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gps wiring?

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 3:52 pm
by duetto
hi all,

i'm having problems with our gps. we have hull 23 which is the old style flybridge. we have an rl70c chartplotter display. the gps sensor is raystar 125. we are getting "no fix" on the chartplotter. in gps setup it is not finding any satellites. i'm not getting a light on the sensor which indicates a) no power b) complete sensor failure. after removing the sensor, a multimeter test showed no power at the connector. i found the sensor wire under the dash going into a raymarine junction box. no power there either.

my question is does anyone know where the input feed to that junction box comes from? i can trace it but it means cutting a bunch of wire ties and bundles.

thanks in advance.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:16 pm
by deising
I was surprised to learn that the power for our GPS antenna was fed from the autopilot circuit. Do you have all the normal breakers turned on?

Good luck.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:33 pm
by duetto
yes.....i wish it were that easy....but that does give me another lead (no pun intended) to check.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 10:54 am
by duetto
hi all,

turns out the gps sensor wire terminates in a raymarine white box located just below lower helm chartplotter. years ago we moved our charger/inverter there also and junction was hidden behind it. after much testing the wiring was intact and not the problem. directly wiring gps sensor to +/- still showed no light and thus unit had failed. getting ready to install a nmea based sensor since to use raymarine i would need pricey converters. will report back on how it works.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:16 am
by duetto
my wiring plan was to pull the old wire into the salon along with the new gps
wire and do the connection there with terminal block.

reality is there is 5200 at the base and an anti abrasion hose wire
tied to the bundle. my question is does anyone have any idea how far up the
wire bundle the wire ties go? i can't move the whole bundle so if they
go much more than an inch in the tube my plan won't work.

any help would be appreciated.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2018 1:47 pm
by duetto
here is an update on my gps problem. after much testing it became apparent that the raymarine rs125 had failed. raymarine had discontinued this model years ago and its replacement is not compatable from a wiring perspective. so i decided to buy a nmea gps. it's a digital yachts gps150. duetto is a 2003 and came equiped with raymarine rl70c chart plotters. the beauty of this vintage raymarine chartplotter is it has a dedicated nmea in port which comes pre-wired.

so the biggest part of the project was mapping the various colored wires for power, ground, nmea in +, and nmea in -. i decided to reuse the existing gps cable in the boat. this cable terminates at the lower helm charplotter where there are a number of terminal strips. i disconnected the gps cable from the raymarine connector box. this block serrved as the interface between the raymarine gps and the seatalk buss. this connector block had a seatalk cable and a power cable coming in. these wires need to stay connected either by using the raymarine connector box or attaching to a terminal strip in order for the seatalk buss to continue to work.

once wired, i powered everything up and instantly it locked onto 12 satellites! all displays work just as before. this turned out to be a much easier project than i anticipated.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 2:38 pm
by Wbr2974
Thanks for posting this as I am having a similar issue.
I picked up the boat from Stuart Yachts last Monday heading to new home in Key Largo.
Left for Sunset marina and everything was working properly.
Got up the next morning and the chartplotters have "no fix"..
Also no autopilot at either helm and no depth on the flybridge ???
I left anyway using my iPad and now back in the Keys I will start trying to figure it out.
Doesn't make a lot of sense as to what happened. The boat is still brand new to me and I wonder if I'm just doing something wrong ? Thanks again for the post..

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:01 pm
by duetto
hi,

you don't mention the year of the boat. i can only talk to the older version of seatalk. i'd start by checking your seatalk connections on the bridge. on our boat we have a breaker for the flybridge power, check this is working. then check the seatalk connections on the back of the flybridge instruments.

does your lower autopilot display "seatalk failure"?

if multiple instruments have failed it's probably a power or seatalk break.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:09 am
by Wbr2974
John,
The boat is a 2005 and the autopilot does indeed say "STalk failure".
Everything is powering up just not doing anything. I'm going down to the boat today with my multimeter
and see what I can find. I will report back when I figure it all out.
Thanks again
Bill

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:31 pm
by duetto
on our boat seatalk failure at the lower autopilot always is a result of either: 1) no power to flybridge 2) a bad power feed to one of the flybridge instruments for some other reason.

Re: gps wiring?

Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2018 2:34 pm
by Allezcat
I have also had the "no fix" GPS issue.
Unplugging the cables under the master unit in the electronic cabinet and resetting them solved the problem.
I think we are dealing with very low voltages here and any resistance causes a "no fix"