NavPilot 300 Communication Error

wadeatl

New member
Hello,

I am am getting an errors or on my Navpilot 300 seems to be every 3-4 minutes while under autopilot. It beeps with the error "Communication Error with Processor Unit" and I confirm the error. About 30 seconds later I get the message the "Processor Unit Detected". I have I have checked my connection on the NMEA and power and everything appears to be good. Is there anything else that I should be checking?

Thanks!

Wade
 
The alarm is telling you that it can't communicate over the NMEA 2000 bus. The infomation isn't clear or intermittent. I would recommend checking the bus is properly grounded and terminated and not near any noise that might get into the bus cables.
 
If you don't find anything with the NMEA 2000 bus, you will want to check all your internal pigtail connections in the processor. Maybe pull each off and reset for good connection. Whenever the pilot is going to be powered, ensure both the Navpilot input power and the NMEA 2000 bus are powered. If someone leaves of the Navpilot power, it will get this error. The control head powers from the 2000 bus but the process does not. I am sure you will get it figured out.
 
So all was good for a while and now I am getting the same Processor Unit Connection issue. I checked the power, ground and and shielding. Also back when I was having issues prior to seeing the loose bonding cable I replaced my NMEA connectors from singles to triples to help eliminate NMEA connection issues.

Hoping you all can point me at what I can look at next.

Thanks!

Wade
 
For good connection you want a good NMEA 2000 bus. I normally recommend you are powering the pilot breaker and the NMEA 2000 power breaker up about the same time. If you power up one but the other is left off for awhile, the display can't see the processor or vice versa. It might lead to some sort of timeout and both have to be cycled to lead to clear communications. Ultimately the processor has direct power but it's 2000 transceiver is powered directly off the 2000 bus power. You want both those power sources present.
 
Thank you Johnny once again for all the help. The way I my NavPilot 300 wired is the main FAP-3011 powers up only when my key for outboards is on as it gets power thru the NMEA. I believe my FAP=3012 is powered on the entire time my 12V breaker is on as it is directly wired.

Do you think I shouled rewire my NMEA so the 3011 will have power whenever my 12V breaker is on as well?

Also one other note .is that it will be random. More often than not it will lose the connection every 3-5 minutes and then within a minute reconnect. That feels more like a bad connection but my power connections to the 3012 are solid.
 
Hard to say but I would recommend that the pilot power is turned on with the 2000. I really won't be pulling much of anything until the control head is turned and and sends the signal to the processor to power up. There could be something going on with the bus or connections but one step at a time. We haven't seen any hardware issues on the pilot in this respect so I don't think the communication issue is with the processor or display. I would recommend checking that the NMEA 2000 ground wire is connected. Many installs we see, they forget to ground that and it fails the Maretron NMEA 2000 tester.
 
Thanks Johnny .. I will rewire the power and ground for the NMEA directly to my fuse block. That way the display and processor will be powered when the 12v house switch is turned on. I will also take some time to insure all of the NMEA connectors are tight.
 
Johnny,

It seems that all of my connections are good. I am not able to get at the processor without a bunch of effort to remove my new dash overlay. I am hoping for your guidance before removing the overlay.

Thanks again for all the support!

Wade
 
You said you would change the wiring so the processor powers along with the NMEA 2000. Did you try that? Did it not work?
 
Yes .. in my previous post I mentioned that I wired the NMEA to the bus and moved it to the center of the backbone. It worked great all day on a calm day.

It really seems like when the boat takes a wave/movement thats when the commincation is lost and most of the time it reconnectes quckly.

Edit ..

For some reason my previous post where I explained what I did is not there.

I connected the NMEA power to the the same fuse block as the Processor on a seperate Fuse. I also moved the power NMEA connector to the center of the backbone which is close to where the Processor and Controller are connected.

Fished on Satruday and it performed perfectly all day until I was coming back though the inlet and had an error. Seas were pretty smooth on Saturday. Fished Sunday and the seas were bigger and it seemed that every time the boat hit a larger wave it would drop communication. It would quicikly reconnect but upon reangaging it would drop once there was more bow movement.

It seems my NMEA connections are all good. My power for the Controller and NMEA are solid. Could there be an inliine fuse that could be loose? I can not get to it easily but will remove my dash if you think it could be an issue. Lastly, could I have wired the controller wrong? I the obvious hot and ground connected. I have the shielde wire going the same ground on the fuse block. Is that correct?

Thanks once again for your help.
 
Do you have a wiring diagram of how you have everything wired up? Low cost NMEA tees and connections can be an issue even if they look solid. What brand NMEA bus items did you use? We have been having customers call in about one brand particular lately that starts with G. Normally we see good results with Mareton and Actisense products.
 
I have experience NAVpilot Connection Lost error banner across my MDFs as well.

Interestingly enough the autopilot wasn't even powered on at the time of the lost. I wasn't able to clear the red banner on the MDF so I attempted to power up that system which was unsuccessful. This has occurred twice on separate occasions. After a full system shutdown I was able to start the autopilot without issue.

Based upon some Johnny Electron's comments I'm wondering if this should be powered up each outing regardless if I intend to use it initially so its operable when I do want to use it?
 
There is a difference in communication error between the pilot and display; than the MFD. The MFDs are working from the items it sees on the sensor list. If you power up the MFD and the pilot is on, it sees it. Whenever you turn the pilot off but the MFD stays on it will alarm letting you know about the loss (totally normal). If you wish to clear that you can always go into the sensor list and "Reset" (aka refresh) the sensor list so that the pilot is not shown and the MFD will stop looking for or complaining about it.
 
Sorry for the long delay in my response. I have been caught up with work after snapper season ended. In the end I went connection by connection to make sure they were all tight. I set the AP on course while iin the slip and shook everthing all connections /backbones and processor unit and it would not drop the connection. The next day it woked perefectly.

Really appreciate all the suport Johnny!
 
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