Help - Ray E80 Dark Display?

[CaptainBW]

I have a Raymarine E80 display that is new to me. The unit work flawlessly during the survey of the boat and now I am trying to use it. When I turn on the display it shows the normal Raymarine boot screen, nice and bright. Then it goes so dim that I can't read it. I know that the next screen after initial boot is a warning screen and I can see that when I hit OK, the normal operating screen shows up, but I can't read it because it is so dark. After reading the manual (several times), I press the power key and can barely make out a backlight adjust bar that does go from low to high when I use the control knob, but the brightness does not adjust. The manual also says that I can select between day and night mode by hitting the power button, but it will only display the backlight adjust when I hit power.

Anyone had a similar problem or recommend anything I might be doing wrong?

Thanks,

[rodney_k]

Capt, I think the day/night mode toggle appears above the 4th soft button from the left. The soft buttons are located along the bottom edge of the display. Pushing the 4th button from the left should toggle the display between day/night mode.

[Hannah on 'Rita T']

What he said.

[CaptainBW]

Thanks...will try again later in the week when I am back on the boat.

[nigel1]

Same as what Hannah and Rodney say. Mine does not behave very well when I adjust the brightness, the screen occasionally flicks to dark.

[CaptainBW]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. The issue turned out to be the house batteries.

I bought this boat a couple of months ago, just launched last Friday and motored to my home port (2.5 hours away from launch). The batteries showed a full charge as I had been charging them while on the hard, but after about 30 minutes of motoring the depth and speed instruments started to dim and the autopilot would not engage due to low battery.

Bad thing was that we motored into a fog bank with less than 1/4 mile visibility. The batteries would not take the charge from the alternator (another problem to run down perhaps), so I shut down the instruments and turned on the running lights. Fortunately I brought along my handheld VHF and chart plotter, and was able to make the trip without incident (reinforcing the need to always have backups).

After arriving at the dock, I plugged into shore power and all of the electronics worked perfectly, including the E 80.

On the hard I was charging from a 110 outlet plugged into the shore power and through the Freedom 1500 inverter/charger. I am thinking that the amperage was not sufficient to properly run the charger, but I don't have enough experience with the power setup to know for sure.

Another learning experience...anyway, thanks again for the help.

[Capn Morgan]

Captain BW

I had the same thing on my E80, which was under two years old back in January. I had to take it to a Raymarine specialist and they had to change the backlighting card. They could tell within a couple of hours that it was not the backlight itself. They didn't charge me as it was under warranty, but it is a known problem. Don't think it would be too expensive.