Raymarine C80 Issues

[hpeer]

We have a new for us boat with a 4 year old Raymarine package. The installation is "unique" and has some interesting traits.

1 - Chart Plotter is connected ONLY to the GPS, nothing else. It shows the boat correctly on the chart but does NOT show speed.

2 - The ST80 wind vane unit appears to show the wind backwards. That is if I have the wind on my Port side, blowing in my left ear, the instrument is pointing to Starboard or towards the right. Also the wind unit has two sets of cables and wires. So, for example, there are two red wires, both are crimped into a spade connector and plugged into the instrument.

3 - Once I figure out the power feeds I think I can loop the SeaTalk connections so that the wind and depth transducers feed into the C80. I think that all I need to do is just parallel the wires from one SeaTalk unit to another. Is that true?

[richardhula]

Originally Posted by hpeer

We have a new for us boat with a 4 year old Raymarine package. The installation is "unique" and has some interesting traits.

1 - Chart Plotter is connected ONLY to the GPS, nothing else. It shows the boat correctly on the chart but does NOT show speed.

2 - The ST80 wind vane unit appears to show the wind backwards. That is if I have the wind on my Port side, blowing in my left ear, the instrument is pointing to Starboard or towards the right. Also the wind unit has two sets of cables and wires. So, for example, there are two red wires, both are crimped into a spade connector and plugged into the instrument.

3 - Once I figure out the power feeds I think I can loop the SeaTalk connections so that the wind and depth transducers feed into the C80. I think that all I need to do is just parallel the wires from one SeaTalk unit to another. Is that true?

Check that your GPS is transmitting the RMC sentence as well as others maybe. This is the primary sentence that contains both position & speed/heading. Selecting Menu>System Diagnostics>External Interfaces>NMEA 0183>Buffer>Rx should show which sentences are being received. In your present configuration you won't see any boat speed of course.

It makes a lot of sense to hook up your Seatalk network to the C80. Seatalk is just a daisy chain bi-directional network system so what you suggest should work. Check Raymarine for on-line manuals if not sure.

[OffsoonGreg]

what is the best software to use between a laptop and the C80 system?

[hpeer]

Thanks Richard,

Any ideas on the wind indicator? I didn't see any Raymarine examples showing two cables. Nor are there two vanes, which wouldn't make sense anyway, not that much else does. And the whole going backward thing has me a bit baffled as I think the vane cable is factory applied.

[Opie91]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Thanks Richard,

Any ideas on the wind indicator? I didn't see any Raymarine examples showing two cables. Nor are there two vanes, which wouldn't make sense anyway, not that much else does. And the whole going backward thing has me a bit baffled as I think the vane cable is factory applied.

Richard,

Do you have any other insturments? Is there a seperate tridata or wind instrument? If they are Raymarine sending the info thru SeaTalk is the way to go.

[richardhula]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Any ideas on the wind indicator? I didn't see any Raymarine examples showing two cables. Nor are there two vanes, which wouldn't make sense anyway, not that much else does. And the whole going backward thing has me a bit baffled as I think the vane cable is factory applied.

Don't have ST80 instruments so can't give too much help. One thought though - has the wind sensor been mounted back to front?

what is the best software to use between a laptop and the C80 system?

Not sure what you want here as the C80 is a self-contained multi-function display. If you wish to repeat the data to a laptop based chartplotter, then output from the NMEA connector can be configured to forward a range of data. Alternatively a Raymarine Seatalk/NMEA adaptor can be used. Once hooked into the Seatalk network or it will output data converted to NMEA for use by your laptop. Any PC based chartplotter should work.

Do you have any other insturments? Is there a seperate tridata or wind instrument? If they are Raymarine sending the info thru SeaTalk is the way to go.

As I mentioned above I don't have ST80 instruments. I understand they are configurable so that any instrument head can be made to display any data on the Seatalk bus. Each data type (Speed/Wind/Depth etc.) is given as a chapter within the setup scenario, with several pages for each chapter. Hence a wide range of data display is available. Check this out at Raymarine's website.

[scotte]

Originally Posted by hpeer

The ST80 wind vane unit appears to show the wind backwards.

There's a calibration procedure in the manual, to adjust the offset between vane and display. The manuals are available online at raymarine's site. If it's actually backwards (where as the wind goes one way, the display goes another), as opposed to just being offset, then I wonder if the wires are backwards? I'm not really sure how that sensor works so I'd consult Raymarine tech support before trying it.

Originally Posted by hpeer

I think I can loop the SeaTalk connections so that the wind and depth transducers feed into the C80. I think that all I need to do is just parallel the wires from one SeaTalk unit to another.

This is correct, but don't connect the red wires unless you want the MFD to control power to everything else in your SeaTalk network.

Originally Posted by OffsoonGreg

what is the best software to use between a laptop and the C80 system?

Raymarine used to offer a free version of their Raytech RNS "Planner" software. Basically you can work out your routes on the computer then use it to transfer routes to C/E-series MFDs via CF cards. I don't know that I would call it "best" though . It isn't a great bit of software, and doesn't do a good job supporting anything but it's own formats. I have had success using GPSBabel to convert GPX to a format RNS could read, then RNS to export to CF card. Cumbersome, but it works if you really want to do it.

As mentioned above, you can also do it over NMEA, though that has it's own set of limitations...

[richardhula]

Interesting point using Raytech RNS PC based software. I actually have this on my laptop although for the reasons Scotte mentioned, rarely use it. I was surprised once though seeing the active leg of the route I had set up with RNS software appear on my C80.

Although I didn't knowingly have the two connected, the data route I traced back from RNS on laptop was: virtual COM port, backwards thro GpsGate to USB derived COM port, through NMEA mulltiplexer, backwards through Seatalk/NMEA adaptor & finally to Seatalk connector on C80. It's miraculous that it worked at all.

BTW Raytech RNS 6.1 has a trap on the installer when it sees Vista or newer OS. It specifically asks for Vista with Service Pack 1 thus initially not allowing it to be installed under Windows 7. The answer, run in compatibility mode for Vista + SP1.

[AnchorageGuy]

hpeer, There can be a whole host of issues that no one can really trouble shoot from a website. So let me make a few suggestions. You can connect your entire system via Seatalk just by usung the three wire connections with either a Seatalk plug or crimping your own female connectors, the small ones like those supplied by Raymarine with equipment. You can pretty much daisy chain all of the instruments you now have and they will talk to each other. You don't need to do any programming or adjusting. For you wind instrument problem, more than likely somewhere there is a cut cable that has been re-spliced to get down the mast or run somewhere on the boat. There is a chance that the cable has been re-spliced wrong. I would look for this first. The two red wires on the wind may be either a Seatalk connection to something else or a power feed and Seatalk connection. The Seatalk is red, yellow and black, with the yellow being the data line. Regardless, the wind instruments should be re-calibrated. My advise is to chase down each wire and look for the origin and determine if it is correct based on a proper installation. If not redo it according to the installation procedure for that system. It may mean pulling the old wire altogether and running proper wires but it will be worth it in the long run. I have done hundreds of Raymarine installations and repairs and seen some small piece of the puzzle left out or connected wrong and the entire system is thrown off. Good luck.

[hpeer]

Spent this afternoon on the boat trying to work out a few things and have made some headway with the help of Raymarine tech support.

1 - As to the vane reading backwards, if you read the installation manual VERY carefully you will see it tells you to have the vane point towards the bow. Very non-intuitive. Mine points asswards as you would expect. Raymarine had me "calibrate" the instrument 180 degrees. If it alludes to this in the manuals I have not found it.

2 - I traced out the "double" wiring to the instruments. It appears that the previous owner had wired the transducers to the nav table instruments thus making them the "masters" and then extended this same wiring to the cockpit in the event he changed his mind. The wires were not connected in the cockpit but left unterminated and taped. They are now cut off. @#$%^&

3 - The C80 did not show anything in the "speed" box which I had assumed to be an input from the GPS. Apparently not. According to tech support "Speed" comes from the paddle wheel or something else while SOG (Speed Over Ground) comes from the GPS. SOG shows in the defalut windows as I found out when I reset the factory defaults. Why the previous owner had removed the SOG and replaced it with a non-functioning data box is anyone's guess, though I have my suspicions. To be fair I had looked for explanations of these data boxes and did not find them in the manuals while the tech clearly knew the difference.

4 - The speed instrument off the paddle wheel is still not working properly. I am trying to change out the tri-data instrument with the cockpit speed instrument to see if that will change the indications. I'll dope that out tomorrow as we get 2 - 3 knots of current in my berth but was a slack water when I decided to bag it for the day today.

Many thanks for all the help.

Howard