Raymarine RL70C radar plotter help needed

[Tony Cross]

Some dear friends of mine are en-route to Australia on their 54ft, Bruce Roberts designed, steel ketch. They are currently between Vanuatu and Australia and they are experiencing a serious problem with their Raymarine RL70C radar chart plotter. They sent the following email to Raymarine but also asked me to post it on here to see whether anyone has any suggestions for fixing or finding a workaround whilst they are at sea.

I've removed the yacht name for obvious reasons. They are communicating via email and SSB so please keep the replies concise. I will forward any suggestions to the yacht. They're very resourceful people and they know what they're doing but obviously they won't want to be dismantling their entire nav system at sea.

From Sailing Yacht ****. Currently 400 miles east of the coast of Australia. Regarding RL70C Serial No E 52033 1110023.

Our yacht is totally equipped with Raymarine electronic, navigation equipment. As part of this installation we have a Raymarine RL70C radar/chart plotter mounted in the cockpit connected to a RC631 chart plotter mounted in the navigation area.

Unfortunately the RL70C unit when powered up instead of displaying the usual black cat and then the warm up sequence goes straight to a white screen with horizontal coloured lines across the bottom of the screen fading to totally white as you go further up the screen.

The information fed to the chart plotter below by HSB shows the normal sequence and we are able to start the radar and display radar images on this screen. We assume therefore, that other than the display, the unit is still functioning and that the scanner is rotating correctly. Is there anything we can do to solve this problem whilst at sea? If not can you identify the fault and recommend a Raymarine service agent on the East coast of Australia. Our intended landfall is Bundaberg about 150K North of Brisbane.

Incidentally, when we didn't have a problem, we were told by an boat electronics company in the Canary Islands that the unit is obsolete and that no spares are available, hopefully this is not the case since presumably replacement by a new unit would involve lack of compatibility with all the other components in the system including our extensive library of C maps. Your comments on this would be helpful.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Marsupial]

Tony,

the display is still listed as repairable by raymairine

http://www.raymarine.co.uk/view/index.cfm?id=1127

so it should be repairable, if not there are many for sale on good old ebay - so they should be able to keep the system going for a few more years.

 

[Tony Cross]

Tony,

the display is still listed as repairable by raymairine

http://www.raymarine.co.uk/view/index.cfm?id=1127

Thanks for that. That will make him happy, he won't want to have to replace everything!

 

[noelex]

There are quite a number of the units coming up second hand and that is probably the best solution.

A lot of the C series Raymarine plotters have a problem where the video board jumps out of socket and often gives the sort of symptoms you describe. It is an easy repair, but does need quite a bit of dismantling before you get to the problem.

I have not seen this same fault on the RL70 and 80, but they may well be vulnerable to the same problem.

 

[Tony Cross]

There are quite a number of the units coming up second hand and that is probably the best solution.

A lot of the C series Raymarine plotters have a problem where the video board jumps out of socket and often gives the sort of symptoms you describe. It is an easy repair, but does need quite a bit of dismantling before you get to the problem.

I have not seen this same fault on the RL70 and 80, but they may well be vulnerable to the same problem.

Thanks. I'll pass that on, though I doubt he'll want to do much dismantling at sea.

 

[Tony Cross]

Thank you for all the very helpful replies, they now have the problem fixed. One of the very useful replies on the CA forum (they are CA members) suggested that it might be moisture ingress which disrupts the connection of the display's connection strip. The member concerned had had a similar problem with his RL70C. He solved it (in the damp UK) by fixing a strong bulldog clip to the side of the unit to tension it and restore the contact strip's connection. This overcame the problem caused by the moisture and got it working again.

Since they are in the sunny South Pacific my friends decided the leave the plotter off with the cover off in full sun for a day to drive out any moisture. Sure enough it powered up normally afterwards. So, despite the additional current drain, they have decided to leave it switched on permanently. They'll get it sorted when they reach Australia.

Thank you all again.