Tag Archives: MEI

Servicing / Technical / Nav

Exterminating bugs

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Robin of RES replaces the GPS1 aerial of the Furuno satellite compass
click to enlarge

Bugs – the bane of Play d’eau’s new Pilot House electronics. Can we really exterminate them?

I remember seeing mother-in-law size cockroaches in Delhi years ago in my flying days. There’d been a flying ant swarm and cockroaches, led by these five inch monsters with their armour plated backs, had come out with their armies to hoover a three Michelin star dinner.

In the airport terminal, some local lads were playing football with them but despite severe kicking and smacking against walls, these monster cockroaches just picked themselves up and carried on scurrying about searching for ants as though nothing had happened. They refused to be exterminated.

We now had a monster somewhere in the electrickery on Play d’eau.

Andy Craig of MEI

Andy Craig of MEI had come to Beaucette Marina on 1st May 2013 and resolved all our electronic woes – or so we all thought.

A few days later, a friend had come from the UK to see us, and in the middle of demonstrating (code for showing off!) our new pilot house equipment, the dreaded ‘Heading Data Missing’ alarm on the nn3d re-appeared with the associated ‘Steering Compass Missing’ warning on the Simrad autopilot, activating every possible audible alarm from the Chart Plotter, Radar, Instruments, and this time, from the Satellite Compass as well which also displayed an ‘Aborting’ message.

Arrrgh! An unknown mother-in-law cockroach had crawled out to mock us.

The GPS1 aerial works again, with the same HDOP as the other two aerials in the array
click to enlarge
After re-booting the satellite compass many times, I called Andy of MEI. Having listened to my woes, Andy’s gentle voice came back with, ‘You won’t believe this, Piers. We’ve just had a Tech Bulletin from Furuno advising us there’s a potential fault in the GPS aerials they use in their satellite compass. From what you’ve said, the GPS1 aerial has failed which could have been the source of all the original problems.’

Robin of RES (Guernsey)

In the moments that followed, Andy spoke with the warranty desk at Furuno which immediately accepted the warranty claim, arranged for a spare aerial to be despatched from Holland direct to RES (their authorised agent in Guernsey) and authorised them to effect the repair. How brilliant was that!

Yesterday, Robin of RES appeared on Play d’eau and checked the fault remained. It did. Climbing the radar arch and pony mast, Robin unscrewed the cover from the aerial array, removed and replaced the faulty aerial and appeared back in the Pilot House to check it was now working. It was. Brilliant, again.

One mother-in-law cockroach exterminated.

The dreaded Heading Data Missing alarm returns to the nn3d which will be hunted down and exterminated
click to enlarge

Any more bugs?

Yes. Two hours later, three more bugs dared to surface. The original ‘Heading Data Missing’ on the nn3d, and two relatively new ones showing as ‘Log’ and ‘EPFS’ in the Radar alarm log. Yet all with no indication of equipment failure.

To me, I don’t believe there’s anything more wrong with any of the equipment. Deduction tells me these bugs are more like mosquitoes hiding in the sentences being dropped onto the nn3d backbone or the speed at which they are talking. A mismatch or confusion somewhere. Time will tell.

So, having exterminated a cockroach we now have three mosquitoes.

Now where’s that DDT?

Piers
from the Nav Table of
Play d’eau
Fleming 55

Servicing / Technical / Nav

Simrad v Furuno – the problem solved?

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Andy Craig of MEI resolves the Simrad AP 70 autopilot problem
click to enlarge

In my post ‘The Finishing Touches’ I hinted at a major problem between the Simrad AP70 autopilot, the Furuno satellite compass and NavNet3d electronics, and that I’d report on it once it had been resolved.

As the customer, I was faced with having to leave for our summer cruise to the west coast of Brittany with no autopilot. Not a good idea, especially having spent the winter refurbishing Play d’eau which had been featured by MBY in their April 2013 issue.

Who were the stars in understanding customer service and resolving this customer issue? Andy Craig and Jim Staig of MEI Ltd whose website is Electronics on Board.

The problem

Whilst in Auto, the Simrad AP70 autopilot would go into alarm every few hours stating the steering compass information had been lost.

This would sometimes be amplified in nuisance by the Simrad AP70 refusing to go into Auto or Nav at all, for the same alarm reason.

The Customer Service

Bear in mind that all the Furuno kit is tried and tested whilst the Simrad AP70 is the new boy on the block with Play d’eau having the second.

Also bear in mind that Customer Support at Simrad relies on one person alone, who has to cover every product made by Simrad, Lowrance B&G and Navico.

So what should be said about Simrad’s response? Let’s just say that the Simrad AP 70 was a new product and had not had the benefit of months of sea testing in anger, and their Customer Service desk (one person) is heavily overworked.

What did MEI Ltd do?

MEI was brilliant. They said the words any customer would want to hear. ‘Leave it to us, Piers, and we’ll sort it – we will.’

So last week, I collected Andy Craig from St Peter Port’s Condor ferry terminal and we drove to Play d’eau.

Before tasting his coffee he was already laying out his plan of attack. ‘First, we’ll blueprint what equipment is outputting what sentences in case of data collision. Then we’ll install a new cable from the satellite compass direct to the Simrad AP 70 autopilot to by-pass the Furuno NavNet3d, and finally,’ he added with a wry smile, ‘I have a software update from Simrad to install, yet no one at Simrad seems to know what the changes to the software are….’

Has it worked?

It appears to have been successful. Why do I use the word ‘appears’? Because I’m naturally cautious, nothing else.

So full marks have to go to MEI Ltd who kept on the issue and made sure they resolved it.

MEI Ltd

MEI Ltd are authorised Dealers for Furuno, Simrad (Navico), Raymarine, Garmin, Intellian, ICOM, KVH, Actisense, and the list goes on.

MEI regularly installs on leisure and commercial vessels in the UK, the south of France, Majorca, Minorca, Antigua and Corfu.

Piers
from the Nav Table of
Play d’eau
Fleming 55