E120 question

[Elessar]

Following on from my dash project thread, I was testing the integration of all the new kit yesterday and I'm delighted to have radar, ais, chartplotter, dsc, tridata and autopilot all nicely talking to each other and working, overlaying etc.

However it was dark when I left. On powering up the E120, all the buttons plus a green ring round the knob glow nicely. Once the welcome screen has gone, all the button lights go out. Using a head torch i went through all the menus but cant find the answer - there must be a way of having these buttons backlit during use. How?????

 

[jfm]

Just a guess, as although I have E120s I only just got them so don't know how they work yet. If you turn the screen brightness down don't the backlights on the keys get turned up automatically? That's how it was in the previous generation of Raymarine plotters

 

[Elessar]

Nope. Tried turning the screeen up and down as well as switching from day to night pallete. Buttons stayed dark. I'd have not realised they were illuminated till I powered it up and got 15 seconds of green glow.

 

[jfm]

Hmmm. Dunno then sorry. Will be on boat this weekend to fiddle, if you suspect a fault on yours and want to compare notes. But others here have e120 so should answer properly soon!

 

[Elessar]

Brilliant thank you.
Hope the weather's good for you.

 

[splosh]

With the unit powered up - press the red power button shortly, then rotate the rotary knob to increase or decrease the backlighting.
Works best in the dark.

 

[Elessar]

OK I'm on the boat tomorrow so I'll try but I think that did the screen only and left the buttons black. Will report back......

 

[poltergeist]

I have the same problem on my E80 - as soon as you press the
"OK" button, the green illumination on the buttons go out.

I will watch this with interest, to see if a solution is posted.

 

[RogerRat]

Hmmm. You've got me thinking now. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I'm pretty sure my E120's switches glow at night and all I did was press the power button briefly and then reduced backlight as per 'jfm' suggestion. I'll check at the weekend and get back to you.

 

[peterandjeanette]

Hi Roger. Yep, I'm with you on this. When powered up, press power button again, change "pallette" from DAY to NIGHT then use rotary knob to adjust. If you go too bright the switch backlights do go out - as far as I remember.

 

[Tallulah]

The answer is as posted - no need to go into Night Mode. Just press the red power button momentarily. A bar will appear on the screen and rotating the round knob on the right will allow you to dim the screen. As you do so, the backlights will on the buttons get brighter - the less bright the screen, the brighter the buttoms backlight. Once at your required intensity, hit cancel or OK to clear the on screen bar. Next time you power up the screen will remember the setting. If you use the Day/Night screen softkey remeber that you may not be able to see the screen at all next time you power up in bright sunlight! This was particularly a problem with the older pathfinder series.

 

[Elessar]

Thank you all. It's correct it doesn 't matter day or night.
Full brightness, buttons are off. Low brightness buttons are off. My day palette was 100%, my night palette was dim thus neither seemed to work.
At about 80% brightness buttons seem brightest, go brighter, the buttons get dimmer. Someone must have invented that logic...........

BTW was dead impressed with my AIS, but today realised I'd connected the old, redundant coax rather the one with the aerial connected. It worked well before, now loads of ships miles away! It's the NASA 100 quid one and it's brilliant!