Tips, Tricks & Troubleshooting. Tips & Tricks ... Before you attach the unit, with the
unit running and an active SIM card installed, temporarily place the unit in the ...
Tips, Tricks & Troubleshooting
Tips & Tricks Mounting Location Mounting Bracket Testing Signal Strength Bilge Monitoring, Two Wire Sensor Float Switch or Bilge Pump Monitor Resistance Probe Run Time Alerts
Troubleshooting
Unresponsive Siren Marine Unit Siren Marine Unit Does Not Respond to SMS Commands Geo-‐Fence is Reporting False Alerts No GPS Fix
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Tips & Tricks There are many ways to maximize the utility of your Siren Marine device. This PDF has lots of helpful ‘tips and tricks’ as well as diagrams, technical details and troubleshooting advice.
Ways to Maximize Your Installation Vertical Orientation is Key When choosing a location to mount your unit, keep a few things in mind. The unit must be mounted in a vertical orientation. A slight tilt, up to about 25 degrees, with the face of the unit towards the sky is acceptable for the GPS antenna to acquire properly. Mounting Bracket The included mounting bracket can be bent to accommodate mounting. Bend slowly and carefully to avoid cracking the aluminum. Replacement brackets can be purchased from your local dealer at a nominal price if the bracket is broken during installation. Test Location Signal Strength Using GETSIG Before you attach the unit, with the unit running and an active SIM card installed, temporarily place the unit in the intended mounting area. Send the unit the GETSIG command and check the signal strength. If you have acceptable GPS and GSM signal, your location is suitable for permanent installation. Three bars is the minimal required signal strength for installation. The device is water and vibration resistant, however, the better the environment for an electronic device the better. Though we do stand behind our products for installations in demanding locations like Jetski’s and motorcycles! Different Mounting Locations
1) Under the Deck in Cupboard with full reception 2) Mounted under a fiberglass inflatable boat console 3) Custom mounting bracket for tight coils
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Bilge Monitoring Protecting against water intrusion into your boat is one of the most common problems and potentially the most catastrophic events that Siren Marine helps you mitigate. Our Siren Marine units can be configured to monitor bilge activity in multiple ways through connecting to a float switch, resistance probe, high water alarm, automatic bilge pump, or the unit’s wires. Two Wire Sensor Our two wire electronic water sensor is one of the most basic ways our unit can help you monitor water level. From your wiring harness, simply connect two more extension wires from the blue and black (ground) leads from he unit’s cable (preferable of the same color) and lead them to the area of the bilge you want to monitor. Cut the ends so that they are slightly different length and expose ¼” of wire on each. Cable tie them together at this slightly different length so that the exposed metal can not make contact. Secure the wire run in place. When water rises over the higher of the two exposed wire ends, the Siren device senses this and sends you the high water alert! Float Switch or Bilge Pump Panel Monitoring Another way to monitor your bilge and bilge pump, is to connect the unit to the bilge float switch or bilge pump panel light using one of our 12v pigtails. When the float-switch activates from high water, Siren also receives the signal and send you the alert. Just be sure that you use a 12v pigtail when ever you are monitoring a 12v circuit as your Siren Marine device runs on a much lower voltage to conserve energy and maximize its own internal power should you loose power aboard. Remember – Siren products are designed to work up to 3 days on the backup battery to keep you informed if your boat loses power! Resistance Probe Connecting a Siren Pixie or Sprite to a resistance probe is an easy, cost effective way to monitor bilge activity. Simply connect the blue wire from your Pixie or Sprite to a resistance probe (sold separately within our online store) and know when water level rises. Mount the resistance probe at the high water level, and if water reaches that sensor and closes the connection, you will receive the high water alert! Run Time Alerts Another great feature of our Sprite and Pixie products is the ability to measure run-time of a switch; like your engine oil pressure sensor or your bilge pump float-switch. Another common problem in boats is a faulty or stuck float switch. With Siren Marine’s electronic bilge level monitoring circuitry, you’ll never have to worry about this. However, you can connect the brown and white wires from the unit’s cable to the panel light or float-switch to your bilge pump
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using a 12v pigtail and measure the run-time. You can set the device to start timing every time the pump is turned on. If it runs for more than say, 3 minutes, you get a ‘bilge pump over-run alert’. Why is this useful and important? Lets say that you boat is safely tied to the dock or mooring, and a large vessel passes by throwing off a big wake. Your boat rocks around and the float switch flips on from residual water in the bilge and gets stuck in the on position. Your bilge pump is running and yet there is no water in the bilge. Two things will certainly result: your batteries are going to run flat, and if they run long enough, your bilge pump is going to burn out. Fortunately, Siren would also let you know when your batteries got low, but with this additional monitoring circuit, you’ll know you have a problem before it gets serious. Lets look at it another way. This time you actually have a leak and are taking on water, but your bilge pump is keeping up. Your bilge pump is going to run pumping out the water until it wears down the battery and eventually stops. At this point, you have two serious problems, and not a lot of time to respond: a sinking boat (-or- a serious leak) and a dead battery. With Siren Marine onboard, you could avoid catastrophe.
Troubleshooting Below is a brief troubleshooting guide, which should prove useful if you are experiencing difficulty during the installation. Problem: Unresponsive Siren Marine Unit 1. The SIM chip is not active, activate the SIM card online or call Siren Marine tech support. 2. No SIM card is installed, ensure that a SIM card has been properly installed in the unit. 3. The SIM card is defective. To test the SIM card, remove it from your Siren Marine unit, and place in a regular cell phone. With the Siren Marine SIM installed in a regular phone, text the word “test” another cell phone. If a message is not sent, your SIM card is defective. Problem: Siren Marine Unit Does Not Respond to SMS Commands 1. The SIM Card is installed improperly. Orient correctly and make sure the holder is firmly closed. 2. The battery is not plugged in. Open the unit and plug in the battery. 3. The call to phone number is incorrect in the unit's call list. 4. The call to number was entered incorrectly in the unit. Verify the syntax and try again. Try 'GETPHONE' to see the contents of the call list. 5. The phone number is correct, but in your area you need a 1 in front of the number.
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When entering the call to phone numbers, do not use spaces or formatting. For example, if you wanted to add the number {(123) 456 – 7890} to the number one spot in your Siren Marine unit, the message you would send would be {adph1 8digitpasscode 11234567890}. Problem: Geo-‐Fence is Reporting False Alerts 1. Your geo-fence is probably too small, and you should try increasing the radius (Set radius above 25 meters). Accuracy is a variable of many different things, atmospheric conditions, unit location, time of day, sun spots, surrounding building and terrain. All Siren Marine products have very high gain GPS antennas and can be mounted under cowlings and thin decks. If you are receiving false messages, your radius might be too tight. 2. Check the Unit Location. Send the GETSIG command and see if the GPS has a good signal. If the signal is consistently poor, try mounting the unit in a different location Problem: No GPS Fix 1. Turn on the GPS by sending the SMS message, GPSON 2. The unit not mounted in a suitable location to receive the GSM signal. Send GETSIG to verify signal strength. Relocate unit in a suitable location if signal is coming back weak (below three bars) 3. The GPS antenna cable has come unplugged from the circuit board. Open the unit and carefully plug in the antenna to the circuit board. The GPS antenna is located above the battery and the plug is on the left side of the unit, the plug recepticle is located in the upper left corner of the circuit board.
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