Seneca Garmin system RF noise

[ralett]

Just picked up a 2018 Seneca tonight. One thing I noticed AFTER I drove off the lot was a high-pitch whining noise in the Garmin "Infotainment" unit. It whines as soon as the rig is started and the frequency of the whining changes with engine RPM. Shut off the Garmin or the rig and the whining noise stops.

Seems like a classic RF interference issue but I have not heard this on an automotive system for many years.

Anyone else had this issue with the Garmin?

I am hoping this is just a bad ground wire...but it is now at the top of the "warranty fixes" list.

[RVermont]

First. Congrats on your new rig!!! Hope you have miles of fun.

I have not experienced this in my m2. It is interesting that a diesel with no ignition electronics would cause interference, I always thought this was caused by the old rotors and distributors but I really don’t know much about radios or electronics. Does this occur even if the radio is off? Hope it is just a lose ground as you suspect.


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[MD3]

The Garmin unit on our new Seneca is a major headache.
- Radio works when it wants too.
- The rear camera won’t stay on. Eveytime you switch to a side camera or shift from reverse to drive it cycles the camera off. I like running with the rear camera on all the time... becomes annoying to have to turn it back on all he time.
- Rear microphone isn’t working. Jayco said it has one but I can’t figure it out, yet.
- No rear volume control. It has the display and appears to work but doesn’t do anything. Only the front cab speakers have sound.

I’m not impressed with his Garmin unit and neither is my selling dealership. They know it is a problem but so far it is not enough of a problem for anyone to do anything about it. My dealer will look at mine when we take it back to them for it’s next visit.

Sorry, no help with your current problem but I can honestly say I am not surprised.


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[memphis02]

Originally Posted by ralett

Just picked up a 2018 Seneca tonight. One thing I noticed AFTER I drove off the lot was a high-pitch whining noise in the Garmin "Infotainment" unit. It whines as soon as the rig is started and the frequency of the whining changes with engine RPM. Shut off the Garmin or the rig and the whining noise stops.

Seems like a classic RF interference issue but I have not heard this on an automotive system for many years.

Anyone else had this issue with the Garmin?

I am hoping this is just a bad ground wire...but it is now at the top of the "warranty fixes" list.

Does the noise vary with engine rpm? It sounds like you may have a ground loop isolation issue, if so. -Should be a pretty easy fix, if it is by installing a ground loop isolator, which is very cheap.

[Mark S]

I have been fooling with this Garmin quite a bit while installing my sub woofer over the past couple of days. I learned a couple of things that might be helpful.

Originally Posted by MD3

The Garmin unit on our new Seneca is a major headache.

- Radio works when it wants too.

****The power button on the base does not turn the unit on. You need to either remove and replace the remote screen or press the power button on the top left. If you then press on radio a pop up soft power button for the base appears and this turns the base on.


- The rear camera won’t stay on. Eveytime you switch to a side camera or shift from reverse to drive it cycles the camera off. I like running with the rear camera on all the time... becomes annoying to have to turn it back on all he time.

***Yes, no easy way around this. Maybe this is to prevent "burning" the screen or something. It would be a nice option.


- Rear microphone isn’t working. Jayco said it has one but I can’t figure it out, yet.

**I will try to figure this one out. It would be really helpful. But I don't think we have one regardless of what Jayco says


- No rear volume control. It has the display and appears to work but doesn’t do anything. Only the front cab speakers have sound.

**********while listening to the radio, in the top left corner of the screen are 3 or 4 lines, which opens a drop down menu. Select "settings" and scroll down to "zone" and then "rear". In the top right corner is a check box "enable" or something like that. If checked the speakers will work and if not checked you will not have rear volume. *************



I’m not impressed with his Garmin unit and neither is my selling dealership. They know it is a problem but so far it is not enough of a problem for anyone to do anything about it. My dealer will look at mine when we take it back to them for it’s next visit.

Sorry, no help with your current problem but I can honestly say I am not surprised.

**** This Garmin is very quirky but once you figure it out, and get it to work, it is kind of cool. I found the Garmin customer support to be somewhat helpful.


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[RVermont]

Mark hits on this quirkiness of this unit. I had an issue with the USB port under the cup holder. If I connected to this the whole garmin unit would freeze up. I then had to turn everything off and allow it to reset. Very frustrating. The radio is far more complicated than it should be.

Several people here have disconnected the side turn wires and just keep the unit on rear camera. The side cameras are pretty useless. The mirrors are very good and provide what I need.

If you set the garmin up with your unit having propane the unit keeps telling you to turn it off which I would like to get rid of. The problem is if you remove propane from you setup it will not route you around tunnels such as in Baltimore which could result in a steep fine. It also is very conservative on routing. Sometime you have to pick intermediate locations to force it to provide the quickest route.




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[Robbbyr]

Originally Posted by RVermont

Several people here have disconnected the side turn wires and just keep the unit on rear camera. The side cameras are pretty useless. The mirrors are very good and provide what I need.

I am one of the folks who installed a side camera cutout switch. I too like to keep the rear camera up at times to help assure I have room to move over in heavier traffic. But (prior to cutout) you hit the turn signal and lose the rear cam! Not anymore.

Another situation the side cameras were problematic was when navigating in an unfamiliar area where several turns in quick succession were required. Think city downtown with one-way streets! So when I really needed to refer to the screen to see the next turn, I would use the turn signal and "poof", the Nav screen was gone! When do I turn?! And at least on my unit, once the turn signal was turned off there was a significant delay until the side view went away, but then it always went to the rear cam for a second or two until the Nav screen would finally reappear. Very frustrating!

But with the cutout switch I can enable them, there have been times backing into tight areas alone where they were indeed helpful. If Jayco uses the same rear camera and switching box it is an easy mod, but the dash does have to come apart. And my 2014 definitely has a microphone on the rear camera, I made mine work. But that's another story, I have a completely different dash stereo and it did require some extra hardware.

[MD3]

Thank you for the help Mark !
The radio sound is working now !

The only way to unfreeze my radio is to factory reset it. Which I have had to do twice. My dealer said it may need an update... not sure what that will entail yet.

I tried messing with the rear camera mic but no progress yet.
I show mic installed on the screen and when I enable the microphone it cuts out the radio sound but it still doesn’t pick up sound from the rear camera.



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[Mark S]

Originally Posted by MD3

Thank you for the help Mark !
The radio sound is working now !

The only way to unfreeze my radio is to factory reset it. Which I have had to do twice. My dealer said it may need an update... not sure what that will entail yet.

I tried messing with the rear camera mic but no progress yet.
I show mic installed on the screen and when I enable the microphone it cuts out the radio sound but it still doesn’t pick up sound from the rear camera.



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I am glad you got it working.

What do you mean it freezes? Does the radio not show any options like. "AM FM and BT"? Mine does that pretty often. Instead of a factory reset which loses all your settings, you need to reset the wifi on the base. I think it is go to "settings, wifi, and the second one down is the base unit".

I have done the updates twice and it's pretty easy. Download Garmin Express to your computer. Hook up your Garmin with a USB cable and follow the prompts. Although it was relatively easy I don't think it made a difference.

This unit is so new that I think the dealers and even the Garmin techs don't understand it completely yet.

Keep working on the mic issue solution and I'll keep working on the radio issues. Lol

Mark

[pconroy]

Originally Posted by RVermont

Several people here have disconnected the side turn wires and just keep the unit on rear camera. The side cameras are pretty useless. The mirrors are very good and provide what I need.

That's on my to-do list. But I do think I recall seeing a way to disable them from the head-unit. I'm going to give that a try.

Before I had the RV, I thought side-cameras would be great! Now, after two years, nope - I think they're less than worthless.

[RVermont]

So never one to let a good problem go to waste. I dug into the rear camera microphone issue. I have found that the microphone is in fact hooked up and possibly useable on my 2018 37TS.

Go to camera screen




Press the setting wheel, click mic installed. Once you do this a microphone will appear on the lower left bar. This will have an x through it. When you want to listen to the mic, press the mic and it will become blue and This will then mute your stereo and you can hear the mic from the rear camera.

Now for my statement about usability, I was alone and the only way I could test this was to set my phone playing music on the rear hitch. I could hear the music but the engine and generator were off. So no warrantee that you can actually hear anything over the these items.

Next is to kill the turn signal camera feeds.




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[McGintys924]

I find that I do not use the turn signal hardly at all. Often times they are covered with road goo, and I have come to rely on the mirrors. But, like rob, am frustrated that I loose nav or rear camera if I put turn signal on. How hard is it to install the cut of switch?

We have gone to some walky talkys for us to help each other navigate the Seneca in close quarters and this works exceptionally well. No yelling and she can be looking anywhere and still communicate to me. Riley is of no help!

[MD3]

I’ve tried the rear camera mic as described above.... doesn’t work on mine.
Had someone back there trying to talk to me to test it. No sound comes through,
It mutes the radio as described but that’s all it does.


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[javamon]

Originally Posted by Robbbyr

I am one of the folks who installed a side camera cutout switch. I too like to keep the rear camera up at times to help assure I have room to move over in heavier traffic. But (prior to cutout) you hit the turn signal and lose the rear cam! Not anymore.

Another situation the side cameras were problematic was when navigating in an unfamiliar area where several turns in quick succession were required. Think city downtown with one-way streets! So when I really needed to refer to the screen to see the next turn, I would use the turn signal and "poof", the Nav screen was gone! When do I turn?! And at least on my unit, once the turn signal was turned off there was a significant delay until the side view went away, but then it always went to the rear cam for a second or two until the Nav screen would finally reappear. Very frustrating!

But with the cutout switch I can enable them, there have been times backing into tight areas alone where they were indeed helpful. If Jayco uses the same rear camera and switching box it is an easy mod, but the dash does have to come apart. And my 2014 definitely has a microphone on the rear camera, I made mine work. But that's another story, I have a completely different dash stereo and it did require some extra hardware.

Hi Rob,

Now that I've been in the dash to replace a busted speaker, I am a lot more confident in taking on the side camera cut-out switch. If you have posted details on this, could you point me to your link? Thanks!

[RVermont]

I started the engine and tried this again. Using my phone to record the sound in the cab. The first time I could barely hear the mic. I then turned the cab speaker all the way up and I could hear my voice when I went to the rear to test the sound. I did not test to see if this is in stereo or mono I just had my phone on the driver side in the overhead console. So it is possible the setting on the stereo needs to be adjusted.

I have not pulled the dash apart so not sure but possibly there is a lose wire in your unit?

Good luck.




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[Mark S]

Hey Paul, what is all that white stuff on the ground on your screen? Is that a camera setting to get that? Stay warm my friend.

[RVermont]

I don’t know. It must be moisture on the camera. Lol. This is a weird winter. Need snow for snowmobiling but the negative 10-20 f kind of sucks.


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[chfraser01]

I have a 2018 Seneca HJ and I have an annoying sound coming through the Garmin Fusion unit. In my case, the fan on my cab heating and cooling unit is causing the noise. Turn off the fan, sound is gone.

[Robbbyr]

Originally Posted by javamon

Hi Rob,

Now that I've been in the dash to replace a busted speaker, I am a lot more confident in taking on the side camera cut-out switch. If you have posted details on this, could you point me to your link? Thanks!

I think I missed replying!
Here is a link to my post where I discuss the camera cutout switch:
https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...s-39395-4.html

Also attaching the Voyager camera switching module wiring diagram, interrupting the trigger wires from the turn signals is what needs done. The Freightliner switch I reference is a double pole; it is necessary to keep the circuits separate but yet interrupt them simultaneously when you need to.

[RVermont]

Just completed this modification. Most difficult part was finding a location for the switch. I removed the ash tray and replaced it with a plastic cover. This allows me to shut off both side cameras. I have enough room in the cover to add a couple more switches. Thinking of adding side and rear lighting for after dark arrivals.

Robbbyr as always thanks for pointing out mods that I never knew I needed.


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