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Gary Gary is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Jan 2007
Posts: 11
Default Autopilot control head problem. Please read.

I have a Robertson AP3000X on my boat. The J-box (brain) was replaced last
year due to corrosion on the circuit boards. Last weekend, I was using the
boat and noticed that the LCD control head seemed to be displaying the
information very dimly. I also noticed that if I toggled through the modes,
several modes would display the information very clearly, while others were
very dim and hard to read. I used the boat anyway, and the problem got
worse. Now not only are several of the mode pages very dim, they also
display unrecognizable characters that are not supposed to be there. The
head still functions normally. If I know what page I am on, I can engage
the autopilot and use it, but I can't read the display because it is full of
gibberish. Often, if I turn it off and back on, it will work fine for a
while. Occasionally it takes several cycles of turning it off and back on
to get it to display normally.

I suspected corroded wires from the J-box to the control head, so I took all
of them off of the control head, one at a time, cleaned them thoroughly and
re-connected them. I did the same for all of the wiring coming from the
J-box. It made no improvement. I don't suspect any problems with the
J-box, since it's basically new. I did inspect it visually for corrosion
etc and see none. I suspect a problem with the control head, but am
confused why it would display properly on some pages and not on others. I
guess it's probably not the LCD itself, since it will display perfectly on
some pages, but not on others.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Gary