Raymarine frustration

Grumpy":1dkm7s0i said:
Just to add to Matt's post above, be real careful where you put your cell phone. It will work many and variable wonders on your fluxgate compass.
Dont even think about what it does to your brain. :crook

M
Click to expand...

I have a C-120 and did have some issue with the plotter not knowing which way was up sometimes. Paul (JC Lately) was out with me one day and found a loose connection in Raymarine fluxgate, which is mounted on the cabin aft wall, port side, above the water tank. Once that loose connection was tended too, I have not had any other problem except for the Sequim Bay entry past Battle's dock where there is radar, video cam, and who knows what all else there. It is not uncommon for it to do a summer sault going by that dock.

Agree, keep the cell phone away from the compass, also the tool bag and chiefs kit.

Last season is my first using the auto pilot extensively and I love it, mostly. Handy, but it's not a skipper or first mate, only a machine. Somebody (Skipper) has to be PAYING ATTENTION.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

PLI_and_SB_CBGT_2_147.highlight.jpg
 
Good heavens, forrest, I haven't heard that one since I dropped my Gold Star in the desert (back in the '50s) and spent a 1/2 hr. getting it started again.

What BSA did you work on?

I also had a couple of MGs and figured it must never rain in England, cause those things stopped running every time it rained in SoCal.

Boris
 
I have spent a bunch of time tinkering around with it at the marina and even some designated time while out trying to troubleshoot different issues during our ownership. I am also basically a professional manual reader/writer so you can be sure I have given them a decent look. I did find some loose wiring recently and fixed that and have thought about the compass position and moved it a bit although it is still to close to the sink and refer and other metal objects I think. We went out today for some baked goods up north and I think I found a bit more stability if I run the transducer and radar with the chartplotter. I often keep them off and maybe there is power or a feed run along with one of those units that needs to be power up. It was a bit more stable than normal but still wandered out of alignment.

Thanks to all for the advice and I will go through a few more rounds of trying this and that and see if I can get this thing working well enough for another summer.

I will admit that many of the posts fueled my frustrations more and almost make me want to jump ship even sooner. Even though Raymarine gear is supposed to have a longer supported product lifespan, it is hard not to yearn for the plug and play reliability of a basic Garmin package.

I will post here again when I come to some conclusion.

Thanks again for sharing,

Greg
 
I have problems getting my C70 to lock onto satellite, too. Radar always works perfectly, though. A friend says I may have a GPS antenna problem. The installer, who runs the marina where I purchased and store my CD22, didn't bother to put the mushroom on the roof, just laid it on the pilothouse shelf. Said he got reception OK with it. However, later the mushroom hit the deck hard several times when boat was accelerating--until I installed a lip on the shelf to keep everything in place. My backup--a Lowrance H2O--now has stopped locking onto satellite. I use my wife's smart phone and radar.
 
Although many of the most recent chip sets will work well indoors, most of the GPS antennas work better if outside. Dropping a GPS antenna may not be good for it--they are often active, and contain acitive circuits. The Lowrance antennas are also very sensitive to radar. I had one go out when it was on the shelf under the radar--maybe not the cause..but a known problem. The most recent 4000 series are much better.

RayMarine was British, but originally was a spin off or Raytheon, an American companyl. RayMarine is currently owned by FLIR, and I think it bodes well for RayMarine, since FLIR is well capitolized and seems to be integrating their product lines.
 
I have problems getting satellite reception with the C80 if certain computers are running nearby. My Macbook Pro doesn't cause a problem, but my Asus netbook does and I have no idea why. So if you're running a computer try shutting it off and see if that makes a difference.
 
Like Bob says Raymarine is now owned by Flir, a year ago I would not have considered Raymarine, however now that they have had an infusion of cash I believe they have come up in the world. I was looking at the Furano NavNet 3D but was a bit more than the admiral would allow, besides she was with me when the C90W was demo'd and she liked it better than the Lowrance HDS 8, so this is how I ended up with Raymarine. I have an older Lowrance Globalmap unit that will be the backup unit. Next year will be the radar purchase. and we will see what is on the market at that time, and how the newer HD and Broadband systems play out.
 
Thanks to all for the great info and tips. I went through the system the best I could without tearing it apart and discovered a few things.

1. The wiring from the compass to the Gyro 2 unit was suspect so I firmed up the connections and verified they were correct with the installation manual.

2. The seatalk interface was not fully enabled and is required for feedback during compass calibration with my current installation.

3. Running the transducer and radar all the time provides at least a sense of better stability with our installation.

4. Checking over the NMEA output types and wiring leads me to suspect it is wired to the radio but it would take some disassembly to really hash it out so the radio is still not getting position info from the C80.

5. The compass sensor was positioned poorly on the wall between the sink and refridgerator so I moved it down and over for at least an improvement. The installation manual leans toward some distances and to keep it away from large metallic objects but I don't think a teapot a foot below it should cause a problem.

6. There is in fact a battery (80s technology) in the Raystar 120 gps antenna and it was dead and has been since we got the boat so it lasted 4 years maximum. It is not user serviceable and is supposed to have a 10 year life which is very unlikely and is in fact designed to fail during that timeframe. I "serviced" the unit and found a generic 3 volt lithium button battery lightly soldered between two blades connected to a circuit board and hanging inside the upper portion of the antenna assembly. I used a razor blade and tiny screwdriver to peel out the battery (hard to do without ripping it from the board) and put in a new one in a method that is effective but unsightly involving tiny rescue tape strips, glue, and a very small wire tie. Results are what I expected in that the unit now gets a fix without me having to cycle the battery switch as
I have for the past 1.5 years. This antenna was actually designed so that a 3 dollar battery failure requires the owner to buy a new one for about 300 dollars and that fact alone has pushed me over the edge on this stuff. My garage door opener of the same vintage has a smarter design.
I sure hope the improving trend under new ownership continues with this brand.

Good news! The system performed better and more reliably yesterday looking for whales that it has ever performed during our ownership and it actually held a heading and the radar overlayed on the charts correctly and all was doing pretty good with my hacked GPS antenna.

Better news! I ordered a Garmin 740s with GMR18 HD radar and transducer last night and plan to install it next weekend! They supported the $99 etrex unit with free updates and improvements for 10 years until that unit was updated with a new reciever chip and is still kicking. Based on my experience with models for use on the ground, air, and water, I have no issues throwing cash at this company and it's product. I considered the 4000 series network panel but it is currently due for an update and it didn't really do anything additional that we need for this boat.

There will be a parted out C80 setup on ebay in the near future minus one hacked GPS antenna. And Tom will get first crack at the C80 unit.

Greg
 
Greg,

That sounds like a good choice and good plan. I would have done something similar but since Lowrance makes better sonar AND they upgraded my 8200C for not too much money, I went the Lowrance route. The user interface on the Lowrance is OK - not as good as Garmin but not near as bad a Raymarine. They only beef I have with Lowrance is that the screen is slow to update when you zoom in and out - especially over several levels of zoom. I do that frequently in trip planning and when plotting a new route. I do miss the Garmin's smooth and fast transitions when zooming. I haven't yet made the final hookup between my new Lowrance broadband radar and the GPS (HBS-8) but I'll be interested in comparing the Lowrance vs Garmin radar someday. Maybe we can get together at a C-Brat gathering some day and look at the two side by side.
 
Good choice Greg. That 740s is a really nice unit. I think we'd rather be cruising than fiddling with electronics issues. George
 
Just picked up the boat from Triton today after the install of the Raymarine C90W. Out of the water seems to work great, Greg's group did some nice work setting it up for me. We will see if the weather gets a bit better before I get it out on the water.
 
Finished taking out the Raymarine gear and installing the Garmin goods tonight. It felt like replacing an old component audio system with an Ipod and I couldn't be happier with the clean install and usability.

Thanks again to everyone for your support on this. Feels like a load off my mind and should make boating even better for us.
 
Greg, I appreciate your insight on all this. Our Raymarine set up has been trouble-free since I replaced the autopilot display after an early failure. That said, we have noticed an interesting anomaly the last couple times out: it is taking the GPS longer to acquire a usable signal... as in about a minute, instead of the 15 seconds or so that it has always taken. The odd part: BOTH GPS units, the Raymarine and the Garmin, are taking that long. You said something about having to cycle power off and on to get the Raymarine to acquire the signal - did that start with longer times to acquire?

Glad to hear all went well with your new install.

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
I've had Raymarine, Garmin, and Furuno electronics on my boats.

My preference has been Raymarine. I've always found the units easy to operate/learn and bullet proof in performance and reliability.

My Furuno components were also very reliable but I didn't like the user interface as well as the Raymarine.

My C dory 25 currently has a Raymarine C-Series widescreen display with integrated radar, GPS chart-plotter, and digital fish-finder/depth sounder, an old Garmin GPSMAP 376C chart-plotter with XM Weather Radar, and a Garmin Autopilot. The only flaky item is the Garmin Autopilot which powers off sometimes for no apparent reason. it's very intermittent so I don't get too concerned but so far I (and anyone else) can't seem to determine the cause.

All in all, I've found that the major difference in all of these units for me has been my perception of ease of use and how the display looked to me.
 
Jim, Our GPS reception problem was a complete lack thereof. It would not acquire a signal at all until the battery switch was thrown. I even rewired it so I could regularly do that without interrupting the wallas or the running motors. I think it was primarily due to a failed battery in the GPS unit but while researching the problem there were a variety of other sources and also the existence of this problem with no cure for many deligent folks. I use and instruct on complicated electronics and manage mapping systems for a living and it was the number of unresolved glitches and (unecessary in my opinion) system complexities and design details that pushed me over the top. I did not truely find it hard to use and found my way through all of the menus just fine. It was the constant challenge to find consistency in it's behavior that was really the problem for me. I do it all week and want some relief on the weekends. We dealt with the problem by switching products as it saves time and frustration and at some point everyone loses trust in a device and that really does it in. I like having a bit more faith in my gear and I now have a chance of enjoying a trip without cursing at it.

I tried a few out and nearly bought a Simrad unit instead of the Garmin but knew my wife would enjoy the interface on the Garmin more and if I can make it fun for her, it's more fun for me. She never liked the C80 as it made little sense to her and the instability didn't help a bit. She is a senior IT systems engineer by the way.

I know the raymarine gear works for plenty of folks and thats the point. It works for them but failed that mission for us.

The truth is, all I really wanted was a small chartplotter/sounder but figured I would be doing the boat an injustice without a radar. I don't really plan to boat at night or in bad visibility but you know how that works.
 
Greg, It sure would be nice if you would post a little about the Garmin as you go along so we can get your insights on that platform too.
 
Thanks for the response, Greg. Like the others, I'll be interested in your opinions as you go forth with the Garmin. Our Raymarine has been a champ, and adding the Navionics on the iPad feels "like home", since the Raymarine uses the Navionics chips. I've had Garmin chartplotters on other boats, but Garmin didn't have a fully integrated system when we ordered our boat. I do like the intuitive interface of the Garmin, but once learned, the Raymarine pages are easy to work with. Like most things in life, it's a matter of what you get used to... and NO ONE wants to get used to any system that isn't reliable.

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
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