PG700 help

[northcaptain]

Hello i am installing a PG700 and i have trouble getting through the first step called "location check". The PG700 doesn't seem happy wherever i do the procedure, even on my dinning table at home.

Any comparative help would be useful.

thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Hello Northcaptain,
I take it that the status lamp does not turn red when you apply power to the PG700. If the status lamp is red shortly after you apply power, then the compass has a problem with the magnetic sensor. In your case I believe that the status light is turning red after you perform the “mounting location check”, on page 2 of the op man. After you press and hold the + and – keys for about 7 seconds, the check lamp should start to blink. At this time slowly turn the PG700 in a circle, left or right, it does not matter. The book will tell you to turn the compass 1 to 2 times to get a good or no good reading. If after turning the compass the STATUS and CHECK lights are both steady green, then the location is good. If the STATUS light is red and the CHECK light is green, then the location is not suitable. You probably will not have to turn the compass 2 times or even one complete turn to get an indication. Use the first indication you get. I say use the first because if both lights are green, the location is fine. However, if you leave the compass in this “mounting location check” mode, the STATUS light will eventually turn red, which indicates an unsuitable location, which is not the case. Even with the lights in this condition you can hold down the + and – keys for 3 seconds until the CALIB lights starts to blink, then slowly start rotating the compass (about 1 min per rotation). You can do this at your table. After about 3 to 5 rotations the CALIB and CHECK lights should light a steady green, and the STATUS light will blink. You can stop rotating the compass now. After you stop the STATUS light will go steady green after about 30 seconds or so. All three lights should now be a steady green. If you remove power, then apply it again, (after the initial check), the compass should come up with the CALIB and CHECK lights steady green and the STATUS light blinking. The STATUS light will eventually (30sec to 1min) go to a steady green, this is a normal indication.

I recommend that you do a master reset before performing the above. Hold down the – key while you apply power. Hold it down until all the lights are steady, not blinking. Then remove power, the unit is now reset to the way it came from the factory.


Hope this info helps,
Birdman

 

[northcaptain]

Hi Birdman

Thanks very much for your detailed response. I have tried about 50 times to do that "check installation". Mainly because i have a steel sailboat and i am new into installing Furuno's equipment and i wanted to do it "by the book". Since there are locations on the boat with various deviation (from 5 degree to as much as 20) i wanted to use the "check location" to find the best place to install the compass - that is what the "installation check" is all about i thought.

While on the boat, i was never able to terminate without having the status light RED. As soon as i start rotating about 1/4 of a turn, the Status and Check led turn solid GREEN. I am turning at 1 rpm. After two turns, the status led come out RED. This behavior is the same wherever i am on the boat.

So i thought there was to much magnetic influence and that i cannot install it. But i had the idea of trying it at the dock (wooden structure) and it had the same behavior ! I was puzzled. Then at home same thing, turning RED after 1 or two turns. I have tried a lot of time with every kind of combination possible, the results is the same; i end up with the status led RED.

I had never thought of going to the deviation calibration procedure as you described but tonight i tried it; i got the three led GREEN solid after. But this is in my salon. This is good news and surely it means the compass can work.

But what information do i have about where should i install the compass for the better precision. This is a steel boat with a stainless (no magnetic) deck and infrastructure. There is no instruction in the manual regarding the maximum deviation that the compass can compensate. I thought that Furuno coded that 'installation check" just for that matter. Now if the "installation check" is always giving a status RED light, is that feature working ? Or is this a useful feature ? What installation clue it is supposed to give if it have the same behavior wherever one tried it ? Especially on a steel boat, i am sure there are places where the compass would be happy and other where it would not. Of course i can install it in a mast 10 feet above the deck, but that implies other errors. And the PG700 doesn't seem to have the "damping control" adjustement that the PG500 have. If i look around in harbor, there are numerous steel fish boat that have PG500 installed under their 30-50 ton mass of steel. So i works. But the PG700 installation is different, and there are no damping adjustement if i mount it higher - but how much higher ? So now that i have the 3 led GREEN, i still don't know where to install the compass and i can tell you that running an NMEA cable on a 47 feet boat is not trivial; i expect the 'installation check' to give me some clues before i start installing the wire.

what can we say about the value of the installation check thus ?

Thanks very much for engaging the subject,

Regards

 

[Anonymous]

Hello Andre’,
I will try to answer your questions.
You said, “what information do I have about where I should install the compass for better precision”. If the location passes the “check mounting location” procedure then that area is fine. The compass will not give you a numerical indication from good, better, best, of where to mount the compass. You will only get a good, or no good indication. From my past experiences with the PG1000 and PG500 compasses if it passes the mounting location test, the compass will set up within an error of a few degrees at the worst. If you do have a slight error in heading, the most important aspect to check is to see if the heading is off an equal amount in the four points, north, south, east, and west. Then with the error information, set in a heading offset into the compass.

You said: “I have tried many times to perform the “check mounting location” with every kind of combination possible, the results is the same; I end up with the status led RED”. I agree that the procedure should be changed (I have taken steps to make this happen) so an installer cannot receive a false indication. As it is now, if you perform the test and wait about 2, 2.5 minutes before you either move on to the next test or power off the compass, you will always get the status light to turn red, it will do it every time. The first indication that you receive after starting the mounting location test, is the correct indication. If you get both the status and the check light to turn green first, then the location is good. If the status light is red and the check light is green, then the location is not good. Most of the time you will get an indication well before you rotate the compass twice, or even once. If it is a good or bad location this will show up right away, usually within a half turn or so. If you rotate the compass extremely slow (takes two minutes to make a rotation), then you could conceivably get an incorrect indication.

Best regards,
Birdman

 

[northcaptain]

Hi Birdman,

Thanks very much for the very informative operating description that you wrote. Now i understand the PG700 installation. It seems the P700 is much capable of living with lots of artificial deviation because it seems quite happy to sit under a windows at deck level on my steelboat (stainless steel deck) so about 7 feet from any magnetic metal on the boat. This weekend i will do sea trial and deviation check and let you know.

best regards

 

[northcaptain]

Well, thanks for the information so far. I installed the PG700 just at deck level and it did the trick ! It took maybe 6 or 7 turn before the PG700 lit all its lights and thereafter i had to put an offset of 9 degrees.

Now i'm installing the NavPilot 711 and there is a procedure described in the installation book to redo the deviation calibration of the PG700 (through the NavPilot 711). Should i redo it ?

Regards