[TG11] es127 touch screen failure

[pwagsc]

Touch screen has ceased to work properly. History - worked perfectly for 1.5 years until recently. Failure was touch stopped working but occasionally it would act as if it received a touch, but very specific. If the screen was a data screen, then a beep is heard and the screen behaves as if it received a Menu -> Customize input. If not a data screen then you hear a beep but nothing happens. This occurs in 3 secs to a minute. Luckily disabling touch stops this behaviour. The screen works normally in manual control mode. The screen is thoroughly washed with fresh water and dried with microfiber but it makes no difference. The behavior happened only rarely. But on a 10 day passage, the first failure was after 36 hours, reboot solved, then failed after 24 hours, reboot solved, then started requiring 2 or 3 reboots to function with failures happening within the hour. Each time the screen was cleaned. The failure initially occurred after MOB was pressed then reset using v17 software - but was rare. Upgraded to v19 software and the failure became more prominent, until the trip. Now when I turn the display on cold, it will fail within 10 minutes, usually quicker. If I turn on my radar, failure is immediate. Interesting side bit is that id I disable touch while it is working, then when I enable it - no touch. Only a reboot brings touch is back. Very frustrating. I have not done a factory reset because Raymarine is unclear what data will not be restored. I have a lot of custom data screens. Do I need to recreate all of these?

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello pwagsc,

Sorry to hear that.

To answer the last part of your post first, I wouldn't do a factory reset, I don't think it will resolve the problem.

In the experience of myself and the support team here in Australia, incorrect touch inputs or unresponsive touch when using clean, dry hands are generally down to one of the following things:

1. Incorrect product grounding
The eS has a thin black drain wire on its power cable, along with the thick black power cable. This drain wire needs to be connected via a low-resistance path to the boat's RF ground point (battery negative, if there's no dedicated ground). It needs to be a low-resistance path in order to provide a preferential route for noise signals. Installers who don't know what to do with it commonly leave it hanging free (or connect to the nearest bit of metalwork, or even to battery positive (!)), but none of these are a good plan.

2. Unstable power supply
The touchscreen relies on an electrical connection between your body and the display: if the display's supply isn't stable, the touchscreen controller doesn't have a reliable reference point. Boat power supplies can be anything but 12V (or 24V) DC, despite what a multimeter or distribution panel meter will tell you. Engine, solar or other charging systems can superimpose significant noise or ripple onto the supply, whilst other devices can pull the supply down through the current they draw, which can be anything but steady-state.
If in doubt, we recommend having a good-quality, technical installer check the supply with an oscilloscope: this is the only true measure of supply stability. We sometimes see 12V supplies that measure as 13-odd volts stable on a multimeter but turn out to have peaks of 60V or more when checked with a 'scope.

3. A product fault.
If neither of the above options make any improvement, I'd suggest getting it checked at your nearest Raymarine technical service dealer or service centre. If your display's only around 1.5 years old then it sounds like it may well be under warranty (2 years as standard, 3 if registered on our website when new.)

Regards,
Tom

[pwagsc]

I have checked the power with an oscilloscope and it is very stable. I have 2 power sources - AGM and Lithium. Failure is the same with either. I have been doing testing the last few days and I have a consistent result that is very strange.

If I keep power off the NMEA trunk and run the display, then it runs all day with touch with one exception: If I disable touch then reenable it, I never ever regain touch until I reboot.

Second weird symptom. If I am running, once again disconnected from NMEA, all is great until I turn on the radar. Instant loss of touch. If I turn off the radar, still no touch. Only resolution is as above - reboot and it is back and will keep running until I turn radar on again. I should mention that this problem started occurring after I installed a new Quantum radar replacing a 418HD.


If I keep radar and NMEA off, it seems to run all day. This seems to point to software, not hardware. The very fact that touch disappears after I hit the disable then reenable - but a reboot restores it - appears to rule out hardware - or at least make it very weird.


Then again, if I turn on the NMEA bus then eventually touch will disappear. Could take seconds or a day. After it fails, I get a consistent touch beep every three to 50 seconds as if someone is touching the screen and the screen changes as described in my original post.

I will triple check the drain wire continuity just in case.

Thanks for the response,

Cheers, Paul

(05-27-18 09:29 PM)Tom - Raymarine - Moderator Wrote:  Hello pwagsc,

Sorry to hear that.

To answer the last part of your post first, I wouldn't do a factory reset, I don't think it will resolve the problem.

In the experience of myself and the support team here in Australia, incorrect touch inputs or unresponsive touch when using clean, dry hands are generally down to one of the following things:

1. Incorrect product grounding
The eS has a thin black drain wire on its power cable, along with the thick black power cable. This drain wire needs to be connected via a low-resistance path to the boat's RF ground point (battery negative, if there's no dedicated ground). It needs to be a low-resistance path in order to provide a preferential route for noise signals. Installers who don't know what to do with it commonly leave it hanging free (or connect to the nearest bit of metalwork, or even to battery positive (!)), but none of these are a good plan.

2. Unstable power supply
The touchscreen relies on an electrical connection between your body and the display: if the display's supply isn't stable, the touchscreen controller doesn't have a reliable reference point. Boat power supplies can be anything but 12V (or 24V) DC, despite what a multimeter or distribution panel meter will tell you. Engine, solar or other charging systems can superimpose significant noise or ripple onto the supply, whilst other devices can pull the supply down through the current they draw, which can be anything but steady-state.
If in doubt, we recommend having a good-quality, technical installer check the supply with an oscilloscope: this is the only true measure of supply stability. We sometimes see 12V supplies that measure as 13-odd volts stable on a multimeter but turn out to have peaks of 60V or more when checked with a 'scope.

3. A product fault.
If neither of the above options make any improvement, I'd suggest getting it checked at your nearest Raymarine technical service dealer or service centre. If your display's only around 1.5 years old then it sounds like it may well be under warranty (2 years as standard, 3 if registered on our website when new.)

Regards,
Tom

[pwagsc]

Hi Tom,

Last bit of info.

Confirmed the drain wire is well connected so that is not a problem. Ran a new wire to ground just to be certain. No difference.

Disconnected display and put it on a lab bench supply while monitoring with oscilloscope. No difference.

Realized that all my testing of the last couple days were in cool evening and overnight. As the sun came on the MFD today, it started malfunctioning soon after boot so I think all that other info is a red herring except that the malfunction seems more likely to occur the hotter it gets. MFD currently draws 1.3 amps.

Before giving up and shipping to Raymarine, I played with the display a bit more. I am still baffled why once you disable touch that it will not reenable. I have discovered (and this makes no sense to me) that if I tap a dual pane display a couple times a second on the inactive panel, it will activate approx. 15 seconds after the last malfunction, be fully responsive to multitouch input for 1 to 2 seconds then I will hear a beep and off it goes to the Configure mode I mentioned in the first post. If I return it to the dual pane (2 back presses) and start tapping again, this will repeat itself. What is fascinating is once active, it is fully responsive until the beep and ensuing screen switch. Maybe the software is disabling input for a while and once enabled, it reacts fine until whatever happens that causes the beep and screen switch.

So that is all that I can tell you. If I send it in and the techs say it works fine in an air conditioned test facility then I wouldn't be surprised. Any other thoughts?

Regards, Paul

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Paul,

I'm sorry to say, that sounds like it's got an internal problem to me.
I'd get it back to your nearest service centre, but make sure that you report the temperature sensitivity when you do so. When we receive products for service (at this office - Sydney) where this is mentioned as a factor, we run the product in an insulated enclosure with container of hot water in order to provide a hot, humid tropical environment that hopefully will replicate the symptom.

Regards,
Tom

[Brian_Kohl]

I have exactly this issue. I have completed suggestion 1 and checked the battery supply (fine) and so far no change.

Mine also seems related to heat, but can also occur at night when cool. I have put in fans and increased air flow but that hasn't helped.

Most of the time I can also operate it from the iPad App - touch works on the iPad and the screen reacts but it will not function from the screen directly.

It started after I did a software upgrade to the new 'lighthouse' os, but I do not know if it is related to that or not.

It is related to how much it is being 'used' - it will almost always happen if I try and enter a waypoing via lat/long for example. If I don't touch anything it will generally keep functioning for quite a few hours; however, even then it will eventually start zooming in to the max zoom and will sit there and refuse to accept input.

How was your issue resolved?

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Brian,

I would get your display checked at a service centre. If you eliminate supply (that is, it's the only thing connected to a battery) and grounding (the drain wire on the power cable is connected to battery negative and there's no other path to any sort of 'ground') and the problem remains then it's likely to be inside the display, I'm sorry to say.

Regards,
Tom