Fl-70 displays locking up

S

S/V Dreamwalker

New member
Our helm station is fitted with two Fl-70 monitors primarily used for display of True Wind,
Apparent Wind, recording fathometer display, Speed Through Water and water temperature on our cruising sailboat. The installation was done in conjunction with a total upgrade to Furuno TZT12F MFDs, NXT RADAR and Autopilot. A few months after the installation we noted the Fl-70's would lock up after 24 hours of continuous operation. Our solution was to reboot the Fl-70severyday at noon. This requires a total system shut down - MFDs, RADAR, Autopilot and Fluxgate Compass. Daily reboot worked until a few days ago when we noted the Fl-70s were locking up after 6~8 hours of service. is there a better solution to daily total system reboot?
 
S/V Dreamwalker,
Thank you for your inquiry. Many times, but not always, lock-up or reboots of a device connected to a NMEA2000 network are actually caused by something incorrect or intermittent on the network itself. The device will work flawlessly, for hours or days or weeks, until it eventually reaches a point that whatever the N2K network issue is overwhelms the device & it locks up. If you are confident that your N2K network 12v power, T-connectors, cables, etc are 100% (we have seen defective connectors that appear fine until both sides are tested) and all device instancing is configured properly, you could return the FI70 displays to our Camas WA repair center for testing and evaluation to ensure they are functioning to full factory specs.
 
Thanks "Flatline". Your response confirms what our first rate equipment installer said about NMEA2000 networks, i.e. a problem one place can show up somewhere else. Thus, NMEA0183 is the network foundation on commercial vessels. So, yes, we do have a suspect piece of the puzzle. The Airmar DST810 is failing. I'm planning on hauling the boat this winter to replace the DST810 with a conventional 600W transducer for better depth sensing. STW and Temperature are nice to have but depth is critical.
 
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