Secrets of Raymarine

Barry,

Not that I can help much here, but, it might help top know which navigation chip you are using. (Did you do the whole trip on the same chip, or as George suggested, change chips or run off the edge of one at any time?)

Wow, I like that you have current info on your display. I need to learn how to do that one?

Harvey
SleepyC
 
We use the Navionics Gold BC chip (#13 I think) which covers all of the area we cruise in and then some. We travel to Canada quite often and have never had a chip problem. I did, however change to another chip while diagnosing, the fishing version of the navionics chip that shows more bottom structure, and had the same results.

I remained suspicious of the KVH compass but when the C-80 stopped displaying any course, heading, or current vectors that pushed my thoughts more towards the C-80 as the culprit. I may borrow another Brat's chip, put it in my plotter and see what that does.

I have a Garmin GPSMap76CSX as my backup and will use it as a check for as much data as possible.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Good idea Warren, I did switch back and forth between course and heading but just briefly. I did not run North up at all. I'm heading out on the water for a diagnosis day today or Thursday and will experiment. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
OK, the C-80 is running again. I ended up contacting Raymarine tech support by E-mail and got a quick and effective answer. True to form the solution is not intuitive or in the owner's manual and that's the reason I started this thread some time ago. Raymarine likes everything to be a mystery.

To restore or create course, heading, current, or wind vectors: Step one- have a chart screen up and active. Push the menu button then Chart Setup, then set vector length to "infinite". Step two with the screen still on a chart and active push the "data" button, a different menu will come up with four soft keys for turning course, heading, tide (current), and wind vectors on or off. To be able to show heading and current you have to have a fluxgate compass/fast heading sensor. To be able to show wind, which is mainly for sailboats, you need an anemometer. I now have my course, heading and current vectors set up and working. I then changed the vector length to 6 minutes instead of infinite. I like the idea of knowing where the boat will be in 6 minutes.

The radar overlay was way off when the fluxgate compass was active, it returned to normal when I turned the compass off. I contacted KVH who assured me that if it was providing heading info it was not the problem. I went through the KVH alignment procedure twice to make sure everything there was OK. The I discovered that with a split screen having radar on one side and a chart on the other, the radar side was accurate. So, I went into the menu to radar setup and down to bearing alignment and found that the radar bearing alignment had somehow become about 30 degrees off of where it should be. To correct that and get the radar aligned with the chartplotter I used a split screen chart/radar and varied the bearing alignment until the radar painted image was over the chart illustration of the same feature. To do that, highlight bearing alignment, turn the scroll wheel on the C-80. hit OK, watch how the image moves, repeat, repeat, repeat, until you are satisfied with the alignment.

To fix the current errors, I discovered that the speed offset (shown on the menu when a fishfinder screen is active (I know, I know, thats just the way Raymarine is!) was also way off. I used my handheld GPS Garmin 76CSX to generate a speed indication and changed the speed offset so it agreed with the Garmin. You change it the same way you change the radar bearing alignment.

Now, after a few hours of test cruising today all is well.

Thanks for all the support and this now can go into the secrets of Raymarine archive.
 
Thanks for reminding me why I don't have Raymarine chartploter etc. I do have the S1000 and it works well although it does have it's "raymarine moments"

colobear":265dztxc said:
OK, the C-80 is running again. I ended up contacting Raymarine tech support by E-mail and got a quick and effective answer. True to form the solution is not intuitive or in the owner's manual and that's the reason I started this thread some time ago. Raymarine likes everything to be a mystery.

To restore or create course, heading, current, or wind vectors: Step one- have a chart screen up and active. Push the menu button then Chart Setup, then set vector length to "infinite". Step two with the screen still on a chart and active push the "data" button, a different menu will come up with four soft keys for turning course, heading, tide (current), and wind vectors on or off. To be able to show heading and current you have to have a fluxgate compass/fast heading sensor. To be able to show wind, which is mainly for sailboats, you need an anemometer. I now have my course, heading and current vectors set up and working. I then changed the vector length to 6 minutes instead of infinite. I like the idea of knowing where the boat will be in 6 minutes.

The radar overlay was way off when the fluxgate compass was active, it returned to normal when I turned the compass off. I contacted KVH who assured me that if it was providing heading info it was not the problem. I went through the KVH alignment procedure twice to make sure everything there was OK. The I discovered that with a split screen having radar on one side and a chart on the other, the radar side was accurate. So, I went into the menu to radar setup and down to bearing alignment and found that the radar bearing alignment had somehow become about 30 degrees off of where it should be. To correct that and get the radar aligned with the chartplotter I used a split screen chart/radar and varied the bearing alignment until the radar painted image was over the chart illustration of the same feature. To do that, highlight bearing alignment, turn the scroll wheel on the C-80. hit OK, watch how the image moves, repeat, repeat, repeat, until you are satisfied with the alignment.

To fix the current errors, I discovered that the speed offset (shown on the menu when a fishfinder screen is active (I know, I know, thats just the way Raymarine is!) was also way off. I used my handheld GPS Garmin 76CSX to generate a speed indication and changed the speed offset so it agreed with the Garmin. You change it the same way you change the radar bearing alignment.

Now, after a few hours of test cruising today all is well.

Thanks for all the support and this now can go into the secrets of Raymarine archive.
Click to expand...
 
A couple of weekends ago I was trying to help Harvey (hardee) revise his screen setup on his C-120 repositioning th databar, etc.; and we discovered his unit was suffering from short-term memory loss - it couldn't seem to save the changes and, after powering down would always wake up in the "old" configuration.
As in Barry's latest episode resetting things to default didn't seem to have any effect.
We noticed that Harvey's unit was one revision of the system software out of date, so I loaned him my flash card with the most recent, and he loaded it up and tried things one more time.
This time all the changes "took" and lasted through a power down and restart just as the book claims.
I'm reminded of the early PC field repair scheme of reloading the software from scratch and starting anew. How old is the Raymariine system, anyway?!

Paul Priest
J.C.LatelySequim
 
Okay, I haven't posted on this thread in a while...help!! I accidentally reset the C-80 and cannot get my radar overlay to work again. When I go to "presentation" and "chart layers" the "radar overlay" button is greyed out. Does anyone remember how to get around this?

Thanks.
 
colobear":3vv6bme3 said:
Okay, I haven't posted on this thread in a while...help!! I accidentally reset the C-80 and cannot get my radar overlay to work again. When I go to "presentation" and "chart layers" the "radar overlay" button is greyed out. Does anyone remember how to get around this?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Barry,

This may depend on which screen is active I think, (chart or radar), when you go to that menu. Been a while for me too so that is more a shot in the dark. I have some pages set up with radar overlay and some without. have not changed that for a long time.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Is this thread only for C series because I have E80 radar on our new to use 25 that will not rotate? When I took it out on its sea trial a couple of weeks ago it just stopped working, strange. The boat/motor only has about 200 hours on it, a 07, so just thinking bad connection somewhere. The previous owner agreed to pay for fix but thinking it could be something simple. Have not had much time to play with the display unit, the Ray Marine manual is not that user friendly---miss my Garmin.
 
Are you sure it's not "rotating"? The E80 is the display, not the radar. Do you have the 2kw or the 4kw dome? It's hard to hear it rotate with the engine running. See if you can hear it when it's quiet.

Charlie
 
Sorry, it's an E80 multifunction display what 2kw radar. After initial warm up I get a popup window that says the radar is not rotating. maybe I should call the RayMarine teck support while I'm sitting in front of the display. Could be something simple.
 
Jay,

It's not hard to pop the top off the radome to do a visual inspection. Be sure everything is powered down.On the radars I have inspected and repaired, it has come down to a loose connector. The antenna array in most smaller radars is light weight and can be rotated with a finger. I know in some radar manuals it tells you to rotate the radar antenna to be sure it is not binding anywhere as an inspection and troubleshooting step.

In addition, there is a sensor that detects both rotation and gives a reference to the bow on the boat. If that sensor fails then the antenna will rotate but the sensor will not detect it. If it doesn't detect rotation it will not turn on the transmitter and shut itself down. So if you do the audio test and hear it start up and quit, then that's a good indicator.
 
Jay,

Give Jordan Morse a call at Polar Wire / Marine. He is a local Raymarine rep. He was very helpful getting to know my "new to me" Raymarine system. I picked his brain for hours before I was comfortable with the system.

Regards,
Dave
 
This thread is not for any particular Raymarine. I started it some years ago because I was so frustrated with the crappy owner's manuals and figured the accumulated knowledge of this site would be much better. Thanks to all who proved that hope right.
 
tpbrady":v7ssi5gk said:
Jay,

It's not hard to pop the top off the radome to do a visual inspection. Be sure everything is powered down.On the radars I have inspected and repaired, it has come down to a loose connector. The antenna array in most smaller radars is light weight and can be rotated with a finger. I know in some radar manuals it tells you to rotate the radar antenna to be sure it is not binding anywhere as an inspection and troubleshooting step.

In addition, there is a sensor that detects both rotation and gives a reference to the bow on the boat. If that sensor fails then the antenna will rotate but the sensor will not detect it. If it doesn't detect rotation it will not turn on the transmitter and shut itself down. So if you do the audio test and hear it start up and quit, then that's a good indicator.
Click to expand...
when I get a chance I'll pop the top and ckeck connections. Fire it off and see if there is rotation. The previous owner said he would pay for repair but would like to fix the problem myself. Better to know the system anyways.

hard to respond here with smart ass phone.
 
KickerDRB":2yb21kv2 said:
Jay,

Give Jordan Morse a call at Polar Wire / Marine. He is a local Raymarine rep. He was very helpful getting to know my "new to me" Raymarine system. I picked his brain for hours before I was comfortable with the system.

Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...

been trying to get ahold of this guy but it seems extremely busy, If can't figure it out myself it will probably be an off season repair.
 
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