Thread: Furuno plotter

Been having an issue with my plotter alarming and not showing the speed, the chart is fine and the boats position is shown as normal as a pulsing icon,
I am suspecting a fault in the aerial, anyone else had this happen?
Cheers
Ray

@mikee might be able to shed some light?

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Originally Posted by raydafish

Been having an issue with my plotter alarming and not showing the speed, the chart is fine and the boats position is shown as normal as a pulsing icon,
I am suspecting a fault in the aerial, anyone else had this happen?
Cheers
Ray

Model or picture of it woukd help

And what is the Alarm?? Is date and time correct especially year?

Funny, I have a history of furuno gear doing this. I know it has it's share of fanbois but I've used gear with better menu layouts that's easier to drive and that's less time consuming to operate which means more time looking out the windscreen keeping watch.

As far as the plotter, it would not hurt to inspect the connections on the receiver and antenna for moisture and corrosion and also check for continuity between the screen/drain/ground and cores in case the cable has been pinched somewhere. The other one is power supply, just check it's actually getting enough of the right voltage and there isn't a drop which can cause a low-power situation as that can cause weird errors due to antenna reboot and other oddities...

Hi guys,

First time in the 15 years to have any trouble with the gear...I checked the aerial cable right tbrough the boat, all good. No battery alarm in the startup menu.
Mikee, the alarm is a continuous chirping and no speed showing is the only thing different that I noticed. Last time I was out the speed didn't show for a little while and there was no alarm sounding.
I will check the manual to see if there is a description of what the alarms might mean.
Cheers

Its about 20ish years old (its a 7 inch colour display Navnet VX1). Chart card will most likely be CF card style.
I suspect it will have suffered gps rollover so date and time will be incorrect.
You say it indicated correct position, does it show your vessel moving when you are moving? If you press the Alarm Key it should tell you the reason for the alarm
They used a 7 pin GPS engine antenna connected directly to Data 1 connector or could also be fed position from a standalone GPS depending on installation

Other than that I will leave it to other posters who clearly know more than me

Thanks Mikee,
Will set up the plotter in the boat tomorrow and check what I can...wont be going anywhere though as I have a flat tire on the trailer, first time ever too, good to have tandem axles.
Thanks
Ray

Hi Mikee,
Thanks for the pm, as you can see there is no gps fix, but it is intermittent, when I got into the gps status page I had 8 or so satelites, then less and less and back to 8 again, so as you correctly said this is the problem.
I have 2 of these units, one a dedicated plotter and the other sounder only, could I change them around or is the problem the aerial?
Cheers

Had this exact issue about 10 months ago - advice was circular file it and replace with a supported unit (but again commercial not rec so the gear is somewhat more 'consumable'). Unsure if there is a permanent workaround for this issue but it would be interesting to find out as its a pain when the units decide to stop playing with what feels like built-in obsolecence in otherwise ok gear. Had a tech on another boat for another unit at the same time, which was an antenna cable issue - was thinking it was unusual to kill off two at the same time and the word Russia was uttered... Ended up with a pair of new units which I would consider as rec grade, we will see how long they last. Only one I have never managed to kill in the warranty period was a Raymarine setup - might have gotten lucky with that one. Best effort was four of a brand I won't name - same button on all four stopped playing.

hi everyone,
thanks to Mikee's advice I have the plotter going again and no faults in 2 hours of operation,seems the antenna won,t update with the gps data and consequently does'nt see where the satilites are in real time....probably a new plotter in time.
I would love to buy you a beer Mikee and good luck with the salmon fishing.
thanks everyone
Ray