I currently have an E7D/HD digital radar and an X-5 pilot. I know I've bashed Raymarine a few times and I still think they have some things to learn. However, I have to give Both Raymarine and West Marine some big kudos. The E7D and radar was installed and working fine. When installing the X-5, you have to put ship's power to the SeaTalk ng data bus. So, I broke out power and gnd from the pilot power supply and attached it to RayMarines cable that hooks to the backbone. Now I'm back at the power panel hooking all this up to the breaker so I turn that breaker off and I turn the 110v main breaker off. The pilot breaker is in the middle of several rows and I have snake a long screwdriver over all the 110v breakers to get to it. When I turned the 110V main breaker off, I actually turned a branch breaker off un beknownst to me. But stupid me for not checking. So I snake my long screw driver to the DC breaker and start connnections and I let the screwdriver slip a bit and it hit the copper bar that ties all the 110v sources together. Big arcs and sparks etc......Ok got through that and then it hit me that I had momentarily put 110v on the pilot powerline and on the SeaTalk ng data bus. Oh crap. (not really) I pulled the pilot out and the control head out and both of them were fried. The PC board did not like it. I called RM and told them what a stupid thing I did and I'm an EMC engineer of 38 yrs on 747/737/777 airplanes. They caucaused for awhile and told me to send the pilot and control head in and they would replace the boards for $350 apiece. Normally around $800. So, Ok send em in. Well when we bought the pilot, we also purchased WM extra protection plan (whatever they call it). I'm on a first name basis with everyone there and I told them what I did. The mgr said she could get it covered. It's covered for a power surge. I said but that's one hell of a power surge and I caused it. No problem. Gave her the receipts she called it in and I had a check for $700 a week later. Hooked it up and no SeaTalk ng bus. Unplugged the E7D and then it started to work. So, Ok.... I also fried the E7 ng interface. Sent it in and since it is too new, they had no standard repair rate for it. They stated they would fix it free of charge this one time. thank you- thank you - thankyou. So this could have cost me basically the cost of a new pilot and plotter and it actually ended up costing me nothing but some humility.....Raymarine was great to work with especially since I fessed up with my sins and WM also went the extra mile with their protection plan. But nobody in their right mind requires ships power directly to a data bus. should come from conditioned power in a subscriber.
