Problem with analogue Raymarine radar - any ideas?

[MapisM]

My new to me Raymarine radar always behaved very poorly, since I bought the boat.
But recently, it seems to have gone completely belly up.
In normal operation, all I get is a blank screen, which by forcing a higher gain manually (>90%) turns to blueish first, and eventually solid yellow.
Unfortunately, the local Raymarine support is not impressive, to put it mildly.
The video hopefully shows better what I briefly explained.
Any help greatly appreciated, TIA!

 

[prv]

I don’t know what the problem is specifically, but I suspect that if it isn’t the cable then it’s likely to be beyond economical repair. I think a dodgy connection/damage on the thin co-ax core inside the cable could conceivably do this, otherwise it’s something in either the scanner or (less likely) the display which may cost too much to investigate and fix especially if you don’t have good technicians locally.

Pete

 

[benjenbav]

It’s telling you that it will be a sunny day for the manufacturer, because you are about to buy a replacement unit. ?

 

[Bandit]

I have a Raytheon RL 80c Radar circa 2002, an open array Raytheon 4ft scanner ASL MTX 5 and an RC 631 GPS Plotter which I removed from the boat in working condition in January this year as well as other sundry Raytheon instruments?

Pm me your email and mobile if you want to discuss.

 

[oldgit]

There is wealth of service info on the Pathfinder system on-line,for owner investigation of probable faults.
Starting with Raymarines extensive archive and with a vast selection of individual boat forums with fault finding solutions.
Some simple step by step investigation can be carried out with a multimeter and disconnection of the 13 pin radar connection to display to check volts and other measurements by any non technical chap.
Many problems are purely down to corrosion and visual check inside scanner dome would be first step.
A few screws hold top of case on and nothing scary or delicate awaits inside.
If you can isolate the problem, doubt its the actual cable ???, will be case of either scanner or MFD(most likely) at fault.
Loads of RL 80 around £2-300 or RL70 at £150 ish on Ebay or a non offical outfit will repair the chartplotter at fixed charge ,think about £75.00 + Vat.
Know for sale a complete system RL80/CRC/ RL70CRC/ 4K scanner with all cables and three wide area charts for around £750 as result of a somewhat pointless shiney upgrade by somebody with far to much money.
Brick outhouse technology.
Check the little multi plug on PCB is not corroded and fully home.




https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raymarin...965980&hash=item488a7381d4:g:-SgAAOSwoudW2rlW

 

[omega2]

Take the lid off the scanner and see if it's going round!

 

[oldgit]

Take the lid off the scanner and see if it's going round!

Think you normally get message on display that scanner is" not responding" or "not rotating" shortly after warm up countdown has commenced.

 

[kashurst]

could be sticking - I had a 4Kw scanner get rust in the bearings. it worked but wasn't happy until we figured out what was wrong.

 

[[165042]]

There's a diagnostics menu you can enter to fault find the radome. Typically it's the cable or the IF / LNC board that causes this which can't be repaired by Raymarine so you'd need a secondhand unit to swap out a part for or buy another radome on eBay. If you want the service manual PM me and I'll email it to you.

 

[Nauti Fox]

Had a similar problem with ours, got a 4kw Pathfinder from Ebay, £102 plus £20 postage, works perfectly, looked brand new inside.

 

[MapisM]

If you can isolate the problem, doubt its the actual cable ???, will be case of either scanner or MFD (most likely) at fault.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions.
I'll open the scanner cover and check inside it when I'll have time. All I can say for the moment is that it does seem to make a bit of whirring noise when powered up, though actually much less than my old Furuno, and very regular/constant - to the point that I'm not sure it's rotation - related...
Just one question ref. the above comment from oldgit: since the image I get in the video from the RL80 is exactly the same if I select the radar display on the other 2 MFD (one visible in the video, the third on the flybridge), I was assuming that there's nothing wrong with the MFD as such.
Do you see any reason why it could be the MFD at fault, let alone "most likely"...?

PS: I forgot to mention that I would like to replace the existing 2kW radome with a 4kW for better range (though I don't think I can fit an open array for space reasons), regardless of whether the existing component can be fixed or not. But I understand that the 4kW requires a thicker cable, and I'm not sure I'd fancy trying to pull the existing one and snake another one...
Do you folks know if there's any chance that the 4kW radome works also with the smaller cable, or is that looking for further troubles?

 

[CLB]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions.
I'll open the scanner cover and check inside it when I'll have time. All I can say for the moment is that it does seem to make a bit of whirring noise when powered up, though actually much less than my old Furuno, and very regular/constant - to the point that I'm not sure it's rotation - related...
Just one question ref. the above comment from oldgit: since the image I get in the video from the RL80 is exactly the same if I select the radar display on the other 2 MFD (one visible in the video, the third on the flybridge), I was assuming that there's nothing wrong with the MFD as such.
Do you see any reason why it could be the MFD at fault, let alone "most likely"...?

PS: I forgot to mention that I would like to replace the existing 2kW radome with a 4kW for better range (though I don't think I can fit an open array for space reasons), regardless of whether the existing component can be fixed or not. But I understand that the 4kW requires a thicker cable, and I'm not sure I'd fancy trying to pull the existing one and snake another one...
Do you folks know if there's any chance that the 4kW radome works also with the smaller cable, or is that looking for further troubles?

The 4kw does need extra power and a thicker cable. I really don't see it working on a 2kw cable.

 

[prv]

since the image I get in the video from the RL80 is exactly the same if I select the radar display on the other 2 MFD (one visible in the video, the third on the flybridge), I was assuming that there's nothing wrong with the MFD as such.

I don't think this assumption is correct.

The pattern in the video looks to be something wrong with the "video"/"spoke" signal - it's revolving around the screen correctly so the azimuth part is OK, and I expect you'd just get an error or blank screen if the digital comms part wasn't working. Whereas for each spoke you get nothing until you turn the gain up quite high, at which point you get some blue fuzz, then turn it up more and it pops over into complete saturation.

I'm not an analogue electronics engineer much less a radar technician, but this would have to be in the analogue side of the system. Either the scanner's not scanning properly, or not transmitting the signal into the cable properly, or the cable is losing/scrambling it on the way, or the display instrument is not receiving it correctly. What it does receive is, however, being digitised successfully, even though the signal it digitises is junk.

The digital parts of the system then display this junk picture on the initial display, and also send it over the network to the others. That they would show the same picture is totally expected, but it doesn't give you any information about where in the analogue side has broken down. It could still be the analogue receiving circuitry in the first display.

That said, if your other displays are the exact same model, with a socket for the radar cable and circuitry inside to receive the analogue signal, you can certainly rule out the display by swapping the radar cable to one of the others. Might as well since two of them appear to be next to each other so no dismantling required.

Pete

 

[[165042]]

It won't work without the heavy duty cable (which for reference just doubles up on power cables).

 

[scubaman]

P, I have the same gear on my boat and once had a problem where the connection to the radar was just lost. On inspecting the problem, I realised that that the connector on the back of the MFD was heavily corroded and required a liberal dose of WD40 to get the connection back again. My deduction was that water had gotten inside the cable and ran down all the way to the back of the MFD. This might have happened during transportation when the radar arch was off and the end of the cable was exposed to the elements. Not sure this was the case, but got it sorted anyway.

You have probably checked this already, but thought I'd post this just in case.

 

[MapisM]

Thanks K (and others), all useful suggestions.
I will definitely use all of them to see if I can fix the system I've got, before eventually sourcing a new radome, if necessary.

In which case, fitting a more powerful one (4 vs. 2kW) would be nice, but the need to replace the cable makes it a much less attractive proposition.
And TBH, a 24Nm range is MUCH more than enough for collision avoidance, the only practical usage of a more powerful radome being for spotting thunderstorms. Which nowadays, with real-time weather situations easily accessible on the web, is not that relevant anyway.

Regardless, I'll dedicate some time to the issue only after completing the delivery trip - simply because I will have more time available.
It would have been nice to have a working radar also for the delivery trip actually, but hey, people went all around the globe with no radar, and ships like the Andrea Doria were sunk because of a radar-assisted collision.....

 

[[165042]]

It's not just the power - the 24" antenna makes a big difference in identifying targets.

 

[Kapu]

There's a diagnostics menu you can enter to fault find the radome. Typically it's the cable or the IF / LNC board that causes this which can't be repaired by Raymarine so you'd need a secondhand unit to swap out a part for or buy another radome on eBay. If you want the service manual PM me and I'll email it to you.

Hi,
I just found this conversation when looking for instructions for a faulty open array Raymarine radar. I think mine has a faulty IF / LNC board because it turns OK and there are no error messages. I have found some boards for sale on ebay. Could you send me the service manual you mentioned? It would be useful when I try to make the repair.

 

[stebo]

Hi Mapis,
how did you fix the problem? I have the same issue...

 

[MapisM]

Sorry for not having updated the thread back in its days, but eventually I replaced the whole radome.
After opening the original one, it was pretty clear that it wasn't worth trying to repair it, even if it was still spinning OK...