Frequently Questions

• No Radar

  This means the MFD cannot communicate

  with the radar in any way. There a very

  broad range of possible causes including:

  - Radar Ethernet Hardware fault

  - Radar SW Software bug

  - Ethernet cabling fault

  - No power to the radar

  - Ethernet hardware fault in MFD

  - MFD software bug 

  
  

  Recommendations:

  • Check / select actual radar in radar sources

  • Turn the system off and on again

  • The most common error: The safety switch is

  switched off - only HALO radar

  • No voltage on the yellow power supply line

  • No voltage on the yellow lead of the radar cable

  from the radar interface

  • Missing or intermittent Ethernet connection, the

  RJ45 connector is damaged

  • Broken Ethernet cable

  
  

• Acoustic Noise Detection of the sonar

  • Stop the vessel, and stop the propeller.

  – If the noise disappeared, the noise is either coming from the water flow, the propeller, the reduction gear or the propeller shaft (most likely water flow or propeller)

  – Try different propeller pitch

  • Give full speed ahead

  – The noise comes up gradually

  with speed, then you have flow- noise (Transducer installation)

  – The noise comes up immediately!

  You are faced with propeller noise.

  
  

• Dockside Faults – No Drive Output

  • Make sure the motor wires are attached to the correct terminals

  • Check the output commands and the voltage levels at the motor drive terminals

  – Simply make meter contact with the AC drive terminals and issue a command

  – Issue a command in the opposite direction; you should see polarity reverse on your meter

  – NOTE: You can issue commands directly at the AC by temporarily shorting the Remote terminal PORT or STARBOARD to ground

  • When driving solenoids, the drive voltage can be measured from the ground common (SOL GND) to one of the SOL-MOTOR terminals when a rudder command is issued. Remember when driving solenoids your mains supply is what you will provide to the solenoid terminals and bypass

  – Insure your are correctly connected and 12V is present on the SOL-MOTOR contacts when the autopilot issues a command

  
  

• Dockside Faults – No Pilot Computer

  • If all fusing and power is correct, you can isolate between the AP and the AC by making some quick assumptions

  • Do I see a compass heading and a heading source shown on the AP controller? Yes Pilot Display OK

  • Are my sources properly configured in SimNet and can I see the Pilot computer in the device list?  If seen by the network it will be listed next to the Distance Log and Pilot sources.

  • If you still do not ‘see’ the AC unit your best recourse is to enter the Service Menus of the AP and perform a Global Reset, then cycle the power.

  
  

• No Spoke data for radar

  As a persistent error

  This means the MFD is still communicating with the radar, but it is not receiving radar image data over Ethernet.

  This is likely to be a radar hardware problem (typically FPGA) or in rare cases a radar software problem.

  This error can NOT be caused by cabling faults.

  Recommendations:

  • Turn the system off and on again

  • FMWC and PuC radars usually need to be

  replaced as this is an internal failure

  • Pulse Radar: Check / replace the HD scanner unit