Simrad electronics repair

Three places a Simrad unit tends to fail

A Simrad chartplotter, MFD, or standalone display that won’t power on, has gone dark or dim on the backlight, or has stopped returning sonar or depth data is usually a fault in one of three places: the power-supply section, the backlight and display-driver circuit, or the connector and seal boundary where the unit meets the boat’s wiring. A unit that won’t boot after a surge points to the power section taking the hit first, and a display that lights up but shows nothing useful often traces to the ribbon or driver connection between the board and the screen rather than the screen itself. We diagnose down to the actual failed area before recommending anything, rather than assuming the whole board is gone.

Deck-mounted, and it shows

Simrad displays and MFDs are typically deck- or helm-mounted, which means constant exposure to salt spray, humidity, and the heat-cycle of a boat sitting in the sun all day and going dark at night. That cycling stresses seals and connector seating over years of use, and salt intrusion at a connector or header is one of the more common paths to an intermittent power fault or a unit that suddenly won’t boot at all, even when the housing and screen look fine from the outside. Vibration from the engine and hull pounding through a chop adds to the wear on those same connections over a boat’s working life, which is part of why a unit that was fine last season can fail with no single obvious event behind it.

Repair the original, against a high-minimum exchange

Once a Simrad unit is out of warranty, the manufacturer’s standard path is an OEM exchange, reported to run around a $1,600 minimum for a replacement unit, regardless of what actually failed on the board inside. That minimum is a floor: it applies the same way whether the fault is one component or a board that’s genuinely past saving, because nobody looked. Board-level repair is the alternative to that. It starts by finding out which of the two it actually is, and prices the fix against the fault rather than against a fixed exchange figure. What that comes to on a given unit is settled by the diagnosis rather than before it: the diagnosis is free, the quote that follows it is firm, and whether a fault is repairable at all is decided case by case rather than assumed either way.

Brands and scope

We work on Simrad chartplotters, MFDs, and displays. That’s the scope, and it’s deliberately narrower than the badge, since we don’t claim to service the entire Simrad product line sight unseen. This is independent repair; we are not an authorized or affiliated service center for Simrad.

Free diagnosis, local or mail-in

You’ll have a free diagnosis and a firm price in hand before any work begins, and nothing proceeds until you approve it. Drop off in Palm Bay or Melbourne, or mail the unit in from anywhere in the country.