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[email protected] January 29th 08 06:56 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
This past summer, I purchased a Raymarine E120, 2 KW Raydome radar,
GPS and Wind/Speed/Depth instruments for my CNC Landfall 48.

The E120 product has MASSIVE shortcomings, which are documented by
myself on YouTube: http://youtube.com/user/cognisense

I had to send the unit to Raymarine warranty support, and they
replaced the motherboard. The unit in the videos has under 2 hours of
operation on it after Raymarine 'blessed' it when I shot these videos.

I was without the unit for 8 weeks while they waited for non-defective
replacement motherboards to arrive.

And the videos document what they claim as 'non-defective'.

I encourage everyone considering a Raymarine navigation system to take
a look at these videos.

Just fighting to get my money back. I'm going back to raster charts
on a PC.

Dennis Pogson January 29th 08 12:31 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
wrote:
This past summer, I purchased a Raymarine E120, 2 KW Raydome radar,
GPS and Wind/Speed/Depth instruments for my CNC Landfall 48.

The E120 product has MASSIVE shortcomings, which are documented by
myself on YouTube:
http://youtube.com/user/cognisense

I had to send the unit to Raymarine warranty support, and they
replaced the motherboard. The unit in the videos has under 2 hours of
operation on it after Raymarine 'blessed' it when I shot these videos.

I was without the unit for 8 weeks while they waited for non-defective
replacement motherboards to arrive.

And the videos document what they claim as 'non-defective'.

I encourage everyone considering a Raymarine navigation system to take
a look at these videos.

Just fighting to get my money back. I'm going back to raster charts
on a PC.


From what I have seen of their instrumentation, they are very
impressive-looking crap, complex, difficult to master, and certainly not
very reliable.

You are doing the right thing going "back" to rasters on a PC or laptop.

Dennis.



GeoffSchultz January 29th 08 01:35 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
It's very clear that the OP has problems with the unit as the behavior
that it exhibits is not normal. Seeing the boat position jump around
makes me think that the GPS antenna (or whatever is providing the
positiion data) is at fault. I can imagine that if that's the case,
that the repair facility can't find a problem with the C120.

It isn't clear where the video was shot, but if the video was shot
while at anchor, then you can easily understand why the radar overlay
of the charts isn't in sync as the GPS can't determine the course
while not in motion. This will cause the radar overlay to do exactly
what is being shown on the video and makes me believe that the author
doesn't understand how the overlay (or chartplotters in general) work.

I will agree that the user interface can be a bit confusing at times,
but the video certainly makes it appear that the owner hasn't learned
the interface. His complaint could be aimed at any manufactures'
unit. It's really up to the purchaser to do their homework before
purchasing the unit to determine if they like the interface. You can
walk into any Westmarine and play with the RayMarine units as long as
you want, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for this complaint.

The software on the C120 allows you to view/log the SeaTalk data and
see error counts. I would concentrate on this and get some
professional assistance to debug the system. Remember, all of the
units on the share a common bus, and any device on the bus can
potentially cause problems.

-- Geoff


Wayne.B January 29th 08 03:52 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:35:59 -0800 (PST), GeoffSchultz
wrote:

It isn't clear where the video was shot, but if the video was shot
while at anchor, then you can easily understand why the radar overlay
of the charts isn't in sync as the GPS can't determine the course
while not in motion.


What is really needed is a separate fluxgate compass heading sensor so
that the chartplotter/radar does not depend on the GPS for directional
information (Course Over Ground/COG). COG can introduce heading error
even when the boat is moving if you are in a cross current or making
significant leeway.

http://www.jmsonline.net/RAYMARINE-S...DER-E12102.htm

or something similar.




cognisense January 29th 08 04:31 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 29, 5:35 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:

It's very clear that the OP has problems with the unit as the behavior
that it exhibits is not normal.


Other than the screen black-outs, my E120 displayed all other
complaints prior to sending the unit in for 'repair.' I have another
friend who has a brand-new unit, installed professionally onto a brand-
new 47 foot Island Packet. Same behavior on his unit as well.


Seeing the boat position jump around makes me think that
the GPS antenna ... is at fault.


I sent the GPS unit in at the same time as the E120, and they claimed
it was flawless.


It isn't clear where the video was shot, but if the video was shot
while at anchor, then you can easily understand why the
radar overlay of the charts isn't in sync


That portion of the video which shows the radar being out of sync with
the chart was shot while underway, doing 8.2 knots approaching Roche
Harbor in the San Juan Islands. I suspect that the true reason the
radar is out of sync is because the chart drawing routines are
significantly slower than the radar drawing routines. But regardless,
the behavior and reliability of the E120 is self-evident as
demonstrated in my videos.


You can walk into any Westmarine and play with the RayMarine units
as long as you want, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for this complaint.


I did, in fact, play with the Raymarine in retail stores. Several, in
fact. In each and every one, the only charts available to me were the
built-in demo charts of the Port of Miami. I also played with it at
the Vancouver Boat Show, and had many targeted and specific questions
of the Raymarine representative. The bottom line is that the unit
looks beautiful when you're sitting still in a building on land. I'm
not making this stuff up - I posted these videos because I sincerely
want people to see what these systems are like - AFTER you've paid
your $15,000, drilled holes on your boat, and have taken the time to
install. When you actually get these products installed, and see them
in action, on the water, as my videos document, what you see is what
you actually get.


The software on the C120 allows you to view/log the SeaTalk data and
see error counts. I would concentrate on this and get some
professional assistance to debug the system.


I haven't yet posted my video documenting my attempts at getting
technical support from Raymarine, but believe me, I have tried. I
phoned my dealer within 2 weeks of installation, informing him of my
complaints. No satisfaction. So a month later, I phoned the
distributor of Raymarine products in Canada. The representative was
defensive, accusatory and blatantly rude. I phoned Raymarine tech
support. The tech told me to document the complaints and post it to
their website. I did so on Nov 10, 2007. No reply. I phoned
Raymarine warranty service on Dec 14. No reply. I phoned the VP of
International Sales, no reply.

I have a complete record of all of my attempts to resolve this
situation amicably. To date, I have received absolutely no help from
Raymarine, it's distributors nor my dealer.




Gordon January 29th 08 05:08 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
Dave wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:35:59 -0800 (PST), GeoffSchultz
said:

The software on the C120 allows you to view/log the SeaTalk data and
see error counts. I would concentrate on this and get some
professional assistance to debug the system.


I don't think he's looking for help of that sort, Geoff. About every six
months you have somebody show up here thinking he's gonna improve his
negotiating posture with one manufacturer or another by blasting them on
usenet. After a while the temper tantrums get pretty old.


After watching the video, I'd say he has a valid complaint.
Gordon

Capt. JG January 29th 08 06:48 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
"cognisense" wrote in message
...
On Jan 29, 5:35 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:

It's very clear that the OP has problems with the unit as the behavior
that it exhibits is not normal.


Other than the screen black-outs, my E120 displayed all other
complaints prior to sending the unit in for 'repair.' I have another
friend who has a brand-new unit, installed professionally onto a brand-
new 47 foot Island Packet. Same behavior on his unit as well.


Seeing the boat position jump around makes me think that
the GPS antenna ... is at fault.


I sent the GPS unit in at the same time as the E120, and they claimed
it was flawless.


It isn't clear where the video was shot, but if the video was shot
while at anchor, then you can easily understand why the
radar overlay of the charts isn't in sync


That portion of the video which shows the radar being out of sync with
the chart was shot while underway, doing 8.2 knots approaching Roche
Harbor in the San Juan Islands. I suspect that the true reason the
radar is out of sync is because the chart drawing routines are
significantly slower than the radar drawing routines. But regardless,
the behavior and reliability of the E120 is self-evident as
demonstrated in my videos.


You can walk into any Westmarine and play with the RayMarine units
as long as you want, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for this
complaint.


I did, in fact, play with the Raymarine in retail stores. Several, in
fact. In each and every one, the only charts available to me were the
built-in demo charts of the Port of Miami. I also played with it at
the Vancouver Boat Show, and had many targeted and specific questions
of the Raymarine representative. The bottom line is that the unit
looks beautiful when you're sitting still in a building on land. I'm
not making this stuff up - I posted these videos because I sincerely
want people to see what these systems are like - AFTER you've paid
your $15,000, drilled holes on your boat, and have taken the time to
install. When you actually get these products installed, and see them
in action, on the water, as my videos document, what you see is what
you actually get.


The software on the C120 allows you to view/log the SeaTalk data and
see error counts. I would concentrate on this and get some
professional assistance to debug the system.


I haven't yet posted my video documenting my attempts at getting
technical support from Raymarine, but believe me, I have tried. I
phoned my dealer within 2 weeks of installation, informing him of my
complaints. No satisfaction. So a month later, I phoned the
distributor of Raymarine products in Canada. The representative was
defensive, accusatory and blatantly rude. I phoned Raymarine tech
support. The tech told me to document the complaints and post it to
their website. I did so on Nov 10, 2007. No reply. I phoned
Raymarine warranty service on Dec 14. No reply. I phoned the VP of
International Sales, no reply.

I have a complete record of all of my attempts to resolve this
situation amicably. To date, I have received absolutely no help from
Raymarine, it's distributors nor my dealer.


Sounds like a legitimate complaint to me... perhaps you have recourse
through your credit card? I'm sure you've either thought of it or it isn't
possible. The only quibble I have is re the UI... isn't this something
that's independent of the jumping boat, screen blanking, etc.? Seems like
that part should have been observable before purchase.

I'm not sure how posting will help your efforts, but it will certainly alert
others to be uber-cautious with their products (as we should be with all
products, especially those costing $15K).

Perhaps you can file a complaint with your Better Business Bureau, and then
there is always the take-them-to-court option.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com




Gordon January 29th 08 07:00 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 


Sounds like a legitimate complaint to me... perhaps you have recourse
through your credit card? I'm sure you've either thought of it or it isn't
possible. The only quibble I have is re the UI... isn't this something
that's independent of the jumping boat, screen blanking, etc.? Seems like
that part should have been observable before purchase.

I'm not sure how posting will help your efforts, but it will certainly alert
others to be uber-cautious with their products (as we should be with all
products, especially those costing $15K).

Perhaps you can file a complaint with your Better Business Bureau, and then
there is always the take-them-to-court option.


The BBB has no enforcement powers but will make inquiries on your
behalf and will put the offending company in their files. Trouble is no
one goes to the BBB to check to see a company is in their files.
G

GeoffSchultz January 29th 08 07:14 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
Once again I will state that you need to look at the system as a
whole. The display head my not have any problems, but there could be
issues with devices on the SeaTalk bus. This possibly includes a
SeaTalk GPS antenna and any other instruments.

I have a C80 which runs the same software that is on the C120 and I've
never seen any of the issues that you describe. The only difference
between the C80 and the C120 (that I know of) is the size of the
display. Since RayMarine has already replaced the system board on the
display, this makes me believe that the problem lies elsewhere within
the *system*.

Who installed the system for you? Have you had the installer out to
figure out what's going on? What other devices are in the SeaTalk
bus? Have you reviewed the output of the diagnostics such as SeaTalk
message errors? As far as RayMarine tech support, I have always found
them very reasonable to deal with if you approach them with a
reasonable attitide.

-- Geoff

[email protected] January 29th 08 07:39 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 29, 9:14 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:
Once again I will state that you need to look at the system as a
whole. ...


It seems quite possible that the refresh and positioning problems
could be a result of network issues. A bad cable or connection or a
faulty talker could be overwhelming the network with bad packets.
This happens on LANs all the time and is one of the potential
downsides of networked instrument systems.

... As far as RayMarine tech support, I have always found
them very reasonable to deal with if you approach them with a
reasonable attitide. ...


I guess the tech support must be hit or miss. I've never gotten any
satisfaction from them and I've tried hard. Also, my experience with
my Raytheon radar has been mixed at best and I would not recommend it.
Although, that's a moot point as they have moved on the their new
tech.

--Tom.

Gordon January 29th 08 07:54 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
wrote:
On Jan 29, 9:14 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:
Once again I will state that you need to look at the system as a
whole. ...


It seems quite possible that the refresh and positioning problems
could be a result of network issues. A bad cable or connection or a
faulty talker could be overwhelming the network with bad packets.
This happens on LANs all the time and is one of the potential
downsides of networked instrument systems.

... As far as RayMarine tech support, I have always found
them very reasonable to deal with if you approach them with a
reasonable attitide. ...


I guess the tech support must be hit or miss. I've never gotten any
satisfaction from them and I've tried hard. Also, my experience with
my Raytheon radar has been mixed at best and I would not recommend it.
Although, that's a moot point as they have moved on the their new
tech.

--Tom.


His friend has the same issues on his. Two faulty talkers?
Gordon

Bruce in alaska January 29th 08 08:00 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
In article
,
cognisense wrote:

That portion of the video which shows the radar being out of sync with
the chart was shot while underway, doing 8.2 knots approaching Roche
Harbor in the San Juan Islands.


Sounds to "Me" that you really NEED a GOOD Marine Electronics Tech,
to go over your system. Did you install all this stuff yourself?
In the great scheme of things Marine, and Electronic, there are
Consumer Electronics, Professional Electronics, and then there is
the stuff the Commercial Boys use. RayNav is in the first Group.
If your looking for quality, RayNav isn't for you, but your going
to have to PAY for quality. If your looking for a GOOD Marine
Electronic TECH, in Seattle area, I would suggest Don Hollingsworth
Sr. or Jr. at G & L Marine Radio. There is No One better, or with
more experience, left down there, especially with Marine Radars.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

[email protected] January 29th 08 08:30 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 29, 9:54 am, Gordon wrote:
... His friend has the same issues on his. Two faulty talkers? ...


That wouldn't surprise me, but bad cables are more common. It is
super easy to make a bad cable and the installer will probably have
had to make up several in each network. Of course, Raymarine could
have screwed-up the cables, too. In my experience, now very dated,
faulty cables made up the majority of problems on LANs followed by bad
NICs. We occasionally got whole lots of faulty NICs... Switch
failure was pretty rare.

-- Tom.


cognisense January 30th 08 01:59 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
,

If your looking for quality, RayNav isn't for you, but your going
to have to PAY for quality.


Thanks for your thoughts. As a software developer and systems
architect, I would agree with your observation in most instances.
However, I believe that a laptop running Fugawi, Maptech or Nobeltec,
and connected to a USB GPS - and you could even throw in a Furuno
radar, is far less expensive - and in my experience of 6 years sailing
on the west side of Vancouver Island, far more reliable.

One bad motherboard on my E120 brought the entire radar & navigation
system OFF my boat for 8 weeks. I can carry 3 redundant laptops for
less than 1/4 of the cost of the E120 alone.


If your looking for a GOOD Marine Electronic TECH, in Seattle area,
I would suggest Don Hollingsworth Sr. or Jr. at G & L Marine Radio.


Awesome, and thanks for the reference. Subsequent to purchasing and
installing my E120, I've also found the guys at Victoria Marine &
Electric (BC) really know their stuff. Wish I had talked to them in
addition to everyone else I talked to pre-purchase!

By the way: I've posted more supporting videos which detail the
problems I'm having on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/user/cognisense

I understand that posting information to the internet leaves one open
to all sorts of criticism and uninformed opinions, but I know in my
heart that if I had seen these videos prior to purchasing the
Raymarine products, I would have saved the enormous amount of money I
put into it.

Better luck to all of you...




cognisense January 30th 08 02:27 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
In ,
Bruce wrote:


If your looking for quality, RayNav isn't for you, but your going
to have to PAY for quality.


Thanks for your thoughts. As a software developer and systems
architect, I would agree with your observation in most instances.
However, I believe that a laptop running Fugawi, Maptech or Nobeltec,
and connected to a USB GPS - and you could even throw in a Furuno
radar, is far less expensive - and in my experience of 6 years sailing
on the west side of Vancouver Island, far more reliable.

One bad motherboard on my E120 brought the entire radar & navigation
system OFF my boat for 8 weeks. I can carry 3 redundant laptops for
less than 1/4 of the cost of the E120 alone.


If your looking for a GOOD Marine Electronic TECH, in Seattle area,
I would suggest Don Hollingsworth Sr. or Jr. at G & L Marine Radio.


Awesome, and thanks for the reference. Subsequent to purchasing and
installing my E120, I've also found the guys at Victoria Marine &
Electric (BC) really know their stuff.

Larry January 30th 08 03:46 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
wrote in news:72b65baa-83e6-4cb1-95b8-
:

The E120 product has MASSIVE shortcomings


Aboard S/V "Lionheart", an Amel Sharki 41, the Raymarine suite is older:
2KW radome up 40' on forward side of mizzen fixed radar mount.
RL70CRC display/chart plotter
Raystar 120 GPS Seatalk
Raymarine Smart Heading Sensor (gyro-compass) Seatalk
with Raymarine Compass sensor Seatalk very near centerline.

We have a full line of chart plugs for the RL70, but quit wasting money
updating them as the the owner's boss has a huge superyacht with a
subscription to The Cap'n chart CDs of the whole planet regularly
updated. His old CDs show up on Lionheart..(c; We use a legal copy of
The Cap'n on a Dell Latitude notebook running off a wifi router.
Ethernet services for the NMEA 0183 network come from a Serial port to
Ethernet converter made for industrial apps called a WebFoot. Virtual
SErial port software, that comes with the WebFoot, fools The Cap'n into
thinking it's talking to an old COM port the laptop no longer has. You
can operate, totally wireless, anywhere on the boat from the bow to the
stern, even from the beach within about 200 yards over the wifi link.

At the chart table, I salvaged a Yeoman portable paper chart plotter
from my owner's trash and removed the boards from the destroyed foam lap
mount (he left it in his truck in the sun in Atlanta and it MELTED! The
plotter is stuck to the bottom of the chart table mahogany lid and turns
the chart table into an automatic paper chart plotter from the system
data using the Yeoman's position puck like the big ships..(c; A paper
trail backup is kept every hour at sea with it. The Yeoman can also be
used to paper plot a course with its puck and its waypoints show up on
every chart plotter, and The Cap'n on the computer at the click of the
button on the puck.

Sailing instruments on the boat are B&G "Network" PILOT - SPEED - WIND -
DATA (repeater at the nav station) linked to a port on our Noland NMEA
multiplexer. We chose to use Network instruments, now obsolete, because
many of them were already aboard the boat at purchase. (The old owner
got him a new Maramu we drooled over.)

Backup GPS is a Garmin 185 GPS/Chart plotter/Fishfinder we use for
charting the bottom. A switch selects which of the two GPSes feeds the
network....bringing me to my question to you.....

Is there ONLY ONE GPS receiver attached to your Raymarine network in the
video?

I ask this because IF our system can see BOTH GPS receiver outputs,
which DO differ in their fix, it caused the SAME POSITION JUMPING YOUR
VIDEO SHOWS as the system first get Fix A then Fix B from more than one
GPS source. My system switch only allows the NMEA network to see ONE
GPS at a time because of this. All chart plotters went crazy like yours
with two.

Your system jumping looks to me as if the system is seeing TWO GPS data
streams, simultaneously from two GPS receivers.....

The rest of it is simply inexcusable at this price point. The Cap'n
with nice fresh charts works superb! We even have our Automatic
Information System (AIS) plotting on it, in realtime, with full AIS data
on each ship.



Larry January 30th 08 03:53 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
cognisense wrote in news:7d889c85-85a8-42b3-9f28-
:

I understand that posting information to the internet leaves one open
to all sorts of criticism and uninformed opinions, but I know in my
heart that if I had seen these videos prior to purchasing the
Raymarine products, I would have saved the enormous amount of money I
put into it.


Don't let the fanboyz, here, sway you from posting the TRUTH. I found your
videos very imformative and anyone can see truthful.

One other note I'd like you to investigate. Now many chart plugs do you
have on the system. Remove any chart plugs you're not using and any
Raymarine plotter speeds way up by not having to deal with so much data
from SUCH SLOW MEMORY CARDS. I try to only have ONE mounted in the two
slots on our RL70CRC...the one I'm using. All the searching and searching
gets much shorter....


Wayne.B January 30th 08 04:04 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:27:30 -0800 (PST), cognisense
wrote:

One bad motherboard on my E120 brought the entire radar & navigation
system OFF my boat for 8 weeks. I can carry 3 redundant laptops for
less than 1/4 of the cost of the E120 alone.


If you really want an integrated system that you can rely on, take a
look at the Furuno NavNet units. I've had one for over three years
and it has performed flawlessly. The 10 inch displays are
weatherproof, bright, and highly readable - even in direct sunlight.


cognisense January 30th 08 05:00 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 29, 7:53 pm, larry wrote:

Don't let the fanboyz, here, sway you from posting the TRUTH. I found your
videos very imformative and anyone can see truthful.


Thank you so much for that. I've got thick skin, but it's always
super-nice to see the spirit of another sailor shine through.

Is there ONLY ONE GPS receiver attached to your Raymarine network in the video?


Yes. It's very interesting that you experienced similar jumps with
your old setup. I've only got one display and one GPS, but it is
possible that the jumps are being caused by something external to the
display. Another poster here had mentioned cable problems, and that's
worth looking into. I'll report back if I find anything.

You had also asked if I had more than one chart plugs in my network.
With the one display, there's only the one chart.

Quite frankly, however, it is my experience with the Raymarine company
- beyond the products - that has left me with the most sour taste in
my mouth. I've been requesting help from them since early this
summer, and I have been MOST patient with them. These YouTube videos
represent to me the end of a very long line of unanswered phone calls
and emails. Quite frankly, they represent my next to last resort.

I had decided to move away from PC based navigation based primarily
upon the blue-screen-of-death that occurs occasionally with my old USB
to serial converters. Once I had had my fill of the Raymarine and
began to investigate other options, the found the guys at Victoria
Marine & Electric and they directed me to a reliable USB to serial
converter, which I've now used for 2 months with zero problems. I'll
certainly keep your WebFoot recommendation handy as well, if I need to
try another approach.

I had a grant one year to use the Cap'n software. It really was a
great product. I've mostly used Maptech, which is also 100% reliable
- although not as feature-rich as the Cap'n.

The one feature that I really wanted in the Raymarine was the ability
to superimpose the radar image on top of the charts. This is a great
feature when approaching an unknown and crowded anchorage - seeing the
echoes of the other boats at anchor drawn over the depth contours
gives me lots of heads up about where to potentially anchor. The guys
at Vic Marine & Electric have shown me that you can get the same
feature with Nobeltec and a Furuno radar. I'll be investigating that
soon, and hope to have it on board before spring sets in.



cognisense January 30th 08 05:10 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 29, 11:14 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:

Once again I will state that you need to look at the system as a
whole. The display head my not have any problems, but there could be
issues with devices on the SeaTalk bus.


Excellent points. I did have the GPS unit checked out with the E120,
and they claimed it to be working fine. Also on the SeaTalk bus are
the Wind/Speed/Depth instruments. When the E120 was off my boat, they
performed flawlessly.


I have a C80 which runs the same software that is on the C120 and I've
never seen any of the issues that you describe.


I'm certainly very happy for you that your system is working well.
Why mine is flawed is something that seems to confound my dealer as
well as the Raymarine distributor here in Canada.


Have you reviewed the output of the diagnostics such as SeaTalk
message errors?


That's another excellent suggestion. I'll look into this and report
back. It sure would have been nice if one of the Raymarine techs had
suggested it. But, as I've stated in other posts, they've ignored my
emails for over 60 days now. And believe me, my emails were very,
very politely written. All bitterness you or others might detect in
my videos was definitely not in the emails - and only exist in the
videos because this struggle has been going on all summer long and
I've been forced into taking my grievances public.

Larry January 30th 08 06:14 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
cognisense wrote in news:30dfe109-f7f6-48a3-958c-
:

Yes. It's very interesting that you experienced similar jumps with
your old setup. I've only got one display and one GPS, but it is
possible that the jumps are being caused by something external to the
display. Another poster here had mentioned cable problems, and that's
worth looking into. I'll report back if I find anything.


Another GPS problem bears thinking about in your situation, also.....

I noticed in your video your close proximity to tall land masses, the
mountains of SW BC. Not much is ever said about it because most don't
want to believe GPS is fallible, but it is....

GPS is an analog system of precisely timed pulses, not unlike Loran C
was but with much heavier computing power behind it. It relies heavily
on the direct path of these microwave pulses for its position fix.
ANYthing that reflects radio waves coming from the satellites to its
receiver, causes the pulses to arrive LATER than they should. This
confuses some receivers much worse than others, especially the
expensive, higher sensitive ones who, I think, stupidly have much more
receiver sensitivity than they should. The better receiver can hear
these reflections better than the cheap ones with lots less antenna.
Once confused by the arrival of odd-timed pulses, duplicate pulses,
etc., it's up to the software to average out and discriminate against
erroneous pulses. It's supposed to pick the FIRST set of pulses, the
direct ones, not later arriving pulse trains from the same satellite.
But, alas, sometimes that doesn't happen. If the reflection is all it
hears, its algorithms take that as the primary pulse and switch the fix
from the triangulation accordingly.

You can try this, yourself, with your handheld GPS no subject to the
Raymarine nonsense. (I don't like Raymarine, either, so I'm not afraid
to speak up.) Take your handheld with you when you go to a restaurant
with big windows and an overhead RF opaque roof of metal. When you're
situated at your table, away from the windows is best to see its effect,
turn on the GPS and let it initialize to what it hears. Through the big
windows, transparent to the RF, the GPS starts picking up signals
bouncing off moving vehicles, adjacent buildings, towers, light poles,
any reflective surface. It drives the software crazy because it sees
almost no direct signals because the roof attenuates or blocks it
entirely. Turn on the GPS' bread trails and zoom in as tight as it can
go. Eat your breakfast and let it run an hour. Watch the "track" of
it. It's useless for navigation, too. This is a trait of GPS, not
Raymarine. Now, make SURE the GPS antenna isn't NEAR any metal objects
that can obscure large parts of the sky. I've found GPS antennas
mounted too close to masts, stancions, metal plates, wiring, all opaque
to that DIRECT signal. As the boat turns, the direct signal, like the
sun coming out of an eclipse, which is exactly what is happening,
suddenly appears from behind the opaque object. The software says
"WHOA! The timing to THAT bird has just changed RADICALLY! I better
compensate, and compensate it does....making its display JUMP like you
observe. Pick the GPS with the "Crazy Track" off the table and sit it
in one of the big windows on the window sill. It suddenly can see all
the direct signals that were eclipsed by the roof in one direction.
Watch the fix point. It jumps!

I had a GPS problem with a mounted Garmin whos antenna was on top
surface of the stern. He had the antenna in the clear....well, except
for the STERN NAV light it was nearly touching. The whole sky in one
direction, probably about 100 degrees, was BLOCKED by the metal mount of
that light. After we'd moved it to a more open position, the fix quit
jumping around whenever the boat turned that blind eye away from a fix
bird. We moved it about 8". The part of the sky the light blocked was
now only 20 degrees, which it seemed easily to compensate for because it
could see more birds, directly.

This is another cause of "jumping".

GPS is a lot less high tech than the public thinks it is. It's not
Ethernet...(c; That's why it updates SO SLOWLY...once per second. It's
working trying to be accurate in a noisy wasteland of RADIO signals.

This is for your next GPS, not this overpriced Z80-based slowpoke. God,
I can't believe it just BLANKS the screens, even just one, so LONG! I'd
hope if it's receiving crap on Seatalk it would be smart enough to TELL
YOU SO with some kind of error message....not just blank out hoping for
the best.

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the 25, 5
on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test cable.)
Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht connection
to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop. Plug Seatalk
Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams by. At some
point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and look down
through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't encrypted...
(c;

http://www.raymarine.com/raymarine/S...s/raytech/8116
6_3www.pdf
This is the manual for the Seatalk to NMEA converter box Raymarine
sells. Your MONITOR is also a converter box. If you put Seatalk data
into its Seatalk port, it converts and transmits it to NMEA on its NMEA
out ports...IF YOU TURN THE STATEMENTS ON FROM THE MENU TREE! If your
computer is reading NMEA statements from the NMEA OUT port on the
display, and there's crap on the Seatalk port....there'll be crap coming
out of the NMEA port, too.....or none at all for some period of time.

HF RADIO TRANSMITTERS EAT SEATALK in a lot of installations. Even foil
shielded cable doesn't stop it.

Watch either the Seatalk or NMEA data streams as the display just blanks
for long periods of time. If the data looks right...so much for blaming
the cabling for the delay....

Well, it's after 1AM. I'll try to conjure up more when the screen comes
back into focus....tomorrow...(c;

Gnite
It's 1AM, 58F, 2 knot winds SW. Plenty of dock space, albeit a little
pricey for some in the harbor. Drop by, we'll eat Gullah fish and grits
for breakfast.... It was nearly 70F today. I see you like gunkholing.
There's 2200 miles of navigable creeks within 50 miles of this keyboard.
Most you can drop anchor in and never see another soul all weekend!




Larry January 30th 08 06:16 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
cognisense wrote in news:30dfe109-f7f6-48a3-958c-
:

The one feature that I really wanted in the Raymarine was the ability
to superimpose the radar image on top of the charts. This is a great
feature when approaching an unknown and crowded anchorage - seeing the
echoes of the other boats at anchor drawn over the depth contours
gives me lots of heads up about where to potentially anchor. The guys
at Vic Marine & Electric have shown me that you can get the same
feature with Nobeltec and a Furuno radar. I'll be investigating that
soon, and hope to have it on board before spring sets in.



Oh, the reason your analog radar scan blobs come out of sync with your
charts is the autorotation and auto-centering trying to keep up with the
GPS data causing all the jumping around in the fix. Turn it off and it'll
say sync'd until you figure out the GPS fix problem.


Larry January 30th 08 06:30 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
larry wrote in
:

cognisense wrote in
news:30dfe109-f7f6-48a3-958c-
:

The one feature that I really wanted in the Raymarine was the ability
to superimpose the radar image on top of the charts. This is a great
feature when approaching an unknown and crowded anchorage - seeing
the echoes of the other boats at anchor drawn over the depth contours
gives me lots of heads up about where to potentially anchor. The
guys at Vic Marine & Electric have shown me that you can get the same
feature with Nobeltec and a Furuno radar. I'll be investigating that
soon, and hope to have it on board before spring sets in.



Oh, the reason your analog radar scan blobs come out of sync with your
charts is the autorotation and auto-centering trying to keep up with
the GPS data causing all the jumping around in the fix. Turn it off
and it'll say sync'd until you figure out the GPS fix problem.



I see Canada has similar laws to our warranty laws:

http://law.unb.ca/cpwala/

Ah, look, here's BC!
http://www.cba.org/BC/Public_Media/dal/credit.aspx

You'll never be able to make the deafening noise a good lawyer can calling
on your behalf...the national consumer laws at his fingertips...(c;

I got Yamaha to take back a defective $8,400 jetski, here, in 1997....(c;


Geoff Schultz January 30th 08 11:55 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
cognisense wrote in news:7d889c85-85a8-42b3-9f28-
:

I understand that posting information to the internet leaves one open
to all sorts of criticism and uninformed opinions, but I know in my
heart that if I had seen these videos prior to purchasing the
Raymarine products, I would have saved the enormous amount of money I
put into it.


The issue here is that YOUR system has a problem and you're implying
that this is a generic issue. It isn't. I have a C80 in my system and
know lots of other people who have Cxxx systems, and none of them have
this issue. And believe me, cruisers love to sit around and talk about
what problems they have.

One of the major problems is how you're approaching your issues.
Instead of coming to newsgroups/forums such as this and trying to
resolve the problems, you post a video and supporting text which states
how terrible RayMarine is and you try to extort RayMarine to return your
money for the system.

Somehow or another you're claiming that your system cost $15K. Excuse
me, but the C120 is a $2000 device. What else is in this system?
Clearly there's a lot of other equipment and something is mis-
configured.

I've asked a whole series of questions and you haven't answered any of
them. Based upon other comments that you've made, it's fairly apparent
that you installed and configured the system by yourself. You've talked
about your "vendor" which is vastly different from "installer."

These are complex systems and are far from plug-and-play. You may be a
"software developer and systems architect", but that doesn't mean that
you know squat about how to properly configure (and debug) this system.

Instead of trying to resolve your issues, you want everyone to simply
believe your video and text and go "Boo hoo, you poor thing. RayMarine
is a terrible company and should give you your money back." What I
think that they should do is offer to pay for a qualified installer to
review your system and if the problem is with your installation, you
will pay for the review plus time that they've spent resolving your
isues and you'll make a public apology stating what a stupid jerk you've
been.

However, I'm not RayMarine and can't make any decisions for them. But I
have a fairly complex system that I've lived with for 9 years and am
quite familiar with. I've done extensive upgrades and debugging through
the years, so I'm willing to help. I think that you'll also find others
out here who can help.

I'm not trying to state that RayMarine is great or makes the best
systems around. Every system has warts and quirks, but in general once
you get things running correctly, it works well. Your system clearly
has problems and the fact that they've already replaced the system board
in the C120 indicates that the problems lie elswhere.

So instead of ringing your hands, doing the poor-me routine and
generating videos which show that your system does have problems, why
don't you try to resolve the issues?

First off, it would be very useful if you described how your system is
configured. How many SeaTalk busses are you using and what's attached
to each of them? What kind of GPS are you using and where is it
conencted? Assuming that you have a SeaTalk based GPS, have you tried
disconnecting all of the other SeaTalk devices (and busses) to see if
the problem goes away?

Does the C120 connect to an autopilot and if so, who makes it and how is
it connected? What do you see when you go into the system configuration
menus? Do you see all of your devices and do you see any SeaTalk error
message counts? Are you using NMEA and do you have NMEA Bridging turned
on or off?

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

P.S. Your video also shows you wandering through menus apparently
trying to view tidal data. Why don't you simply enable tidal stations
so that you can simply place the cursor over the "T" on the chart and
view the data? It's much easier using the menus and/or "find nearest".

cognisense January 30th 08 05:00 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 29, 10:14 pm, larry wrote:

GPS is an analog system of precisely timed pulses, not unlike Loran C


Fascinating post - regarding the inherent fallibility of GPS
technology. That was a really good read - thanks.

Prior to installing the Raymarine GPS, I've been using a Garmin GPS III
+ connected through a USB to serial connector into a laptop. I've
never seen this type of behavior on the Garmin - but then again, the
external antenna which I used on the Garmin was well away from any
metal.

The Raymarine is mounted on my brand new radar arch, about 6" away
from an external Wi-Fi antenna and 4' away from the Raydome. I don't
use the Wi-Fi antenna when I'm underway, and it's only about 1"
diameter x 30" tall, so I'm not sure if that creates enough of a
shadow to cause the problems. Here is a photo of the setup:

http://anon.org/images/arch.jpg

This photo was shot during the 2 months that Raymarine was replacing
my E120's motherboard - so all you can see of the GPS is the white
plastic bag covering the base - but it should give you an idea as to
what the install looks like.


By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire


Another exceedingly helpful thought. I'll certainly give it a try.


Larry January 30th 08 06:00 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
cognisense wrote in news:740a6e0f-ada6-4979-a3ec-
:

Another exceedingly helpful thought. I'll certainly give it a try.



AHA! Now we're getting somewhere!

Put the radar in standby and see if the position jumping stops....

Move the GPS off the arch and just sit it on the helm away from
everything for a test trip. (Any excuse to go boating is greeeeeeat.)

My bet is the jumping stops when you shut off the radar transmitter
trashing it.

GPS has no need of altitude. Both ours are in a cabinet over the galley
sink inside the boat with clear RF view of the sky. It only moves when
USAF C-17 fly over us...the aluminum cloud.

Lets get the GPS away from the radar noise source.


[email protected] January 30th 08 06:45 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 30, 2:55 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
... I drove down and a tech
came out and looked at my unit. I couldn't have been happier with the
outcome. ...


I've tried and failed miserably to get support from them while in
Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. If you add the price of an
airplane ride, car and hotel into the "support" cost Furuno starts
looking cheap...

-- Tom.

Geoff Schultz January 30th 08 08:10 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
larry wrote in news:Xns9A35D2BBAFB1noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the 25, 5
on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test cable.)
Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht connection
to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop. Plug Seatalk
Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams by. At some
point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and look down
through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't encrypted...


You don't need to do this as software on the C120 will allow you to monitor
the traffic on the NMEA and SeaTalk busses. I think that you'll find this
in the System Integration screen. This is also where you'll see the error
counts.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

Larry January 31st 08 01:05 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

You don't need to do this as software on the C120 will allow you to
monitor the traffic on the NMEA and SeaTalk busses. I think that
you'll find this in the System Integration screen. This is also where
you'll see the error counts.



If it's not fast enough to render the raster....when does it have time to
log data??


dansk January 31st 08 01:08 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 30, 12:10 am, cognisense wrote:
On Jan 29, 11:14 am, GeoffSchultz
wrote:

Once again I will state that you need to look at the system as a
whole. The display head my not have any problems, but there could be
issues with devices on the SeaTalk bus.


Excellent points. I did have the GPS unit checked out with the E120,
and they claimed it to be working fine. Also on the SeaTalk bus are
the Wind/Speed/Depth instruments. When the E120 was off my boat, they
performed flawlessly.

I have a C80 which runs the same software that is on the C120 and I've
never seen any of the issues that you describe.


I'm certainly very happy for you that your system is working well.
Why mine is flawed is something that seems to confound my dealer as
well as the Raymarine distributor here in Canada.

Have you reviewed the output of the diagnostics such as SeaTalk
message errors?


That's another excellent suggestion. I'll look into this and report
back. It sure would have been nice if one of the Raymarine techs had
suggested it. But, as I've stated in other posts, they've ignored my
emails for over 60 days now. And believe me, my emails were very,
very politely written. All bitterness you or others might detect in
my videos was definitely not in the emails - and only exist in the
videos because this struggle has been going on all summer long and
I've been forced into taking my grievances public.


You have every right to be upset. I have avoided the new Raymaine
plotters because they are based on a Windows OS. Well reliable a
mobile OS is not designed to be mission critical. I believe part of
your problem may be the Navionics cards themselves. Specifically the
memory chip may be causing the back plain bus to hang causing the
screen blanks. May I suggest you try a card that is known to be in
good operating order. Also remove all the interfaces to the unit
except the GPS. Note that you can check the GPS with a laptop using
its NEMA interface. With respect to the radar being outof synce you
may need to add a Gyro to your system.

Good luck.

Bob
"Nightingale" Beneteau 331

Geoff Schultz January 31st 08 01:50 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
larry wrote in
:

Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

You don't need to do this as software on the C120 will allow you to
monitor the traffic on the NMEA and SeaTalk busses. I think that
you'll find this in the System Integration screen. This is also
where you'll see the error counts.


If it's not fast enough to render the raster....when does it have time
to log data??


Why are you making up this kind of statement when you clearly don't have
any proof of this. I suspect that he's most likely feeding garbage to the
chartplotter and it won't/can't draw the chart, leading to the blanking. I
can easily imagine this happening if the lat/long is changing too rapidly
for the system to redraw. When the lat/long changes slowly enough, that's
when he sees his position jump. You can't expect to feed garbage to a
system and have it behave "correctly" when the lat/long change delta
exceeds anything reasonable.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

Larry January 31st 08 03:29 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

Why are you making up this kind of statement when you clearly don't
have any proof of this. I suspect that he's most likely feeding
garbage to the chartplotter and it won't/can't draw the chart,
leading to the blanking. I can easily imagine this happening if the
lat/long is changing too rapidly for the system to redraw. When the
lat/long changes slowly enough, that's when he sees his position jump.
You can't expect to feed garbage to a system and have it behave
"correctly" when the lat/long change delta exceeds anything
reasonable.


He's not in court, yet, so we don't have to "prove" anything to you or
anyone.

Any REASONABLE system would WARN you that it is receiving "garbage" with
some kind of error message on the BLANK SCREENS....instead of just
leaving you there, in the dark, wondering if you're gonna run over a
rock or bouy....

How slow is slow enough for it to render the chart? 5 seconds? 30? a
minute?

There's gotta be some kind of ERROR - WARNING timeout, right? I didn't
see one in the video, just a blank screen saying nothing....

Today, while letting Navicore plot my course to a country church in the
boonies to fix their organ, I was thinking about this thread and those
videos how thankful I was my $200 Nokia N800 Linux tablet and $100 Nokia
12-channel WAAS GPS tiny puck laying up on the dash didn't act this way.

If I boot Maemo Mapper and steal mosaic data from Micro$oft's Virtual
Earth composite through the cell phone, even going through heavy trees
and with the roof of the car causing a large obstruction aft of my
position from its GPS vantage point on top of the dash, I couldn't help
but be pleased as this freeware hacker program downloaded from maemo.org
perfectly plotted my course accurate to the center of the lane in the 4-
lane highway I was driving down at 60+ mph, far faster than a sailboat
needs.

http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2007/maemo-mapper/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N800
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teddythebear/149479767/

My LD-3W tiny pocket GPS is much more sensitive and accurate than my
Garmin 185, even with the new Garmin antenna. It cold starts in about
30 seconds and just simply receives much better than any handheld I've
ever owned or seen. Also, being a bluetooth device, separate from the
displaying computer, your not forced to have the display anywhere near
where there's a clear view to the birds....wirelessly! It runs 15 hours
on a charge or you can just leave it plugged into 12V permanently. It
uses a common Nokia Li-Ion cellphone battery. I get about 20' range
between the units.

OK, this ISN'T a marine GPS device. What use is it on the boat?......

Open Google Earth on your computer and zoom in on any waterway with it.
Look at the ICW anywhere in the country, for instance. Zoom in close on
the ICW and look at the waterway from above.....

Now, compare this real satellite photo with the regular old marine chart
on your chart plotter. Wouldn't it be great if you could have both?
For about $350, you can! The Nokia N800 Linux tablet uses bluetooth to
connect to your cellphone and uses the cellphone for internet
service...as well as wifi. It's wifi sensitivity FAR exceeds any
laptop, too, but that's for the marina, we're in the ICW. If your
cellphone can make a call, the internet tablet can connect directly to
Google Earth, Virtual Earth and many other feeds for satellite photos,
street maps, topographical maps over the cellphone data link. You don't
need to buy data plugs with 5-year-old charts on them that are no longer
valid, anyways. You don't need to feed Garmin to open up the old charts
preprogrammed into last year's handheld or fixed mount. The satellite
photos Maemo Mapper operate on are a few months old. It's NOT realtime,
but its a helluva lot more up-to-date than that chart plug you just
bought from Waste Marine.

Zoom Google Earth in on some area from directly overhead and look
closely at the waterway. We'll look at the chart to see the bouy
positions, which don't change much. We'll look at the satellite photo
to see what's up ahead, A REAL PICTURE of it! Imagine Google Earth in
portable computer that also PUTS YOU EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE IN THAT
WATERWAY. It's so close you can see yourself changing lanes on the
interstate. It's so close you can see which parking space you put the
car into in any parking lot. Is that good enough for navigation? Yes,
it is. It won't see another boat because it's not realtime. But, it
will get you on your side of the channel in the fog.

The tablet is also a full-blown Linux computer that will do email, web
browsing, run hundreds of programs the hackers have ported to it. It
just got Abiword from the Linux community, a full featured word
processor (www.abiword.com) Go download the Windows version for your
laptop or home computer. It will do things Microsoft Word won't do for
FREE! There's a full Gnutella spreadsheet so complex I don't know what
all it can do. It came from Linux, too. The tablet can check your
email while navigating the waterways on Maemo Mapper, simultaneously.

Well, please don't slam me for showing you this. I don't care if you
like it or not, really. But, others may find it quite useful, both on
the boat and in their world.....


Geoff Schultz January 31st 08 07:27 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
larry wrote in news:Xns9A366B59EE263noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

Geoff Schultz wrote in
:

Why are you making up this kind of statement when you clearly don't
have any proof of this. I suspect that he's most likely feeding
garbage to the chartplotter and it won't/can't draw the chart,
leading to the blanking. I can easily imagine this happening if the
lat/long is changing too rapidly for the system to redraw. When the
lat/long changes slowly enough, that's when he sees his position jump.
You can't expect to feed garbage to a system and have it behave
"correctly" when the lat/long change delta exceeds anything reasonable.


He's not in court, yet, so we don't have to "prove" anything to you or
anyone.


Any REASONABLE system would WARN you that it is receiving "garbage" with
some kind of error message on the BLANK SCREENS....instead of just
leaving you there, in the dark, wondering if you're gonna run over a
rock or bouy....

How slow is slow enough for it to render the chart? 5 seconds? 30? a
minute?

There's gotta be some kind of ERROR - WARNING timeout, right? I didn't
see one in the video, just a blank screen saying nothing....


How many systems are out there that wouldn't display an error message? I'd
guess that most vendor's systems wouldn't, as they expect the data to be
correct. What do you think your RL70 would do if it got bad data? Or a
Garmin? Probably the same thing. Expecting the developers to add in code
to check for rare events like this just doesn't happen. They have higher
priority functions to implement.

In my opinion, RayMarine isn't the bad guy here. I think that there's a
very high probability that he has something mis-configured in his system.
Your guess that it's the positioning of the GPS antenna seems reasonable,
especially when you look at the photos of the radar arch and GPS mushroom.
This should be easy to determine by running the system and turning the
radar on and off.

Since it appears that he installed the system by himself and hasn't
obtained professional help, RayMarine seems to have done everything that
they should have, and probably more.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

Geoff Schultz January 31st 08 08:15 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
larry wrote in news:Xns9A35D2BBAFB1noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the 25, 5
on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test cable.)
Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht connection
to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop. Plug Seatalk
Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams by. At some
point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and look down
through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't encrypted...


If I'm correctly reading the technical description of the electrical
interface at http://www.thomas-knauf.de/rap/seatalk1.htm , I don't believe
that you can simply connect SeaTalk to an RS232 port and read the data
correctly. According to it, the voltages have to be inverted.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

Geoff Schultz January 31st 08 09:24 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
larry wrote in news:Xns9A35D2BBAFB1noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the
25, 5 on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test
cable.) Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht
connection to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop.
Plug Seatalk Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams
by. At some point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and
look down through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't
encrypted...



To further correct Larry's statement, SeaTalk is encrypted in the sense
that it's a binary protocol. Datagrams are between 3 and 18 bytes in
length and are totally binary (the messages don't contain any ASCII
characters like you'd see in a NMEA sentence). Thus Hyperterm won't do you
any good unless a version that display hex bytes and knows how/when to
terminate a datagram.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

Ian Malcolm January 31st 08 11:25 PM

Raymarine product horrors
 
Geoff Schultz wrote:

larry wrote in news:Xns9A35D2BBAFB1noonehomecom@
208.49.80.253:

By the way, Seatalk isn't rocket science. Connect Seatalk data wire
(Yellow) to an RS-232C data in pin (pin 3 on the 25pin/pin 2 on the 9
pin) and hook Seatalk ground to computer data ground pin (7 on the
25, 5 on the 9). (I use little mini clips and made a snooping test
cable.) Boot good old Hyperterm. Save you a dumb terminal ASCII.ht
connection to make it easier to come back. Mine's on my laptop.
Plug Seatalk Hyperterm and look at the data, yourself, as it streams
by. At some point, after it has filled the buffer, pull the plug and
look down through the data for noise and crazy bits. Seatalk isn't
encrypted...




To further correct Larry's statement, SeaTalk is encrypted in the sense
that it's a binary protocol. Datagrams are between 3 and 18 bytes in
length and are totally binary (the messages don't contain any ASCII
characters like you'd see in a NMEA sentence). Thus Hyperterm won't do you
any good unless a version that display hex bytes and knows how/when to
terminate a datagram.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org

I've built that interface circuit and it does work. Hyperterm
definately wont do the job. Larry must be confusing Seatalk with NMEA.

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk
[at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* HTML & 32K emails -- NUL:
'Stingo' Albacore #1554 - 15' Early 60's, Uffa Fox designed,
All varnished hot moulded wooden racing dinghy.

[email protected] February 1st 08 01:00 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On Jan 31, 7:29 am, larry wrote:

I am very happy to report that further speculation in this matter will
not be necessary: my dealer has just informed me that the decision
has been made to graciously accept the return of these products.

To all of those who took the time to contemplate possible solutions to
the problems exhibited, and especially to the majority of you who did
so without feeling any need to resort to personal insults while doing
so, I offer my sincerest thanks.

There will always be a cold beer awaiting you aboard my vessel.


Jere Lull February 1st 08 02:11 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On 2008-01-31 10:29:21 -0500, larry said:

Abiword from the Linux community


Minor rant: An editor friend uses abiword so I downloaded it to read
one of his files. Sorry, but the unix/Mac version isn't something I'll
use unless I absolutely have to, and then only to convert the file to
something a more friendly program can handle. It was slow and glitchy.

Note too that I *intentionally* have zero Microsoft products on my
computer. I can read and write their garbage files without breaking a
sweat, but I hate that evil empire.

--
Jere Lull
Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/


Jere Lull February 1st 08 02:24 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
On 2008-01-31 14:27:03 -0500, Geoff Schultz said:

Expecting the developers to add in code to check for rare events like
this just doesn't happen.


Sorry, but I'm a developer and I program the odd-event handlers first
because I *need* that info when things go "bang".

Okay, I'm an exception because my programs must work 100% of the time
or say what was wrong so the problem can be fixed fast. For some
reason, when you manage 10-20 billion dollars' investments, they want
things to balance to the penny every day.

Still, I can attest it really takes no real effort to output error
messages whenever some action gives an unexpected result.

--
Jere Lull
Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/


Geoff Schultz February 1st 08 03:38 AM

Raymarine product horrors
 
wrote in news:ebec768e-fa69-4335-93b4-
:

On Jan 31, 7:29 am, larry wrote:

I am very happy to report that further speculation in this matter will
not be necessary: my dealer has just informed me that the decision
has been made to graciously accept the return of these products.

To all of those who took the time to contemplate possible solutions to
the problems exhibited, and especially to the majority of you who did
so without feeling any need to resort to personal insults while doing
so, I offer my sincerest thanks.


Congratulations. All that I have to say is that you should hire a
professional installer to install your next system.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org


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