Raymarine frustration

A

Aurelia

New member
We have a C80 with radar, compass/smart heading sensor, transducer on the boat but I could not be less happy with it. We bought the boat with less than 20 hours I am am confident the former owner never really used the packages as it was all defaults with the maps not even displaying when first tested it.

Our issues:

--The unit normally will not acquire satellite reception unless I remove power (with house switch) from the C80 then power it up.

--The transducer will not activate if the boat is moving or will activate very slowly. Even while stopped, the startup time can be 30 seconds or 2 minutes and is annoyingly inconsistent and makes me want a backup.

--The little boat symbol will align with our travel direction for a few minutes but always deviates within minutes for no damn good reason I can figure out.

--It has never been able to calibrate the compass correctly although the device is connected and feeding a bearing.

--It is connected to our radio for DSC transmission of our location but the radio is not getting any data and it is not the radio.

I have performed three software updates (latest installed) and various sessions of running and troubleshooting and while I have learned how to use the unit just fine, it still has the above issues. I have search forums and checked on many promising leads but to no avail. I will not live with it this way much longer and I find it ridiculous that my 76csx is more useful and reliable than this fancy box.

I have not torn into the wiring yet and I am not confident at this point that it was even installed correctly. I do not like it enough to take it apart because I would not put it back in. I am thinking of hiring a tech who is very familiar with this gear to check it out for a couple hours and tell me what is going on before just taking it all out for good. We keep it in the water in Port Orchard and if anyone has a lead on a skilled person who makes boat calls let me know. I will be calling local service folks soon.

I am not a newbie with this type of gear in general but I am bothered enough to pay another person with specific skills to make an assessment and recommend some real remedies.

I am not afraid to buy a new package but I feel I should give it a solid chance because lots of folks make good use of this gear and even though I don't like the Raymarine details much, I can surely live with this thing if it works!

Greg
 
Hi Greg sorry to hear about the issues and unfortunately not uncommon with the C80. Definately check for continuity to power, lots of times the installation is the culprit. If you can get a hold of a Raymarine tech to go over your set up it would be good. In the past when we sell Raymarine products we like to set folks up with the tech to do the install. Uphill battle sometimes as the customer usually "has an electrician" friend. Then we start getting the calls. It may pay to power the display without the toggle switch on the panel. Raymarine had some serious reliability challenges for a few years there. New ones are seeming to fare pretty well. I keep my own boats Garmin for bulletproof reliability. Best of luck there, George
 
Hopefully Matt Gurnsey will see your plight and chime in.

I believe he authored a marine electronics forum.

As I recall, I selected my standard Horizon CP1000C largely based upon his input.

He is knowledgeable, and, best of all, he's at Kitsap Marina in Port Orchard...

I THINK . :roll:
 
Greg< I may be of some use to you. On the heading problem I had a similar problem. Raymarine had a high number of failures with thier smart heading sensor. its a known problem to them but not enought to force a recall. They are how ever fairly good about replacing them. This is why you can not get your little boat to stay on course.

Also if you have not ran thru the heading set up at least twice you are not doing it right :wink: You can only do this underway and it helps if you have two people to do it. Once its done it will work fine. also make sure your heading offset is correct. Dont ask me how I dont remember but its in the set up manual.

On the depth transducer. you have to hae it set on the transom just right. if its not down in the water enough it will not track or engage. adjust it down some and try that. also being you keep it in the water you have to clean it more often. Use dish soap to clean it.

other then that if you do pull the system out can I have first shot at the screen and depth finder units?
 
Greg, We have the same setup except our heading compass is not a Raymarine product. Les at EQ installed ours and he is the person I would talk to. He is quite willing to discuss things over the phone, I know Whidbey is a distance for you. Our troubles have been minor but were I to do it again I would not go with Raymarine..because of the non-intuitive operational steps and the less than useful manuals. Ours is hard wired in and I use the plotter red on-off button to power it and the radar.
The GPS, airmar 66 depthsounder, and KW1000 electronic compass have their own switches and breakers. We found that many issues can only be resolved if you are displaying the appropriate screen. For example, you can only adjust radar gain etc., if the screen has a radar display on at least part of the display. Same for shallow water alarms etc. For those you must have a fishfinder screen displayed. Those portions of the display must be the "Active" portion of the display with a red border. I've not had the problems you are but the GPS does sometimes take a while to get data from enough satellites to generate a position. My 76CSX matches the Raymarine data in terms of heading/position, speed, etc.
 
Greg,

I had problems with my C-80 chart plotter several years back. EQ installed my system & they recommended that I contact J. Mark Barrett at jbarrett@seawide.com. They apparently buy their Raymarine equipment through him & feel that he is an excellent trouble shooter. He walked me through my problems & got everything working again. You might give him a try. Good luck!

John
 
Our vintage 2005 C-80 is working OK, but we don't ask it to do much complicated, and I NEVER try to change anything, I ask Barry to do that for me! Honestly, this is the LEAST INTUITIVE interface on a piece of electronic equipment I have ever seen. If it ever fails and needs replacing, we are going Garmin.
 
Random notes:

J Mark is no longer with Seawide.

Raymarine had some problems with their GPS sensor, and replaced it with an upgraded model that had an LCD indicator on it for troubleshooting. Be sure the antenna has a clear view of the sky. It should acquire a lock in a few minutes, and then keep it in most situations.

If the GPS eventually acquires position, and seems to hold it, then it may be a case of the internal battery being bad, forcing a cold start every time the unit is powered on. The internal battery "remembers" the last location the boat was in when the unit is shut off, so it acquires satellites more quickly when turned back on.

Heading issues- be sure that the unit is using the heading sensor, and not gps for heading information. I don't remember if this is user setable, but if the unit were using the GPS for heading then the GPS issues would affect heading.

Be sure there are no metal items near the compass unit. You might even try moving the compass to a different location. One test would be to remove any metal from the V-berth area, and set the compass on the berth, do a calibration, and then see if it works properly. If it does, there may be something affecting it.

There was a trawler I knew of that would have compass problems every time they took a trip. The compass would calibrate fine, work great for a few days, and then the autopilot would act weird. Turns out that they anchored out almost every night when traveling, and the compass was close enough that the change in the way the anchor chain would be piled in the locker after a night on the hook would affect the compass. Moved the compass, no more problem.

The DSC may require that the C80 be told to transmit NMEA data, and which sentences it should transmit. The "sentences" are indicated by three letter names. The GLL sentence should be turned on as it's the position sentence.

Wiring of the C80 to the radio should be checked. To be sure the C80 is producing an 0183 signal, put a multimeter on the NMEA out + and - leads. You should see a 5 volt signal that modulates between 5 and 0 volts. If that isn't there, be sure that NMEA output is turned on in the set up menu. If it is there, it may be that the wiring to the VHF is not correct.

Be sure the transducer is mounted properly. Is it a transom mount? If the readings are good at rest or slow speeds, try lowering the transducer slightly, and be sire the aft edge is slightly lower than the forward edge.

This should be a start. As noted, the GPS and or Heading Sensor units could be bad, Raymarine did have a lot of out-of-box failures when the C Series came out. Networking problems were common. Once those were figured out, the units usually run fine.

Be cautious not to do a master system reset once things are working, as it wipes out all the settings. And unlike most manufacturers, the master reset is readily available in the menu system, and many a customer has mistakenly chosen that option as a way of solving a problem, only to create a bunch more!
 
Just to add to Matt's post above, be real careful where you put your cell phone. I will work many and variable wonders on your fluxgate compass.
Dont even think about what it does to your brain. :crook

M
 
Don and Brenda":167odv0t said:
Sure, this post comes out 1 day after I dropped a couple thousand on a Raymarine C90W. Hope I do not have any of these issues.
Click to expand...

When we ordered our C-Dory in 2006, everyone raved about the factory service, the Wallas cooktop/heater, and the Raymarine integrated suite. Well, the factory service went away just a couple months after we took delivery of our boat... in the past year, there have been several folks here who have taken out their Wallas... and now this about the Raymarine? :roll: I know karma will bite me in the ass for saying this, but our Wallas has been a champ, as has the Raymarine. Early on, I had to track down a connection problem and replace the autopilot display, but our E-80 has been a workhorse. Nothing intuitive about it, but once you learn how to find the stuff you want in all those menus and screens, it works.

One thing we found out early on with the Raymarine: you have to turn things on in the right sequence. Our boat came rigged from the factory with the powered antenna hooked in to the autopilot power switch. The order: turn on the autopilot, turn on the depth sounder, then turn on the E-80. Do that out of sequence, and the sounder signal comes and goes or it has trouble acquiring the satellites. :crook When shutting down, on occasion the E-80 doesn't actually shut down... oh, the screen goes dark, but if you look at the scrolling knob, you will see a green glow behind it. The only way to shut it down at this point is to cut power at the batteries. If you don't do that, the E-80 unit won't turn back on. That may seem like a big deal, but after dealing with the situation a couple times, I now double check that scroll knob to make sure it really has shut down. That issue aside, our Raymarine has done what it's supposed to do. No idea how different the workings are between the C-80 and the E-80.
 
We are seeing much better product from Raymarine since Flir purchased them last fall. I think if the C90W is installed correctly it will give good service.
They are still way behind in terms of intuitive use, Garmin understands most of us are not techies, most other manufacturers manuals seem to assume we take our tech with us on cruises.

Hope you're getting some results soon, Greg

George
 
Don and Brenda":1rt8hz3n said:
Sure, this post comes out 1 day after I dropped a couple thousand on a Raymarine C90W. Hope I do not have any of these issues.
Click to expand...

I had a C90W installed when I bought our boat. It had some issues, but a firmware upgrade fixed all of them.

Before applying the firmware upgrade, display would disconnect/drop/lose data from the radar & sounder. I usually had to restart the display to get things working properly.

There's a firmware patch for the sounder (DSM300) as well.
 
Grumpy":3f4f18oy said:
Just to add to Matt's post above, be real careful where you put your cell phone. I will work many and variable wonders on your fluxgate compass M
Click to expand...

Most fluxgate compasses are placed low and towards the center of the vessel. Since mine is located on the starboard side on the bulkhead near the floor under the Wallas, be very careful about placing any pots and pans near it. Also don't place anything in the shelf of the cabinet door that will affect it. They will affect the fluxgate....at least it did on mine.
 
2007 CD22, Wallas, C80 and Raymarine electronics suite. No worries with anything from day one. Find a quiet day, don't have anyone else on the boat, leave all weapons ashore, and play with your C80 and work through the manual for a few hours from front to back. In several years, it may make complete sense.
 
In total agreement with cdgale. trying to learn your electronics while cruising is like learning to shoot while in a gun fight. Yes people do it but they lose most of the time. :sad

When we got the 22 I spent a week in the boat on the trailer in the front yard playing with the e80 and the radar. I was tracking cars as they drove up the street on radar and arranging security rings for the tree line. Neighbors think I'm nuts but I don't talk to them anyhow :wink:

Play with your unit( no not that one) at the dock or in the drive way when you have the time, or better yet make the time. Its really not that hard of a system to figure out and has a lot of features most owners never know about.
 
Tom - If you have an older Garmin - you don't really need to play with it much to understand it. It just works and all the things you need to do are either no or one menu levels down. The user interface on the Ray Marine just sucks and hence you have to play with it for hours on the dock (with the manual in hand) just to become semi-functional with it. The Lowrance I have is pretty intuitive also. Not as nice as my older Garmin in terms of usability, but not near as bad as Ray Marine.
 
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the Raymarine, I hope they got the bugs out on these newer units and I understand they are a bit more intuitive than the C80's. It will be at Triton in another week for the install along with a laundry list of service items.
 
We have an older Raymarine 70C on our TC24. It still works fine. But, I can tell you that the interface is far from intuitive. The system should be thoroughly explored before using it in real time.
 
Isn't Raymarine a British company? Like MGs, Triumph, and BSA (Bastard Stopped Again). Edit: Just kidding, don't get your shorts in a knot.
 
Back
Top