Raymarine sea talk issue

[jrudge]

Looking for inspiration.

I have been messing about with the upper helm ( refit completely removed ) and also some new st70 displays.

The st 70 don’t fit so I am having plates made to make the hole smaller.

The boat is now set up exactly as before. It is sufficiently simple I can say this with total confidence. They just plug together.

Last summer I had issues where the gps fix would be lost. It is an external mushroom ( mounted under the upper helm ) and connects with Seatalk 1

I tried lots of things but in the end ( and I cant remember why I tried it. Raymarine article I think ) I made the upper helm master and put the map card in. Sorted. The radar et. Is connected at the lower helm but this seemed to make no odds. It all worked.

Today having messed about with the wiring yesterday and updated the cf card on my laptop I turned it all on and I kept getting position fix lost ( I got the same yesterday but it stopped after about 30 seconds )

The only change to the wiring was that I shortened a 20m or so cable that connects to the gps mushroom to about 2m as I had to cut into it in any event so pruned it. I can’t see this would matter. Indeed it should improve things.

Check connections. All ok. If I disconnected the Seatalk feed to the auto helm ( basically disconnecting the upper and lower helm Seatalk ) it worked... but there is then no heading on the plotter so it is not a solution . Thought it was a voltage issue. Checked and Seatalk 12.7volts.

In the end made downstairs master upstairs slave and it works. Odd given the fly was master for all of last season

No problem - well until I try and get engine data on the display which is plumbed to the upper helm and now won’t work

- it only works on the master station !

Please do bear in mind the upper helm was master all last season with no issues.

I did try and get a card from a forum member to update to the current operating system as this is known to deal with some master / slave issues. Sadly it seemed to get lost in the post as it never arrived. I have bought 2 cards may self based on Raymarine suppost make suggestion and neither will update

Any ideas ? This might go away when I rewire to some extent for the st70 but I am not so sure

Options seem

A software update. Possible but it worked last season

A new gps mushroom. For some reason it does not like talking if the upper is master but that does not make much sense as the wiring etc is identical so it is not as though there is more electrical load on it

There is a setting I have not located that has got upset in the E120 that controls where the gps data comes from

Any suggestions appreciated


Jeremy

 

[Eren]

I have 4 mfds that sets up my system, 3 x E120 and 1 x E90. I had similar problems last year until I realized that the sequence of turning on the mfds makes a change. At that time GPS was connected to one mfd and map card was in another. I first turn on the mfd with gps, then the one with map card and then the others. And, I turn them off with reverse order, which is also very important.

Once you disturb the master/slave relation at these systems, it is difficult to rebalance the it. What I feel until now is, these multi mfd Raymarine systems have a fragile balance. Once you get everything working, you should keep on with that and should not play with it that much, unless it is a must. Once the system is touched, it again takes some time for the it to get stabilized.

I hope that this may help.

 

[jrudge]

YOU could well be onto something.

Today I had fly as master. Turned on lower helm an hour later. No fix for 5 seconds then fine.

The other thing is that diagnostics say there are 3x gps. 1x 125 and 2x 120. This is a surprise. There is one 125 at the upper helm. There is 1 x 120 on the radar mast that I assumed did not work hence the 125 and where the other 120 is is a mystery. I suspect some form of conflict. If you have 3 which does it listen to !!!

 

[powerskipper]

couple of things to try,
1. power down whole system, then power up master first, go into menu and see if it has an internal GPS , and turn it off. then fire up upper helm.
2. do a factory reset, BUT FIRST copy all dater and routes WP to a card. FACTOREY RESET both units then fire up master and tell it its master then do upper helm. you should then be able to reload all your routes. After a factory reset you may /will have to go and set up your preferences. sometimes they just memory full type thing ,
If this does not work give Raymarine a call, their at Fareham.

 

[jrudge]

couple of things to try,
1. power down whole system, then power up master first, go into menu and see if it has an internal GPS , and turn it off. then fire up upper helm.
2. do a factory reset, BUT FIRST copy all dater and routes WP to a card. FACTOREY RESET both units then fire up master and tell it its master then do upper helm. you should then be able to reload all your routes. After a factory reset you may /will have to go and set up your preferences. sometimes they just memory full type thing ,
If this does not work give Raymarine a call, their at Fareham.

Thanks.

it has no internal GPS, however the method suggested by Eren which I stumbled on the same time he posted, but I wound not necessarily have made the connection is to power the master on first.

It is quite probable that I did this all last season without thinking as unless there is reason to I never turn the lower plotter on. If we anchor over night I turn it on for example for the anchor alarm. ... hence the upper helm is always on first.

It was on for 3 days continuously without issue so I will see never time i turn it on!

I do have multiple GPS sources and I have no idea how it decides which one to listen to!