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[Roc]

Hi everyone,
Finally launched Sea Life last Tuesday morning and that afternoon, motored from Rock Hall to Annapolis to our new home port on Back Creek.  All went well and all electronics functioned properly. Friday we went out for our first sail and when I switched on the electronics, I got an error message on the Autopilot; "STLK FAIL".  The autopilot  was inoperable, the knot meter did not take the SOG information from the GPS.  Would appreciate if anyone can point me in the right direction to diagnose the problem.  All instruments are Raymarine, ST4000, model year 2000.  All have worked fine up until now.  Thanks!

[Noah]

Roc—What does “the knot meter did not take the SOG information from the GPS…” mean?

[waughoo]

I found a chafe of my yellow signal wire to the power wire of the seatalk network that caused all the instruments to stop talking to each other.  You might want to atart disconnecting instruments one at a time and see if the remaining ones start talking to each other.

[tvorgitch]

I had the exact same problem. It turns I had to replace the cable to the GPS. There are some troubleshooting tips available here: https://forum.raymarine.com/showthread.php?tid=5053

[Roc]

Noah. It’s basically what Tom mentioned. The instruments are not talking to each other so the knot meter head was not getting information from the GPS. Also the autopilot was not functioning. It was showing the error message.

[Noah]

I still don’t get it. A “knot meter” usually is connected to a paddlewheel sender and does not have any connection/input from the GPS. The chart plotter may/does as can a multifunction display. Probably just terminology confusion I am having— so nevermind

[waughoo]

Noah... the knot meter can also show SOG from the GPS as well as the speed through the water via the paddle wheel.  When the netwprk is down, the knot meter does not have the SOG data from the GPS and thus can't display it.

[Noah]

Thx. I am not familiar with his particular brand of speedo device he is using. Back in the day a knot meter was a single device for speed through water only. I guess the newer Raymarine speed displays do take a GPS feed. Now days most folks use DST triducers to some sort of multifunction display. I use B&G stuff; 2 Triton displays and 2 Zeus plotters with built-in GPS that parses all data to give SOG, etc.

[mark_53]

Did you turn the sea talk network on?  It has a separate power supply?

[Roc]

Hi Mark. Yes. The system was turned on as usual. When powered up. All units are activated.

Hi Noah. I haven’t had my paddle wheel sensor in for a number of years. It keeps fouling up so I just gave up using it and now have my knot meter read SOG from the GPS.

[Roc]

Hi everyone...  I was able to diagnose that it's the ST60 Wind that is causing the failure.  When I took that unit out of the chain, everything powered up with no "STLK FAILURE" on the Autopilot display.  So the head unit must be the problem.  I know Raymarine does not service these units anymore.  Does anyone know someone that I can send this ST60 Wind head unit for service?

Thanks!
Roc-

[waughoo]

Might try searching on ebay for a replacement. There always seem to be a ton of ST 60 gear on there.

[tvorgitch]

Does the heat unit function correctly when not connected to SeaTalk?

SeaTalk seems to be very sensitive to the connections. You might try cleaning all the blade connectors and replacing the crimp connectors before buying a replacement.

[Ron Hill]

Roc : There is a company called DMI that serviced the old Datamarine wind heads.  You might see if they might also do Raymarine.  I've got two different Tel numbers - don't know if either are good or not?  (508) 654-7491 & (508) 563-7151.  Also try www.dmimarine.com.

You might want to check them out!!  A thought

[Stu Jackson]

I simply typed "Raymarine repair" in the search box.  Hit #4 was this one:

https://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,7129.msg48070.html#msg48070