Raymarine E120 - Intermittent radar connection

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My E120 is often reluctant to make a data connection with the radome, often simply reporting "No Data Connection" and then for no apparent reason it will connect and work faultlessly. Any ideas why it might be intermittent beyond the obvious loose connection/corrosion likely issues?

TIA

Rob
 
Slipstream 34 said:
Low voltage at the scanner. If your batteries are sound check for corrosion / security of connections.
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That's interesting, thanks. The Mastervolt battery monitoring system is reporting a higher voltage than is shown on the Seatalk network ST60 voltage page/screen so that may well be the problem.
 
I had the same problem. Checked connections on the power data cable, cleaned and re-fitted. Even took off the radome and looked inside, but could not see anything amiss. I was even thinking of replacing the cable.
The problem persisted for some time until eventually I accidentally got it working again. It was the sequence of button pressing on the MFD for the radar/on/standby/scanner. Don't ask me what to do because I cannot remember!
More info. I recall that it is possible to switch off the scanner, then when tx is selected the scanner does not operate and the signal 'no data received' appears.
M.
 
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emandvee44 said:
I had the same problem. Checked connections on the power data cable, cleaned and re-fitted. Even took off the radome and looked inside, but could not see anything amiss. I was even thinking of replacing the cable.
The problem persisted for some time until eventually I accidentally got it working again. It was the sequence of button pressing on the MFD for the radar/on/standby/scanner. Don't ask me what to do because I cannot remember!
More info. I recall that it is possible to switch off the scanner, then when tx is selected the scanner does not operate and the signal 'no data received' appears.
M.
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Thanks for that, I will read the manual and see if there is anything about the sequence of button pressing.
 
marcot said:
Robih
I have the same problem but couldn't sort it out. did you find the fault?
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Regrettably no. I've tested the voltage at the MFD (which I am presuming at the moment sends power to the scanner) and find a healthy result which is very close to the voltage available at the batteries. The next challenge I think is to determine whether there is a separate 12v supply to the scanner and then test that.

It is all very odd.
 
Robih said:
Regrettably no. I've tested the voltage at the MFD (which I am presuming at the moment sends power to the scanner) and find a healthy result which is very close to the voltage available at the batteries. The next challenge I think is to determine whether there is a separate 12v supply to the scanner and then test that.

It is all very odd.
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If it's a RD218/424 radome, it gets it's power from the plotter.
 
Robih said:
I've tested the voltage at the MFD (which I am presuming at the moment sends power to the scanner)
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That is correct if you've got the smaller (18", 2kW) radome.
But the 4kW radome and the open arrays have a higher current demand, and require an additional couple of DC wires.
 
PaulRainbow said:
If it's a RD218/424 radome, it gets it's power from the plotter.
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The 4kW 424 radome might possibly run powered by the MFD cable alone, but I believe that Raymarine suggested separate DC wires also for it - on top of the open arrays, where it's a requirement.
 
PaulRainbow said:
If it's a RD218/424 radome, it gets it's power from the plotter.
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Paul,

Thanks, that's helpful. I reckon it is the 2KW model but I only say that having looked at the shape of the radome, maybe the 2kw and 4kw are in identical housings?

The next thing for me to test is whether there's a manky connection at the foot of the mast - after that I'm very much in the dark. The kit is new to me - just bought this boat so don't know too much about it unfortunately.
 
Robih said:
Paul,

Thanks, that's helpful. I reckon it is the 2KW model but I only say that having looked at the shape of the radome, maybe the 2kw and 4kw are in identical housings?
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The 2KW radome is 521mm dia and the 4kw one is 652mm dia

The next thing for me to test is whether there's a manky connection at the foot of the mast - after that I'm very much in the dark. The kit is new to me - just bought this boat so don't know too much about it unfortunately.
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There will often be connections at the mast base, especially as yours is several years old, the mast may have been off at some point in time. With the older radomes the connections are often choc block connections, so i'd start there, take a voltage reading from here too.
 
PaulRainbow said:
There will often be connections at the mast base, especially as yours is several years old, the mast may have been off at some point in time. With the older radomes the connections are often choc block connections, so i'd start there, take a voltage reading from here too.
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Yes I'm aware that the mast has been off so there must be a connection of some sort. Choc boxes always seem so insecure/inadequate for such delicate cables , I'm wondering about using Wago connectors as I've used extensively in a 240v environment where they seem to be excellent.
 
Robih said:
Yes I'm aware that the mast has been off so there must be a connection of some sort. Choc boxes always seem so insecure/inadequate for such delicate cables , I'm wondering about using Wago connectors as I've used extensively in a 240v environment where they seem to be excellent.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with all of that. A set of Wagos would be a good choice.
 
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