Maina intermittent issue

[sebba]

Ok, update
Have been running it at home on clean AC 12V PSU since the weekend.  The Maiana running on its own has crashed a few times and normally needs a period of power off (normally greater than 30mins) and then will fire up again. Its deceptive as you think its not running but it takes a few minutes to start up. When you first switch it on, the AIS led flickers very briefly, if you see that - its pretty certain its going to fire up.

I hope is a DC 12v PSU, not AC.
What AIS LED? How is connected? How do you know it's crashed? Are you using some NMEA adapters? Or the UART2USB breakout? 
Please let us know the entire configuration/connections you made. 
Is it difficult to debug it without complete information.

[mikekolling]

   

Ok, update
Have been running it at home on clean AC 12V PSU since the weekend.  The Maiana running on its own has crashed a few times and normally needs a period of power off (normally greater than 30mins) and then will fire up again. Its deceptive as you think its not running but it takes a few minutes to start up. When you first switch it on, the AIS led flickers very briefly, if you see that - its pretty certain its going to fire up.

I hope is a DC 12v PSU, not AC.
What AIS LED? How is connected? How do you know it's crashed? Are you using some NMEA adapters? Or the UART2USB breakout? 
Please let us know the entire configuration/connections you made. 
Is it difficult to debug it without complete information.

Well it would have blown up long ago if it wasnt 12V!!

I have used grafana to chart the Maiana A and B Noise at home and now on the boat and to be honest its lower on the boat.

AIS Transmitting LED

I was using the USB Breakout initially at home but then went back to the Macarthur as it did not make any difference.

I am now back on the boat, and again all day yesterday worked well, switched off the end of the day, Switched on this morning and the Maiana is dead again.

I did have a Breakout RJ45 circuit to cut the power (attached to this post) but that did not help.
Only thing that worked was physically disconnecting the RJ45, wait 30secs and then plug in again.
I know you have mentioned Earth Loops before but i cannot see how there would be a loop, EVERYTHING here is from the same 12V power supply, the RPI and via the Macarthur hat, the Maiana.
So how can there be a loop?


I did also try moving the Maiana antenna to other areas of the boat eg right on the transom, right on the bow, etc and that did not make any difference either.

[sebba]

The TX LED should stay on if TX is enabled (soft and hard, too). And should blink (turning off) from time to time (1-3min period) only after the GPS LED will turn on (having GPS fix). Is this the case?
Regarding the PSU, you said AC 12v. I hope is just a typo and you are using a DC 12v, not AC. I asked about this just to be sure about.

[aitonos]

Another "victim" of Maiana’s unreliability.

I’ve had constant problems since I bought it. After what felt like a million trials, I finally discovered that the Victron Charger or MPPT seemed to be causing Maiana’s sudden shutdowns.

At one point, I disconnected the MPPT and Maiana immediately came back to life. The same thing happened earlier when I unplugged the charger from the wall. That convinced me the Charger + MPPT were creating interference. I thought I had finally solved the problem, and as you can imagine, I was thrilled.

I left it running for 30 days without issues, but then—suddenly—it stopped again. This time, disconnecting the charger makes no difference; Maiana won’t come back.

I even unplugged the RJ45 from the HAT for several minutes and reconnected it, but nothing changed. (I use it through the MacArthur HAT, which now, when plugged  just shows a fixed green light.) 

I’ll leave the Pi5 off overnight and try again tomorrow.

The antenna is mounted at the stern, with all the network cabling routed and sealed. Reinstalling it somewhere else would be a nightmare I don’t even want to think about.

Honestly, it feels like such a waste of time and money. I’m going nuts over this

[Sailoog]

how do you know the maiana is not working? tx or rx?
what is the fixed green light? gps? tx? rx?

have you checked connections and cable?

[aitonos]

how do you know the maiana is not working? tx or rx?
what is the fixed green light? gps? tx? rx?

have you checked connections and cable?

Hi Sailoog; thanks for the support!

Connections are OK; cable is OK too, the green light is the one that shines for AIS TX, solid and not blonking and GPS and AIS RX leds don't shine at all.

I left the Network cable for Maiana disconnected for some minutes and didn't work.

As I said in my last post, I let the PI off for oine night and next morning, whenI started it, maiana worked as usual. 

Since then, working 24 hours and no problem. It seems that Maiana or Mac Arthur ( or the communication between both) go into a deep error, and then even restarting cannot resume communications and must let be OFF for several hours ( or maybe more minutes than what I tried) to clear up remaining data/error/whatever to be able to start again.

Next time if it happens, instead of putting off the PI, I'll disconnect the Maiana to know if it works just doing so.

I would´nt like to imagine to be in a complicated moment and suffer this blackout of GPS and AIS functions. 

Thanks!
 

No idea.

[mikekolling]

how do you know the maiana is not working? tx or rx?
what is the fixed green light? gps? tx? rx?

have you checked connections and cable?

Hi Sailoog; thanks for the support!

Connections are OK; cable is OK too, the green light is the one that shines for AIS TX, solid and not blonking and GPS and AIS RX leds don't shine at all.

I left the Network cable for Maiana disconnected for some minutes and didn't work.

As I said in my last post, I let the PI off for oine night and next morning, whenI started it, maiana worked as usual. 

Since then, working 24 hours and no problem. It seems that Maiana or Mac Arthur ( or the communication between both) go into a deep error, and then even restarting cannot resume communications and must let be OFF for several hours ( or maybe more minutes than what I tried) to clear up remaining data/error/whatever to be able to start again.

Next time if it happens, instead of putting off the PI, I'll disconnect the Maiana to know if it works just doing so.

I would´nt like to imagine to be in a complicated moment and suffer this blackout of GPS and AIS functions. 

Thanks!
 

No idea.

That's exactly what used to happen to mine.

[Sailoog]

how do you know the maiana is not working? tx or rx?
what is the fixed green light? gps? tx? rx?

have you checked connections and cable?

Hi Sailoog; thanks for the support!

Connections are OK; cable is OK too, the green light is the one that shines for AIS TX, solid and not blonking and GPS and AIS RX leds don't shine at all.

I left the Network cable for Maiana disconnected for some minutes and didn't work.

As I said in my last post, I let the PI off for oine night and next morning, whenI started it, maiana worked as usual. 

Since then, working 24 hours and no problem. It seems that Maiana or Mac Arthur ( or the communication between both) go into a deep error, and then even restarting cannot resume communications and must let be OFF for several hours ( or maybe more minutes than what I tried) to clear up remaining data/error/whatever to be able to start again.

Next time if it happens, instead of putting off the PI, I'll disconnect the Maiana to know if it works just doing so.

I would´nt like to imagine to be in a complicated moment and suffer this blackout of GPS and AIS functions. 

Thanks!
 

No idea.

If the GPS LED is off that means that you do not have a fixed position maybe due to a not clear sky view. Are you at home?

You did not answer the question "how do you know the maiana is not working?". what makes you think that? OpenCPN, signal k dashboard, signal k data inspector...?

Next time you are experimenting the same issue try to report exactly what LEDs are on and off and what is exactly the data you are getting from maiana using the data inspectors of OpenCPN or signal k. The signal k dashboard can be also useful to know if the connection is inconsistent due to bad cables or connectors.

[aitonos]

how do you know the maiana is not working? tx or rx?
what is the fixed green light? gps? tx? rx?

have you checked connections and cable?

Hi Sailoog; thanks for the support!

Connections are OK; cable is OK too, the green light is the one that shines for AIS TX, solid and not blonking and GPS and AIS RX leds don't shine at all.

I left the Network cable for Maiana disconnected for some minutes and didn't work.

As I said in my last post, I let the PI off for oine night and next morning, whenI started it, maiana worked as usual. 

Since then, working 24 hours and no problem. It seems that Maiana or Mac Arthur ( or the communication between both) go into a deep error, and then even restarting cannot resume communications and must let be OFF for several hours ( or maybe more minutes than what I tried) to clear up remaining data/error/whatever to be able to start again.

Next time if it happens, instead of putting off the PI, I'll disconnect the Maiana to know if it works just doing so.

I would´nt like to imagine to be in a complicated moment and suffer this blackout of GPS and AIS functions. 

Thanks!
 

No idea.

If the GPS LED is off that means that you do not have a fixed position maybe due to a not clear sky view. Are you at home?

You did not answer the question "how do you know the maiana is not working?". what makes you think that? OpenCPN, signal k dashboard, signal k data inspector...?

Next time you are experimenting the same issue try to report exactly what LEDs are on and off and what is exactly the data you are getting from maiana using the data inspectors of OpenCPN or signal k. The signal k dashboard can be also useful to know if the connection is inconsistent due to bad cables or connectors.

Thanks for the help. But I start to be a professional for this, as it's not been just once. Hope that now it's clear enough. It is the same case others are reporting here.

When fails, Mac Arthur's works in all other ports I use without any issue : I2C, 2x Nmea 0183, 1wire. Lights for Nmea 0183 happily blink according their activity. 

During failure, I don't get any gps light as Maiana is like fried, same happens if I look at satellites status in opencpn dashboard or in webapp instrument panel: there is no search, no activity, just flat and 0 GPS found. 

The Maiana antenna is installed on the stern of the boat, with open sky and very well installed with high quality shielded cable. Proof of its good installation is that when it works, it works like a charm with up to 15 miles reception and sometimes more. 
I know that Maiana is not working as there are no signs of activity at all in Signal K server dashboard (when there has been any activity the incoming icon is dark blue but fixed, when it's working pulses, and when it hasn't received anything since last server restart is shaded, and it's shaded). 
If I make a request in Maiana App , I get outcoming messages every time I push the button, but cannot reach the device. 

If it works, and then stops working, I get the last recorded data strings in signal K data inspector, but not any other since failure. I know that we'll as I'm very used to browse data strings to configure different things like Kip, derived data, polar performance, etc. I run openplotter already for almost 5 years and my Moitessier hat pi 4 gave some troubles with GPS reception, but overall rock solid. Headaches came with new system pi5+Mac Arthur + maiana, which besides this case, work also very well. 

Some months ago, (you can look for messages from me in this forum, other threads) I have had times that GPS reception didn't worked, no lights at all) but Ais reception always worked during those moments (not transmitting as it needs a GPS position to be able to transmit). But this case we're trying to understand, anything from Maiana no way working until being disconnected for several hours, it's different. It's like absolute hardware failure, like if it had been fried (but fortunately next day, once plugged back, worked again ). 

Thanks!

[sebba]

Can you try to bypass the MacArthur hat and connect Maiana through USB, using the small UART board?