My chart plotter came back to life

May 7, 2014
135
Beneteau 390 Tiburon
after many months of my ray marine pedestal mounted plotter having a black screen it came back on this weekend, it always is covered with its plastic cover and a pedestal canvas. Its been more rainy then normal this winter in california but this weekend was 80 degrees, any ideas why it went dark and did the warmer weather dry it out??
 
Dec 28, 2010
462
Catalina 380 san pedro
Happy Electrons?...Electron Rapture?...FM? Plotter brightness knob turned all the way up? ( trust me I have seen that happen more than once)
 
Nov 18, 2013
171
Catalina 310 Campbell River
Had the same thing only I found that it was the contacts that needed cleaning this was on the 435 unit and on the C70 the contacts where out of alinement reset now working fine . In both cases the tech said that the units were dead and could not be fixed.
 
Oct 2, 2008
3,811
Pearson/ 530 Strafford, NH
Zoom out, silly stuff drives you nuts! Ours was all blue until I noticed we were zoomed in to 1 foot.

All U Get
 
May 10, 2007
42
Beneteau 45 Annapolis
If you are concerned it may be damp inside, leave it on with the brighness all the way up for a few days. The small amount of heat it generates will help dry it out. Of course, you should only do this if you are connected to shore power or have solar panels.
 
May 24, 2004
7,174
CC 30 South Florida
They have a mind of their own. Was it just the display screen or was the whole unit not turning on? I have had good results by turning the unit Off and disconnecting the power connection for 15 minutes before reconnecting. Clean the pin connectors. Worse case scenario, electrical problems start out as intermittent and then progress to complete failure
 
Nov 18, 2013
171
Catalina 310 Campbell River
My C70 did the same thing what I found was the board contacts had to be reset and cleaned. Also found that the power plug was placing pressure on the housing making it twist pushing the board out of place when in the Edson pod.
 
Jun 6, 2006
6,990
currently boatless wishing Harrington Harbor North, MD
I beleive the technical term for this is "gremlins"
Try taking your plotter to another boat and saying how nice the other boat is and how you sure wish this was your boat then place the plotter near anything wired to the other boat. Gremlins like better boats also so........
You probably do not want to do this to a friends boat. Perhaps a fellow racer that you are having trouble beating....
 
Dec 28, 2010
462
Catalina 380 san pedro
We are such a bunch of meanie beanie pranksters .... but I'm betting on gremlins.
 
Oct 10, 2013
35
Beneteau 343 San Diego
I had a similar thing happen recently with my C70. It went to black and white vertical lines of varying widths. The next time I went sailing, it came back to life, but after a couple of hours, the same thing happened. Then the next time I went sailing, it was fine the whole day. Because I really need to rely on it for long solo passages since the autopilot needs the gps input, I just decided to upgrade all of the electronics. Now I happliy have the ES9 MFD along with a new i50, i60 and the EV-100 Evolution autopilot. Nothing like new toys, and the reliability factor.
 
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