Livorsi GPS speedometer antenna fix for about $100

[steamin rice]

Most people are aware of the issue with a bunch of Livorsi GPS speedomters - The original design used an antenna that is battery powered, and eventually the battery will go dead. Some people have been able to change the battery inside the antenna and their speedo will keep working, but a lot of people have tried this and it doesn't work because the GPS receiver will lose it's programming eventually when the battery is dead.

Livorsi offers a battery-free replacement antenna for about $200, but on their website they state that the speedometers with the molex type 3 pin antenna connector aren't compatible with the new antenna and can't be repaired. My speedometer is one with the 3 pin molex connector, so for a few years I have just gone without a working speedometer because I didn't want to spend the money for a completely new monster GPS speedo.

I started doing some research into this, and found out that what Livorsi says is complete BS. The speedos use a standard GPS signal, called NMEA0183. This means that any GPS antenna that is compatible with NMEA0183 can be used. Also, the 3 pins on the molex connector on the gauge are for 12V, ground, and the GPS signal.

I found a 12V replacement GPS receiver on Amazon.com for $99, which looks to be the exact same unit that Livorsi is selling for $200.

Here is the GPS receiver that I bought:http://www.amazon.com/Sierra-Intern...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

Some people have used a Garmin GPS receiver which works fine also, but the Garmin units run off of 5V, so you need to also wire in an adapeter to convert 12V to 5V. I chose the Sierra receiver because it is a direct 12V connection for a clean install.

Yesterday, I pulled my boat out of the garage and wired in the new antenna. It worked great and was an easy fix. The new antenna has 4 wires on it, red, black, white, and green. The green wire isn't used for the speedometer, so just connect the red to 12V, black to ground, and white to the GPS signal connection on the speedometer. If you have the 3 pin molex connetor like I do, I think this actually makes for a better install. Just match the three wire colors (red, black, and white) from the new GPS receiver to the same color wires from the 3 pin molex connector. I soldered and heat shrink wrapped the connections from my new antenna to the molex harness for the gauge. See below for pictures.

 

[cicchetti_24]

So that eliminates the puck?

 

[steamin rice]

So that eliminates the puck?

Yes - The puck is the GPS receiver and sends a signal to the speedometer. The replacement does the same thing, but doesn't need a battery so you don't need to worry about this issue.

 

[cicchetti_24]

Yes - The puck is the GPS receiver and sends a signal to the speedometer. The replacement does the same thing, but doesn't need a battery so you don't need to worry about this issue.

Where did you mount it?

If I replace mine I'm pretty sure I'll need the hole filled. I'm trying to think where I'd mount this on my boat. Thanks for the info!

I ran into one of the Livorsi guys last week and he said they made a plug in play replacement and that it was a 100 bucks on the site.

But I can't find it.

 

[BeerMaker]

Interesting. I'm in the same boat. Will have to look into this. Thanks!

*edit - I have a Gaffrig any idea if this hack will work for mine?

 

[steamin rice]

I put mine under my dash - I only tested it with the boat on the trailer, but it seems to get the signal just fine and a few other people have said that theirs worked under the dash also. For now, I still have my old puck sitting on my boat, but it's not connected to anything. I'll pull it out eventually, but fr now I'm going to leave it to cover up the hole.

The unit I bought from Amazon comes with a 4' cable, I cut mine shorter since I didn't want to have all of the extra cable under my dash.

The replacement is on Livorsi's site here:

http://www.livorsi.com/catalog/gps_antenna.htm

It's the "GPSSQ3" model, and according to their price list it's $199. http://www.livorsi.com/pdf/livorsi_pricing_retail2016.pdf

I'm about 99% sure that the one I bought from Amazon for $99 is the exact same one that Livorsi is selling with their logo on it.


Nice customer service for Livorsi to make such a big profit off of their design mistake. :rolleyes

 

[steamin rice]

Also, here's the link to Livorsi's site where they claim that the gauges with the 3 pin molex conector for the GPS receiver can't be repaired or modified. Complete BS!

http://www.livorsi.com/catalog/gps_antenna101.htm

 

[SoCalZero]

View attachment 484904 View attachment 484905

They are charging more to put their name on it. Ha! What a bunch of assholes[emoji1610]

 

[KAP]

I just paid $192 bucks from Teague to get that part from Livorsi.

What a great thread and photos.

You get a High Five and an atta boy:thumbsup:thumbsup.

Best thread I have seen in a long time.

Thanks I know it's late for me but I can appreciate great ideas.


KAP

P.S. To those that have the puck on the top of the helm somewhere just leave it go underneath and cut the wires. I left mine where it was as the new GPS signal receiver can be mounted under the gunwale/dash out of sight.

P.P.S. Livorsi should be embarrassed.

 

[Cray Paper]

The speedo on my boat didn't work when I bought it, same issue. I read a thread on OSO and it layed out how to change the battery on the puck. My puck did not come apart as described and took much more invasive measures to get the coverings apart. I never did replace the battery as I would have had to desolder several pieces and hope I didn't F up anything else. This seems like a much easier solution. Only question I have is if the tattle tale tach will still work with the replacement GPS puck. When I unplugged the puck the hour meter quit Working also, wondering if it will work with replacement puck?

 

[Stainless]

P.P.S. Livorsi should be embarrassed.

Agreed!

 

[Blubyu]

Awesome thread good to know. Livorsi.... As Kap said, Livorsi should be embarrassed.

 

[steamin rice]

Interesting. I'm in the same boat. Will have to look into this. Thanks!

*edit - I have a Gaffrig any idea if this hack will work for mine?

I can't say for sure, but my guess is that yes this same GPS receiver should work with a Gaffrig GPS speedo. You might want to call Gaffrig and ask them. Also, if you buy the receiver that I did, you can temporarily wire it in and see if it works without cutting or soldering any wires. If it isn't compatible with your speedo, you can return the GPS receiver.

 

[steamin rice]

The speedo on my boat didn't work when I bought it, same issue. I read a thread on OSO and it layed out how to change the battery on the puck. My puck did not come apart as described and took much more invasive measures to get the coverings apart. I never did replace the battery as I would have had to desolder several pieces and hope I didn't F up anything else. This seems like a much easier solution. Only question I have is if the tattle tale tach will still work with the replacement GPS puck. When I unplugged the puck the hour meter quit Working also, wondering if it will work with replacement puck?

Do you mean the tattle tale recall on the speedometer, or do you really mean the tach as in a completely separate gauge from the speedometer? If you unplugged your GPS puck and other gauges stopped working, then I would check your wiring. Perhaps you accidentally disconnected power from other gauges when you removed the puck? I don't think the GPS puck should have any impact on hour meters and tachs.

 

[steamin rice]

Awesome thread good to know. Livorsi.... As Kap said, Livorsi should be embarrassed.

Thx - I agree 150%. I'm an engineer, and I understand that design mistakes can happen. My guess is that Livorsi just bought a bunch of GPS receivers without even thinking about an issue with a small coin battery going dead after a few years.

What frustrates me is how Livorsi has handled this issue. I think that they should replace every battery powered puck for free, but that's probably too much $$ for Livorsi to absorb. The next best option would be to replace the pucks at their cost, which I would guess is $60-80 based on the Amazon price of $99. Instead of doing this, Livorsi decides to double the retail price of the replacement puck, and also tell people with certain speedometer designs that they need to buy a completely new speedometer kit to have a working speedo. Horrible customer service.

I have a lot of Livorsi product in my boat, but I will go out of my way to avoid supporting Livorsi in the future because of how they handled this issue.

 

[cicchetti_24]

Just picked this up

 

[xtension]

You do not even need to buy an antennae if you have a GPS in your boat. There is a yellow wire in the GPS harness that is a signal output. Connect this wire to the input on your speedometer. Went round and round with Livorsi, then upon reading my Garmin 172? map manual and found this info.

 

[copterzach]

I wonder if it will work for the Autometer GPS speedo? I have one that has not worked in a couple years.

 

[Mach80]

I ended up buying a new GPS speedometer as I was unable to get mine to work about 6 months ago. I left the puck mounted and installed the new antenna under the dash per their instructions. The speedo worked perfect. I took the guts out of the hockey puck antenna. Made a perfect hide a key spot. Seemed better than patching the hole.

 

[steamin rice]

I wonder if it will work for the Autometer GPS speedo? I have one that has not worked in a couple years.

I can't say for sure if the same fix woukd work for you or not, but I'm pretty sure that my Livorsi monster speedo is made by auto meter. Can you post a pic of the back side of your speedo?

 

[copterzach]

I can't say for sure if the same fix woukd work for you or not, but I'm pretty sure that my Livorsi monster speedo is made by auto meter. Can you post a pic of the back side of your speedo?

 

[SoCalZero]

View attachment 487197 View attachment 487199

My Livorsi looks just like that.

 

[Enen]

I have an Auto Meter speedo on the little boat, and was just thinking about what had to happen to fix it. Thanks for this info!!

 

[cicchetti_24]

Fixed mine yesterday... Instead of a white wire on my 3 pin connector it was Orange, but it did a full sweep no issues. Hopefully get to test it this weekend if the heads come in.

 

[SoCalZero]

Did mine today. Full sweep. Now I can see if the Schiada really does 1,000mph.

 

[steamin rice]

I got my boat out on the water today and verified that my speedometer worked like a champ with the new antenna. I have it hidden under my dash and had no problems grtting the GPS signals. :thumbsup

 

[Cray Paper]

Do you mean the tattle tale recall on the speedometer, or do you really mean the tach as in a completely separate gauge from the speedometer? If you unplugged your GPS puck and other gauges stopped working, then I would check your wiring. Perhaps you accidentally disconnected power from other gauges when you removed the puck? I don't think the GPS puck should have any impact on hour meters and tachs.

The speedometer and tattle tale tach recall toggle switch didn't work when I bought my boat, but I assumed if it did, that it would recall highest MPH as well as RPMs. When I unplugged the GPS puck from the speedo the hour meter stopped working. The tach still works, but the speedo and hour meter doesn't. If I plugged the puck back in the hour meter in the dash it would work.

 

[SoCalZero]

So I tried mine out today with no luck. Any suggestions? Have Livorsi with new Sierra antenna "fix". Mounted antenna under dash close to where original was.

 

[steamin rice]

So I tried mine out today with no luck. Any suggestions? Have Livorsi with new Sierra antenna "fix". Mounted antenna under dash close to where original was.

Did you buy the same model sierra receiver that I posted? I think there is also a version of the antenna that has a different update rate (10x per second instead of 1x per second). I don't know if this would make a difference or not, but it's possible.

Also, did your new antenna have 4 wires on it, black, red, white, and green? Can you post some pics of the wiring from your antenna and gauge? What does the speedo display? 0 mph or something different? Does the speedo act differently if you completely disconnect the antenna?

 

[SoCalZero]

No pics right now but it does read 0 now and soldered connections leaving the green open. Same exact model antenna.

 

[Enen]

Just got the Sierra replacement in the mail

 

[cicchetti_24]

No pics right now but it does read 0 now and soldered connections leaving the green open. Same exact model antenna.

Does it sweep when you turn the key on? I must have missed that if you already posted that

 

[SoCalZero]

Does it sweep when you turn the key on? I must have missed that if you already posted that

Yeah. Sweeps and goes to zero.

 

[cicchetti_24]

Yeah. Sweeps and goes to zero.

Well that's just strange.... My plug had 3 wires but one was a different color than the one in the original post. I'm wondering if there were different models of the gauge itself. I haven't had mine out yet (still waiting for heads 6 weeks later).

 

[steamin rice]

No pics right now but it does read 0 now and soldered connections leaving the green open. Same exact model antenna.

I womder if it's just not acquiring the gps satellite signal for some reason.

With the antenna disconnected, my speedo would sweep and then go to the 9 o'clock position. With the antenna connected, it would sweep and then go to 0 mph. When the boat was inside my garage, it couldnt get the gps signal and stayed at 0 mph, butwhen the boat has open sky above it the speedo works fine.

Do you have enough wire on the antenna to put it on top of your dash to test out? Also, the antenna block on mine has an arrow indicating which side should be pointed up towards the sky.

 

[Ballyhoo]

Tag

 

[cicchetti_24]

I womder if it's just not acquiring the gps satellite signal for some reason.

With the antenna disconnected, my speedo would sweep and then go to the 9 o'clock position. With the antenna connected, it would sweep and then go to 0 mph. When the boat was inside my garage, it couldnt get the gps signal and stayed at 0 mph, butwhen the boat has open sky above it the speedo works fine.

Do you have enough wire on the antenna to put it on top of your dash to test out? Also, the antenna block on mine has an arrow indicating which side should be pointed up towards the sky.

This is a good point I mounted mine upside down under the deck thinking it should acquire the signal because the 3m sticky was on the bottom. That could be why he isn't getting it to work. Might be the catch in all of it.

 

[Little D]

It worked for me. I ordered through amazon. Direct replacement for my hockey puck antenna.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

If anyone is looking for one of these antenna's I just purchased one, it's the exact one the OP posted but it will not work with my Gaffrig gauge. Mine needs a 1 update not the 1/10 update. I can ship USPS for 87$

 

[Luv2gofast]

The Sierra puck sounds like a good fix! I will add a couple of things...Gaffrig and Livorsi use the same puck and I think the gauges are probably made by Autometer. I have never tried one of the pucks on Autometer but would be surprised if they didn't work. I have been repairing the original pucks for several years since Lavorsi stopped fixing them. They always are repairable unless they have water damage or get trashed by someone trying to change the battery that probably should not be working on circuit boards... I get $75 including shipped FedEx back to you to replace the battery, reprogram and test. I can usually turn one around in a couple of days. Of course the battery will fail again but they seem to last a long time. Mine has been working for over 7 years and it was the first one I did. I thought I should post just in case someone doesn't want to change the style and would like to get the original fixed.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

The Sierra puck sounds like a good fix! I will add a couple of things...Gaffrig and Livorsi use the same puck and I think the gauges are probably made by Autometer. I have never tried one of the pucks on Autometer but would be surprised if they didn't work. I have been repairing the original pucks for several years since Lavorsi stopped fixing them. They always are repairable unless they have water damage or get trashed by someone trying to change the battery that probably should not be working on circuit boards... I get $75 including shipped FedEx back to you to replace the battery, reprogram and test. I can usually turn one around in a couple of days. Of course the battery will fail again but they seem to last a long time. Mine has been working for over 7 years and it was the first one I did. I thought I should post just in case someone doesn't want to change the style and would like to get the original fixed.

As I bought the Sierra since my boat didn't have a puck for the drivers speedo, can you reprogram the sierras to work with my gauge? Mike at Gaffrig told me that this sierra updates 1/10 and my gauge is set up for 1 update. Not 💯 what that means but...

 

[Luv2gofast]

As I bought the Sierra since my boat didn't have a puck for the drivers speedo, can you reprogram the sierras to work with my gauge? Mike at Gaffrig told me that this sierra updates 1/10 and my gauge is set up for 1 update. Not  what that means but...

No Sorry the software I have only does the original pucks. What Gaffrig told you is correct about the 1/10 second update. That's the difference with the old gauges and the new ones. The new ones will work on 1 sec. or 1/10 sec. but the old ones have to get 1 sec. updates. Do they make a Sierra with 1 sec. updates?

 

[steamin rice]

FYI my boat is a 2005 and my speedo uses the GPS antenna with the 1hz (1 time per second) update. The link that I posted is for the 1hz update, so if you purchased this it should work for you. Did you try wiring it up and testing it? Post some pics of your speedo and maybe we can get you up and running.

 

[02HoWaRd26]

FYI my boat is a 2005 and my speedo uses the GPS antenna with the 1hz (1 time per second) update. The link that I posted is for the 1hz update, so if you purchased this it should work for you. Did you try wiring it up and testing it? Post some pics of your speedo and maybe we can get you up and running.

Yea I'm not very good t Amazon, so bought mine on eBay and mine is the same part number, but their are two secondary numbers one links to the 1 second other is the 10 times a second. The older gauges, seems prior to 08 are 1 time per second where the newer ones are good with either of the antenna's

 

[78DiMarco]

View attachment 487197 View attachment 487199

I ordered it connected it and it works perfect. My autometer guage has 4 wires and I connected the orange to the white on the new receiver and the other three wires match like colors. Stuck it under the dash and we're good to go. Even recall works. Thanks to all for posting!

 

[cig20]

does anyone have a 3 pin connector for gps antenna older style lovorsi or know where to buy one
lovorsi says no longer

 

[02HoWaRd26]

does anyone have a 3 pin connector for gps antenna older style lovorsi or know where to buy one
lovorsi says no longer

I’d send a message to luv2gofast he will be your best bet.

 

[Andy01]

does anyone have a 3 pin connector for gps antenna older style lovorsi or know where to buy one
lovorsi says no longer

I might later this month as I am rerigging my dash and deleting a lot of gauges.

 

[cig20]

andy please let me know

 

[Andy01]

I sure will, should have it apart in a week or two.

andy please let me know