GP32/RD30 Depth/Temp failure

[Anonymous]

Hi I have a GP32/RD30 with an Airmar Smart Sensor (Temp/Depth) attached. There was a power surge onboard (still trying to track down the cause) while underway recently and both units went down. On resetting the breakers the position/speed information on the RD30 was working, but both temp and depth were not. Have tracked back through the wiring and there are no breaks, nicks or blown fuses. I have tried resetting factory settings on both units to no avail. Could the surge have messed up the ability of the smart sensor to talk to the RD30 unit?
We had just hauled out a few months ago before this happened so am hoping that we wont have to haul out again to replace a transducer (sigh). :questions
Any thoughts?

 

[DB Cooper]

Hello Camelot46,
How is the smart sensor hooked up to your RD30? through the AUX port or In/Out port?

 

[Anonymous]

hi- the power cable (which also carries the position data) is attached to IN/OUT and data is going to AUX. Dan

 

[DB Cooper]

Okay so a power surge like you described can sometimes change or reset settings on a unit, it can also damage internal components of a unit/component as well. That being said lets verify the settings on the RD30 first.

Press the [Menu] button. Then select [I/O Setup].
Now verify that the [I/O Port] is set to OFF (This menu is setting up if you want to output data through a port).
Verify [AUX Port] is set to OFF. (No need to send any kind of data into the smart sensor, that's why we need to select OFF)
Verify [Power Out] is selected to ON. (This will send power to the smart sensor)
Now you can check to see if you are getting depth and temp readout on the RD30.

Another way to see if you are getting data to the RD30 is to go back into the [I/O Setup] menu and select [AUX Port] at the bottom. This will take you to a sentence page which all sentences should be off (as long as your not outputting any data from the RD30 to another device).
Now on this sentence selection page, if the sentence on the left is highlighted, then this means that the specified data is being inputted into the RD30.
So now lets verify if the sentence DPT (depth) and MTW (water temp) are highlighted.
If those sentences are not highlighted, then most likely the smart sensor is bad or has been damaged by the power surge.
If you are in fact getting a highlighted DPT and MTW sentence in that menu, then most likely something could be wrong with the RD30 not displaying the data.

Hope this helps on determining if you have a bad piece of equipment or not, and also how to determine what piece of equipment has failed.

 

[Anonymous]

Aaaaaahh stink. Neither of DPT or MWT are reporting so it seems most likely a bad sensor. another expensive trip to the lifting yard for us. Many thanks for your help. Dan