New instruments?

[Mike H.]

Our 1994 Hunter Vision has electrical/instrument problems.

The depth sounder is an Autohelm and is not working, (we get wild constantly changing inaccurate dpeths), the boat speed is Autohelm and seems to work, but it makes a high pitched whining sound all the time. The autopilot is Autohelm and it displays SEATALK FAILURE all of the time. The chart plotter is a Raymarine Pathfinder RL70(?) and 90% of the time it says NO FIX. The radar is Raymarine and it works!

We had an electrician come to the boat two weeks ago and he says the stuff is old, cheap to begin with and recommends replacing with new Garmin instruments.

I talked with another electrician, (who hasn't seen the boat) thinks he can patch thing up in about 5 hours.

Am I shining shit, or is time to upgrade?

 

[alexco38]

Leran to fix it yourself

Sounds like loose connections.

Learn to fix it yourself. The skill come in handy when you cruising out of familiar areas.

If you follow the wires or better yet install everything again, you'll find the fault. Those Raymarine stuff are pretty good even for old ones.

 

[Steve Dion]

Mike: I think you need someone else other than the guy who is putting down the old, cheap Raymarine/Autohelm stuff. They probably more instruments in the field than any other mfg in the recreational boating world.

There is a good chance that you have some bad connections, but they may have failed too. These wires are very small and can be easily damaged. You can remove the instrument from it's mount and check the connectors on the back.

Honestly I do not think that Garmin has that long of a track record to know if they will still be working in 16 years either.

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Garmin is good stuff and much more intuitive than RayMarine, I think, but both are good products. Have you tried calling RayMarine to get their take on the subject? 1-800-539-5539

 

[Joe]

Hey.... if you have money to burn, go for the full replacement. But....... don't just assume Garmin is your only choice. They are relatively new in the instrments game, except for GPS. Get a quote, then shop around. BTW Raymarine/autohelm... make very good products.. as do many other manufacturers in the field.

However, I don't have barrels of cash.. so I'd get it fixed and go from there....

 

[Bill Roosa]

SeaTalk failure

The system has diagnosed itself. The three wire SeaTalk buss has a break in it. Given that, "99.44% of all electrical problems are corroded connections" I'd start at the autopilot and follow the SeaTalk buss to the other end. It will dasychain all your components together.
The GPS indicating "no fix" is a compleatly different matter. Check your GPS setup pages for satellite signal strength. If you can't get enough satellites or they don't have strong signals then I'd check the GPS antenna. Course the unit could be bad also. Also check the GPS start up screen for the current version of software. Then go to the Raymarine site and see if there is a newer version. Really old units may be handling the GPS signals poorly. Yes they are backward compatable but just.
the noise from the knot meter is probably some interferance in the circuit cause by the break in the SeaTalk. Fix the SeaTalk first, then GPS and see if you still have a noise.
SeaTalk is a three wire system. 12 volts, ground/shield, and data. The 12 volt and ground provide power to the units while the data and ground carry the data. A GOOD ground is important to keep noise out of the system.

 

[Bill Roosa]

one more thing

use a digital multi meter to keep from frying the integrated circuits

 

[BobM]

Sounds like a ground to me

If you have that many instruments going nuts you seriously need to look at the back of your 12V panel and check the ground and connections. You might be amazed at how much work you find there. I went to change a bilge pump on my old 82 Lancer 25 and spent the afternoon changing all the wire terminations into the breaker panel so I could sleep at night.

 

[Mike H.]

I'm definetly going to hold off on buying new, depth transducer notwithstanding. I'll take the boat to one of the electricians and work with them so I can get an education at the same time.

From what I understand there are two data busses, NEMA and Seatalk. Could I have both? Could they be fighting? This stuff is over my head, (at this time).

 

[Old Skool Neil]

All good advice.
What caught my eye was the second electrician. Without seeing the boat he somehow knows it'll take 5 hours?? Sounds more like he has a truck payment to make that equals 5 times his hourly rate.

 

[Mike H.]

All good advice.
What caught my eye was the second electrician. Without seeing the boat he somehow knows it'll take 5 hours?? Sounds more like he has a truck payment to make that equals 5 times his hourly rate.

I know. I'm at their mercy. The last guy just wanted to sell us all new stuff, basically a sales call. I do think the stuff is servicable. Maybe not the depth.

 

[Ken13569]

How about this:
Get a small battery and connect it to the instruments up close to the instruments one at a time. This will rule out power and ground problems as well as power line interference.

I don't know if you are 12 or 24 volts, but it doesn't matter. Just put 2 - 12 volt batteries in series if you are 24 volts. Keep the wires short to rule out EMI (electromagnetic interference.) It's not magic and a 94 isn't that old. The equipment on our 77 seems to work (well some of it does.) But then I haven't finished putting lipstick on our pig either.

 

[Old Skool Neil]

Serving Up the Shinola

I know. I'm at their mercy (electricians).

No you're not, you have the power of NO!! If some electrician is serving up shinola (you've already found 2 of 'em), send him packing. There are good guys out there, it takes a little digging (referrals) to find them.

Along these lines, a few years ago I invited some upholstery shops to my boat to quote new cushions. One guy sat in my cockpit and quoted $5K (for a Catalina 30? Huh??). I told him no thanks and he chuckled saying I had no choice. Needless to say, we didn't develop a business relationship.

Edit: So that I'm not considered completely off the wall regarding this subject, I should add that I've been a licensed California electrical contractor for 32 years and a professional (it only means I was paid to do it) boatbuilder for 8 years prior to that.

 

[Steve Dion]

Mike:

I suggest that you start by removing all of the instruments (and transducers) and send them to Raymarine for testing. I believe that this is done at no charge. (contact them via email to verify)

This will save you the cost of having someone that has money to make at your expense doing this testing and giving you bogus information. Then you can start testing the wires to be sure that you do not have a short.

If you don't feel confident in testing the wiring, you can have the electrician do that when you get the instruments back from Raymarine.

 

[druid]

If you buy all new instruments (Garmin or other) they will have to be "installed" (ie wired in, power, connection to antennas, power, transducers, readouts...). I suggest just doing "part B" - get a COMPETENT electrician (not #2) to rewire your existing units. Electronics don't usually go bad - it's almost always the wiring.

Or you could spend a LONG time with a multimeter and try to find the wiring problems yourself.

druid

 

[Snotter]

Also, you don't have to buy new equipment. eBay is full of not-brand-new equipment. Much of this equipment is still new enough that the manufacturers are still supporting them. Used equipment is a heck of a lot cheaper than new.

 

[Mike H.]

OK, so here is the latest development. I talked again to the electrician that sells Garmin and he wants to pull the boat out so he can replace the transducer. I call around to get quotes on haul out, bottom paint and splash and get into a conversation with one of the owners of Grand Marina.

He says he's seen this problem before and they found out through trial and error that the problem is the older Autohelm ST3000 autopilot is not compatible with the newer chart plotters and it makes all the other components go crazy when you try to network the components together.

He says disconnect the autopilot, let it work alone, and all will be OK.

Does this make sense to you?

 

[Stu Jackson]

Sure, why not, it's a Raymarine product. They don't do backwards compatibility too well. Come to think of it, they don't do contemporary compatibility well either.

 

[Steve Dion]

Stu:

Don't be hard on Raymarine. Do you have a PC with MS Windows? They don't do well with backwards compatibility either.

Any other company would be out of business by now if they did not have a monolopy.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Steve, I just installed my old 2000 Word (you know, stable, it worked, could find things like (Insert filename and path) on my new Windows 7. The new Word s*ucks as far as I'm concerned. But the new computer took the old program and it works. That's backwards compatibility.

All Raymarine did was to take a simple ST3000 that was worth maybe $400 and sold for twice that, and then complicated things with the 4000 series with remote fluxgate compasses and then rudder sensors. And quintupled the prices!!! Those new autopilots didn't work half as well as our trusty old belt-driven 3000.

I'm not sold on Raymarine anything. Just my take, is all.