So I went to go fishing last Friday and in the process of pulling the boat out of the garage my powerpole got stuck and stopped working. Cancelled the trip and determined the board on the Power Pole was bad. Got the new board in today, plugged it in and voila! It works! So I paired the remote. Good. Got to pair the SIMRAD, it paired but in the process I lost the Power Pole Bar to control the power pole from the MFD.
I updated the software and feel like I’ve been through every menu.
Normally the bar is on the left of the screen but as you can see it’s not there…
I’ve scoured the internet and YouTube with no help. There was someone on Facebook posted a similar issue but never got it resolved. The remote works fine so I can still manage but I really use that bar on the SIMRAD just as much as I do the actual remote!
As an update I’ve paired forgotten and repaired several times with no luck. According to manual once the power pole pairs it should automatically come up.
Here’s what the manual says. Dreading calling SIMRAD tomorrow
I had to call Simrad recently due to track precision disappearing. They were unable to tell me how to resolve my issue. The first line tech reads from a knowledge base, and if something is over their skills, they reach out to level 2. I asked to speak directly to L2 and they said it wasn’t possible.
You may get lucky - I didn’t have to hold that long at all and had to call back a few days later - hold time was less than 5 minutes.
Forgot to mention - and this is a spoiler alert - they are probably going to tell you to factory reset your unit. Go ahead and back up all of your tracks / waypoints / settings now. Make sure to export all of your waypoints as GPX format if you use any third party software like Google Earth.
The L1 tech RTFMs out of their playbook. They had me factory reset mine.
Yeah I figured I have a micro chip I’m bringing home from my office to back up my waypoints. I’ll call today but unfortunately I can’t call when in front of my machine so was going to pick their brains for suggestions. According to the manual when the Power-Pole pairs the bar should automatically show up. And now it’s gone! I’ll keep you guys posted as always any suggestions welcome but factory reset is my next step.
Anyone know if I factory reset do I need to do any programming for my NMEA and fuel manager? East Cape did all that for me so been turnkey since…
All settings should be saved and will be imported, but some of those settings may be causing the PP issue. My NMEA info was restored and I also have a fuel data manager. However, my custom gauges did not get restored, so I had to redo my custom screen.
And I agree with @finbully - try PP first before reset.
One last thought - if you go into advanced devices, you may be able to find the device and might be able to delete it. Each device operates differently, but they are buried deep in screens. Just a thought worth looking. Think how buried the Fuel Data Manager is and also some of the configuration for the sonar sounder (which your older post really helped me setup, thank you for that).
As an update, I talked to SIMRAD and they were no help. They said they were going to send me a video on how to fix it and just sent me a link to a video that shows how to pair them, and I responded to the email with the pictures I posted above. I thought about contacting power pole and after your suggestion that is my next step before reaching back out to SIMRAD. They guy was trying to be helpful but I guess they have to go through their steps which I get but I already did a lot of trouble shooting on my own which is frustrating. At least the power pole is back up and running with the remote, but I really like having the control on the SIMRAD, I actually use it A LOT!
Called Power Pole, unfortunately no help I agree with them its likely a “SIMRAD” issue. Guy from power pole tried to help and was friendly, and easier to understand than SIMRAD support
Well I called SIMRAD back and they had the gall to tell me the issue was the Power Pole, DESPITE me sending them the photo of the power pole connected and paired. I told them I spoke to power pole and it was absolutely a SIMRAD issue! After consulting with their “specialist” they changed their tune and know “acknowledge” that it is a SIMRAD issue. I am currently awaiting a call from said “specialist”. SMH
So I reached out to East Cape and they called me back in 10 min. They gave me some hope and told me to check the NMEA that there is likely a module in there that needs to be reset. I was trying to pair wirelessly straight to the unit but this sounds promising!
Good luck. Ain’t ‘trons fun? I was a comm/nav tech in the Navy and my first trouble-shooting step after opening the cover on the black boxes and checking for burnt diodes/wiring was to put the cover back on the unit and give it a good whack! A sometimes that was all it took.
I tried whacking the power pole but didn’t help! So far I’ve had 3 conversations with SIMRAD, 3 with Power Pole, and a couple with East Cape. I do have something to try when I get home today so I have my fingers crossed. Power Pole has been great, East Cape has been great, SIMRAD first line sucks, but once I talked to the “specialist” that was more productive. Case is still open and hopefully what I try this afternoon will do the trick. Wish me luck!
Guys I figured it out!!! Well I didn’t but Nate from SIMRAD gave me somethig to try and it worked! The solution was NOT INTUITIVE from a menu perspective but makes sense once I did it. Here’s the tab I lost…
So here’s what happened. After 3 conversations wirh both SIMRAD and Power Pole and a couple with East Cape it all came together. Nate, the specialist from SIMRAD told me he even had to reach out to Power Pole to see what they could come up with.
He gave me 2 suggestions to try today. The first was to update the firmware on the NEW Power Pole board. Apparently even though it’s “new” it could have an older version of firmware on it. I assumed since it was new it should have the latest firmware. Well that was NOT the solution but according to Power Pole 90% of issues can be solved by updating the firmware so I’ll include that here.
The problem was I kept focusing on the “Bluetooth” menu. You’d think it connects via Bluetooth so that must be the answer yes? I would see the powerpole was paired and connected and I kept forgetting and repairing without any success. I was driving myself crazy.
@Loogie had mentioned to me about somehow clearing the old board but after I did the update the old power pole was not in the Bluetooth device list. No problem right? Wrong.
Nate suggested I go into the “hotspot settings” menu and clear that. Apparently somewhere deep
In the machine far away from any menus those old pairings are still there and interfere with new pairings. So I clicked the hotspot menu and clicked to Restore Defaults and when I repaired the power pole the control bar magically appeared…
I don’t know about you but hotspot to me is associated with wifi and internet. Don’t know how that’s related to Bluetooth but I’m not techy like that.
Anyway thought I’d share this resolution as I scoured the internet about the problem and only saw it once and they never found the solution. I’m so friggin glad I got this resolved it was driving me nuts!
Glad you got it figured out and out here for others to pull from if they ever experience it.
But you are right - Hotspot should not interfere with Bluetooth. The reason is does is due to bad programming. Simrad still cannot tell me how to resolve two issues - one I know is due to magic numbers (hard coded limits) and the other I believe is due to bad cloud synchronization logic. I was a coder in a past life which helps me resolve stuff on my own, or at least work around issues.
To be fully transparent the reason I say it wasn’t the power pole update it’s because the app was giving me trouble in my garage so I don’t think it updated successfully. At least I did not get any confirmation that that process happened. Either way I did not go to the hotspot menu by accident I was directed there. I suppose a hard reset would have also fixed the problem by I really didn’t want to do that…
