Suzuki engine interface

[BruceB]

Anybody else have problems with theirs?
Mine works perfectly sitting in the drive, but as soon as I start moving out on the water it drops off the network.
Been doing this for ages and no matter how many times I check the connections etc looking for a loose one I can't duplicate the fault at home so can't fix it.
Its starting to really annoy me.

[SPR]

you tried using a big bin of water to test engine in drive way?

[9D280]

Anything else on the bus drop out (e.g GPS / sounder etc), or are you running it as a "branch" back to the console? Could you repatch temporarily to turn the branch into a backbone or vice versa? I'm thinking if it's a branch, and you repatch to make the wire to the transom a backbone and then loose the GPS as well, you know it's a cabling fault.


I still have a spare that came with my (used) plotter. It's no use to me, so if you want to borrow it & see if you can replicate the fault with a different interface, let me know.

It's also still available for sale if anyone's interested!

[Simon B]

Originally Posted by BruceB

Anybody else have problems with theirs?
Mine works perfectly sitting in the drive, but as soon as I start moving out on the water it drops off the network.
Been doing this for ages and no matter how many times I check the connections etc looking for a loose one I can't duplicate the fault at home so can't fix it.
Its starting to really annoy me.

Bruce,

Ours does exactly the same and we were disappointed too, as the interface should give a lot of information. Ribcraft do not fit them anymore and Suzuki/Lowrance did not have much useful information either, they may have discontinued production. I had not thought of the scenario of branch/backbone.

Ours drops out as as soon as the engine is started rather than moving out obn the water.

[BruceB]

The backbone is fine as it does the same no matter where it is plugged in and my GPS aerial is after it on the network anyway.
It works fine with the engine running and starting, even slow speed in the water but as soon as the revs go up it becomes more and more intermittent and then stops completely.

[Erin]

Have you got a good celan ground on the power circuit feeding the NMEA? If it drops out as revs increase it could be an interference problem. Are engine and interface both running off the same battery?

[gotchiguy]

We had it fitted when it first came out and there were a few teething problems. Top tip: make sure the backbone is laid out precisely as in the user manual. There was an initial problem with ours in that the dealer diagram was inaccurate, but we were the first to have it fitted in the whole of France so perhaps it was sorted relatively quickly.

After the first two seasons ours packed up anyway, bloody nuisance. Even the data coming off a small DF50 is very useful for planning and accurate fuel read out etc.

Also, there is only one plug on the engine for each instrument, for example with ours, we had a hard trim gauge, so we could only have the feed going to one or the other. Something to bear in mind if you already have a fuel consumption read out.

[BruceB]

Mine used to work fine as fitted, then it started dropping out ocassionally but now its at the point where it hardly ever works when the boats moving.
I can't duplicate the fault with the engine running on the drive no matter what I do. Since the GPS is on the same end of the network and works fine it can only really be at the engine interface or in the outboard wiring.
Its such a useful bit of kit I am loathe to just disconect it, plus I sold all the original gauges and only use LMF400's for eveything so need the interface for revs, engine checks and fuel flow etc!

[9D280]

I should pre-empt this with the comment that all below is a "thinking out loud" brain dump:

It works OK on the drive, but not at sea. 3 main differences: RPM ,speed & cooling water supply.


Can you test it to see exctly when it dies - is it as soon as the engine sees the water, or at a repeatable RPM or speed? (my old suz fell into a repeatable failure mode when the TPS failed) Would open up hapily - hesitate at exactly 10 seconds later and die back to idle at 30 seconds). Why not take the boat through something like the falls of Lora both ways on a falling tide.

On the way in, you set the rpm to the trip point (but a slightly lesser RPM than it tripped at last time). That way you get the RPM with lower speed, and can creep the revs up past the trip point and if it doesn't trip, you can then repeat the test on the way out at the "trip speed" but at at lower RPM.


Alternatively and possibly more controllable - Ask someone to tow you with ignition & instruments on but engine off (you should get all the low oil pressure etc warnings?) & see if it dies as they speed you up. Then repeat with engine idling in neutral, then slowly up the revs whilst in neutral but moving etc etc

Other tiny possibility - Do you have a failing voltage regulator / rectifier that is somehow confusing it?

I got some spare blue cables if yours is blue and want to swap them out to check for a loose / broken cable.

[Erin]

As I've posted before in this subject, my first interface died after about a year. The second on involved some rewiring as they'd changed from blue to red conenctors, but so far so good. I suspect the EPS is at fault. Have you contacted Navionics/Lowrance? They may be helpful.