Raymarine ST60 Instrument Setting

[fmoran]

Switched on my 3 year old bank of ST60 instruments on Sunday as normal and two of them had different settings showing than I would always expect. The Speed one was showing Boat Speed and not SOG, and the Depth one showing Feet rather than Meters. I reset both no probem, even though for the Depth one I had to go into the User Calibration.

I had turned them off as usual the previous week, and on as normal on Sunday. Any suggestions / ideas as to what changed to make these "new" readings happen.

Rest of the Raymarine stuff appears working ok - Wind, E120, Autohelm, VHF , AIS.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Switched on my 3 year old bank of ST60 instruments on Sunday as normal and two of them had different settings showing than I would always expect. The Speed one was showing Boat Speed and not SOG, and the Depth one showing Feet rather than Meters. I reset both no probem, even though for the Depth one I had to go into the User Calibration.

I had turned them off as usual the previous week, and on as normal on Sunday. Any suggestions / ideas as to what changed to make these "new" readings happen.

Rest of the Raymarine stuff appears working ok - Wind, E120, Autohelm, VHF , AIS.

Welcome to the Raymarine befuddled instrument owner's association. Odd behaviour of Raymaine kit is a feature programmed into lots of them. Mine, amongst other things...

Changes distance units from NM to SM.
Sets it's maximum speed to 650 odd knots.
Gets its lighting levels all out of sync with eath other.
Loses its wind heading calibration, suddenly 10-20 degrees out.

Other Raymarine funnies...

ST2000 autopilot goes into standby mode of its own accord.
Autopilot suddenly decides it wants to shove its ram out to full extent.
Chartplotter decides the sea is all blue, even the shallow bits.
Insists that the magnetic variation is 6E even though I've told it 4W.
Beeps that it can't hold the course heading, but it's not even trying, steering in the centre.

Good hardware generally, but flicking awful software.

 

[noelex]

As noted by Angus the ST60 can be a bit “flaky”. They seem particularly sensitive to voltage spikes. The only solution is to reset them.
Not sure how you got the log to read SOG unfortunately it will only read STW.

 

[shaunksb]

12v

.
I've found that this happens to my ST60's when my battery bank runs really low.

Could your battery have discharged while you were away?


.

 

[Kisé]

Hello to all

First, I want to introduce myself to you, I´m from Spain and I will try to manage with my rusty english.
Just to say I have bought a sailboat in France last June and that my ST60+ has exactly the same problems Angus refers and also a wrong temperature reading, it shows a range from 39º C to 59 º C, that´s far toooo warm for me, so I will follow this thread with interest.

Que tengáis buen viento

 

[fmoran]

Batteries were ok - 100% charged - and I am on the boat most days and check. Maybe it was caused by a blip / spike in the voltage when turning on something else. Thanks

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Not sure how you got the log to read SOG unfortunately it will only read STW.

If you have a GPS receiver on your Seatalk network the log will show SOG.

 

[ghostlymoron]

If you have a GPS receiver on your Seatalk network the log will show SOG.

If you have GPS, you already know SOG?

 

[DipperToo]

Similar issues in ST60s that are 3-4 years old.

Depth supuriously loses its offset;
Log sometimes resets the trip reading (but overall log is OK)

Had an incident where all the alarms went off - lost position, low battery, depth warning etc. Batteries 100% full, no engine running.

I did have a suspicion about mobile phone interference as on several occasions this seems to have happened when a phone was in close proximity to the cockpit instruments (and in use). Apparently 4 years ago there were incidents where some Raymarine instruments could lose settings due to some fault on the boards.

When the instruments work they are fine, but losing my depth offset is a bit worrying....

Still trying to see if anything else could have affected things. I have just found that my NASA Navtex unit seems to be putting some intererence on the aerial line. If the handheld VHF is within 2 feet of the Navtex aerial cable run then the interference noise cannot be stopped by using the squelch. Will se if leaving this (as well as mobile phones off) helps at all.

 

[noelex]

If you have a GPS receiver on your Seatalk network the log will show SOG.

Thanks Angus I didn’t think that was an option on the ST series. Its very useful if the impellor gets fouled.

If you have GPS, you already know SOG?

Yes but it may not be visible from the helm.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

I did have a suspicion about mobile phone interference...

If my mobile phone is anywhere near my tiller pilot the phone transmissions cause the tiller pilot to go into standby mode. The first I know of an incoming text or call is the 'gone into standby mode' beep from the instruments. Moments later the phone makes its appropriate noise.

I think Raymarine should market it as a feature.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

If you have GPS, you already know SOG?

The ST60 log acts as a GPS repeater for some GPS stuff, like SOG, if you want it to. You don't have to use it, but it's there if the data is available on Seatalk. My GPS is a mushroom thingummyjig, so the log is the only GPS display I have in the cockpit.

 

[fmoran]

Yes the ST60 Log is connected to GPS through the Seatalk network - I always have it showing SOG, both most informative for passage making and you can forget about the speed impellor, on our previous boat this was always stopping.

As for interference one thing I do know for certain is that my GPS signal drops / cuts out at times when attached to Wifi and the computer is within 2 meters of the GPS antenna. My antenna sits on the coachroof above the chart table where the computer is placed. After months of happening on/off I realised it was only happening when in a marina and by a process of elimination tracked it to the Wifi signal. Only other time it happens is when our dog decides to go asleep on top of the antenna - was not planned for when siting. Mast, boom, sails, etc have no impact.