Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Good Point - a separate battery should lead to some conclusions or has this already been tried? I would be somewhat suspect of other possible problems since your voltage checks seem somewhat inconsistent.
In my own case I installed a 332 in my 8120 this Spring. While testing prior to actual Spring work, I would leave the tractor out over night with the 332 on to maintain convergence. I would leave the tractor in a clear spot in my dooryard for these tests. The 332 and autopilot are wired "hot" but can be shut off via the Trimble supplied lighted toggle switch, this circuit also supplies power to my Ag Leader Insight which is used with the autopilot.
I did notice that when I started the tractor, the display on the 332 would indicate "low battery voltage". I didn't really suspect a battery problem but I did lose convergence (I regained it quite quickly but I did lose it).
Not wanting any problems with the tractor during planting, I did replace the batteries. I did not test them to determine if they were in fact defective. I had no starting or other electrical problems to indicate poor batteries.
At the time I also had a separate power/data cable hooked to Port B on the 332. This was in anticipation of using another GPS device off of port B in the future so it did not have any device or power hooked to the power leads. I did receive some other error codes which escape me at the moment and may have been related to this power/data cable acting as an antenna of sorts.
Since I wasn't actually using Port B for anything I disconnected this power/data cable from Port B.
I also rerouted the power directly to the battery since it was fairly easy to do. Initially I had pulled power off of another circuit behind the dash.
This seemed to create some problems which totally surprised me. Our "rule of thumb" is, when in doubt, get power directly from the battery, as this may reduce interference problems. This is another thought for your situation.
I rehooked the power to the power strip and snapped on one of those magnetic line surpressors that I had gotten with some other of electronic device. Between the new batteries, removing the unused Port B cable and the magnetic device, my major problems disappeared.
My point in all this is to affirm the idea that the 332 may be a bit fussy considering all the electrical and RF activity that may be going on in a vehicle.
As has been stated in another thread below, you will need the Beacon antenna to switch to Beacon once XP/HP performance is not needed. Considering the cost of the XP/HP signal, it is ironic that we may want to switch to a "free signal".
When figured on a daily used basis, my personal cost of XP is pretty spendy. Granted I could use it 365 days a year but I don't. I understand that they have a program for partial year use, but I understand it is setup so that someone in my timeframe of use would not benefit from it.
Edited by tedbear 7/13/2006 07:28
|
Does the 332 Trimble need more than 12 Volts?
