I'm trying to gauge if I've just had a bit of bad luck or if other people are having issues with Raymarine products. We purchased Mawson three and a half years ago. There was only a depth sensor working, the wind sensor was cactus. I wanted to put in a good electronics package in preparation for the trip from Pittwater back home to Tasmania. That ended up being an MFD plotter, AIS, Wind, new sonar, Radar, Autopilot. I was initially drawn to the B&G kit as it had the reputation as being both good quality and more sailing specific However, I found it a bit difficult finding info about putting a package together. And at the time and I didn't want to get stuck with kit that might not play with other components. With a limited amount of time available, that would have been a problem. So I opted for Raymarine all the way, they certainly present the whole ecosystem thing well, and it gave me the confidence to commit.

Two and a half years in, my A9 series MFD plotter started playing up. I battled with it for another 6 months before spitting the dummy and returning it to Raymarine. It was stuffed, and they replaced it under warranty in March this year (2020) with a newer Axiom 9. I was happy to have the newer unit as it was also able to run the latest Lighthouse 3 operating system which had some additional features that I liked. Unfortunately the screen wasn't as bright as the original A series plotter though, but good enough to live with. Here I am again, 6 months later and the Axiom unit started having trouble acquiring satellites, progressively getting worse. By the time I sent it off to Raymarine, I'd timed it for 20 mins and it still hadn't got a fix.

In addition to the MFD issue, I'd done a software update on the whole system as part of a lengthy troubleshooting procedure over the course of a couple of weeks. Raymarine's software update packages contain updates for all of their components, so when you load the card onto the mfd, it'll give you the option to update various individual components or all of them. I chose all and the update failed and took out my autopilot ACU unit with a software corruption. The Axiom plotter didn't have any functionality to access and recover the ACU with a reset, I believe that you could do that with the original A series plotter I had though. So after much to and fro-ing with Raymarine support, I sent both the ACU and the plotter back to their service department. I've heard today that they were able to reset my ACU successfully and that they're going to replace the plotter with a newer Axiom+ model.

Raymarine support has been fantastic and very responsive, I have no complaints about them. In fact I think it's a big plus for the brand and is something I would make a point about if asked. But given my experiences, I do wonder about the quality of their hardware now.

So has anyone else had any issues with Raymarine gear recently, particularly their MFD plotters? How about software update issues of late?

Yara said..
I wonder whether they have moved production or component sourcing to some unreliable but low cost suppliers.

Quite possibly Yara.

Sounds to me like they have some unresolved software problems. Not having a user facility to roll back a software update to a known good version is, in my opinion, unforgivable and amateurish.
The difficulty in acquiring satellites for GPS could be a hardware problem, or perhaps the GPS antenna does not have a clear view of the sky.

You might find it a bit reassuring that I recently read a post somewhere seriously denigrating the quality of the hardware of recent B&G marine gear - maybe in Cruisers Forum ?
regards to all
allan

2bish said..

Datawiz said..
Sounds to me like they have some unresolved software problems. Not having a user facility to roll back a software update to a known good version is, in my opinion, unforgivable and amateurish.
The difficulty in acquiring satellites for GPS could be a hardware problem, or perhaps the GPS antenna does not have a clear view of the sky.

You might find it a bit reassuring that I recently read a post somewhere seriously denigrating the quality of the hardware of recent B&G marine gear - maybe in Cruisers Forum ?
regards to all
allan

Yes Allan, one of the techs I spoke with hinted at a rushed update package causing them problems, so you're probably correct. And I agree that it's pretty shoddy not to have a rollback/reset function built into the system. It's 2020 after all, not 1995!

I see that with the newer MFD Axiom+, they're harping about the GPS chip javing 4 times more sensitivity, so it's probably going to be as good as the hardware I originally had in the A series plotter three and a half years ago before they segmented the product line further and threw in a few cheaper components. The GPS in these units is internal btw. I had the Axiom plotter in exactly the same location as the original unit. And when I did that final test that I mentioned, I had it removed from the mount and in a position that had nothing at all in between it and the clouds.

Interesting regarding B&G, I'll try to track that down. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the componentry comes out of the same Chinese factories...

re the rant about the poor B&G quality, the writer was particularly critical of the windex - it's cheap bearings, anemometer cups, etc.
It wasn't just that, he was very critical of the overall poor quality of all the current B&G products.....

B&G is a Navico brand and supposedly top of the range.

navico.com/our-brands/

Due to the policies of the CCP, my policy is not to buy anything manufactured in China. That is not always possible even if the brand is Aus, US, UK or wherever due to manufacturing out sourcing.

Choose your products wisely.

cisco said..
B&G is a Navico brand and supposedly top of the range.

navico.com/our-brands/

Due to the policies of the CCP, my policy is not to buy anything manufactured in China. That is not always possible even if the brand is Aus, US, UK or wherever due to manufacturing out sourcing.

Choose your products wisely.

Yes that's what I thought too Cisco. After reading through the forums online, I'm not so sure now.

Gosh your stance on China must make it tricky purchasing stuff, so much of it's made in China now?

2bish said..

Stockie said..
My experience with RM has been good, and I had great help from their Sydney tech department.
i have an ES7 hybrid plotter, and installed a ACU 200 AP it is all integrated with older 2006 RM tri data and wind instruments. I used my Vesper AIS as GPS rather than the integrated plotter unit.
cheers Richard

Good to hear Richard. Having that external GPS sounds like a good idea. I have an external gps that the Autopilot uses, but even though it's on the network, it's not available to be used by the Axiom plotter, (I've asked). I've been told that only a stand-alone gps would be possible. I'm sure I was able to select the existing ext GPS in my original A-series plotter, so this is maybe a further example of the overly segmented product lines that they've developed in the last few years, essentially crippling functionality on lower end models to suit.

Yes I can't fault the Sydney techs service and warranty, they're very good. btw Apparently my ACU has been reset successfully, and they're replacing the plotter with yet another one, so a good outcome there. It's just a pity I had the cost of postage and insurance to send them to Sydney though. There is one local firm that will service Raymarine, but I won't use them after being verbally insulted by one of their staff once, and unfortunately, that's it for the whole of Tasmania I believe?

It was interesting reading through the complaints, about different manufacturers, around the world on Cruisers Forum. I get the following impressions. B&G has way more complaints about hardware issues and service (although good service in the US) compared to Raymarine, so I don't think the view that B&G is better quality is neccessarily correct anymore. Garmin seems to have a bad reputation for deeming recent products "legacy" as a means of sidestepping responsibility. Raymarine also has complaints about service in some other countries, but very little about hardware issues. I guess my take-away is that the support and warranty one receives in one's own country should be a primary criteria for anyone in the market.

It looks like they have had some issues with the plotter you purchased, but also They have replaced and upgraded your plotter. But the number of faults would have me concerned about the long term reliability! The old grey 6000 series small gauges are still working in my system. They are certainly simpler and more basic, including the wiring. sory to hear of Lydia's experiences

I've got B&G gear and haven't had any real problems with it.

Right now I have a Vulcan 7 plotter, Lowrance Point 1 GPS antenna/compass, B&G Wireless wind sensor, Airmar DST800 & a Fusion BB100 stereo all networked together.

The only real problem child was the stereo - which I bought second hand from eBay. Fusion though were good enough to replace it and it's all good now. Oh, and after I installed the DST800, I needed to change the source for depth over to that. But that was literally just a call to Navico, who stepped me through the whole thing.