico. This was when all this gear was new in the market and I got some of the first units. The Tritons themselves are excellent. My trouble is with the Pilot Keypad and it's schizophrenic behavior in the system. So far my dealer and the B&G support folks have not been able to solve the problem and I'm getting beyond frustrated. Each upgrade was supposed to help, but no joy.

First the big picture: I have two Zeus MFD's - a Z12 and a Z8, 8 Triton displays, 4D radar, BSM-1 Echo Sounder, NAIS300L AIS, Simrad AC42 Autopilot computer, Simrad OP40 remote control, Sirius weather module, and one Triton Pilot Control Keypad. The local B&G rep considers this a large system. I bought all of the gear from one very capable dealer and installed it all myself. I had a thorough CAD schematic of all the connections from the dealer which I followed to the letter and got advice as needed. The system overall is fantastic, except one fatal flaw.

The autopilot occasionally and unpredictably throws an alarm and disables itself. The alarm says "No pilot control head" and displays for about half a second. It happens randomly even when the autopilot is not engaged. It can happen dockside, while sailing or while motoring. Believe me I've tried to identify any consistent pattern, even things like other electronics being switched on or other loads on my power (like a bilge pump) but there is no pattern. It simple bleeps, shows the alarm note quickly on all the Tritons and both Zeus displays, and then goes away. Maybe one in 5 times I have to press enter to remove the message.

The pilot keypad seems to be the center of the problem. It has been replaced twice and upgraded recently at the B&G service center (I drove all my Tritons and the keypad to the service center in NH for the upgrade as it wouldn't work via the Zeus' s as it should have).

I just came back from 10 says of cruising and this problem was a regular annoyance. My wife and I, if we were in autopilot and were dealing with something, trained ourselves to jump to the helm as soon as the bleep was heard. Obviously all this is quite unsafe, as well as unacceptable.

The last advice from the dealer was to disconnect one thing at a time and see if the alarm continued. This is a pretty impractical hope but I did try a few things with no change. If I take the keypad out of the system I don't get the alarm, but can still use the autopilot from each Zeus (but without the ease of use of the keypad). In this mode I've had no problems.

I also had a single instance of the Pilot Keypad completely freezing up on me and not doing anything for me - but I could still control the autopilot from the Zeus during this failure.

There is so much that's great about these products but I have not had a single day sailing without some frustration due to this issue and some other niggly stuff.

Has anyone else here had similar issues? Any advice of any sort?

Thanks,

JR