What electronics are you running?

[Tightlines667]

200.00 bucks?  that epirb alone is 400.00?
You did well!

I only purchased the 2 Furuno units.. the rest came off of my dad's boat, which he sold last spring.

I tried to save some money here, because I know there are plenty of other places to spend it on this boat.

[David Hall]

I got my new used 12kw open array pedestal, had to install a couple inserts in it for mounting that were lost when it was removed from the sellers boat, my brand new antenna is in the mail.  My new Raymarine gs165 mfd arrived today as did my new CP370 sonar module, now I'm looking at around 1k dollars worth of cables, connectors, adapters, switches.  My new AIS, gps, and antenna splitter are all in the mail also.  I'll have a pretty penny tied up in this upgrade before I'm done.  Flir has to wait for a few more momths.

[Rancanfish]

Congrats on the forward movement David.

I'm on a two 'Silver Bullet' frustration level treatment with my boat issues.


My electronics are not currently a problem.  But their not current either. 

[Maxed Out]

Furuno or Lowrance would be my choice.

I currently have the new version Raymarine(4th season) and it's a total piece of crap IMHO. I previously had the old C-80 and it had radar overlay built in and was much more user friendly. Both units have limited memory and will get very slow if too much info is stored (slug trails etc.)

  I would also recommend to stay away from "touch screen". That's the worst idea anyone ever came up with. I say no thanks to greasy, fishy, slimy fingers all over my screen every day.

Best of luck on your decision David

  Ted

[Maxed Out]

David, I had the very earliest version of the C-80 with Italian made DSM-250, then shortly thereafter Raymarine had the DSM-300 made in mexico and those ended up being trash. Raymarine was bought out by FLIR and so far they have stood behind replacing the DSM's for those that contact them directly.

 The DSM is a Digital Sending Module that accepts the transducer frequency and changes it to a digital signal which allows for the radar to be integrated into the system without interference from the signal.

 Several years ago Raymarine got sued for the lack of accuracy on the radar overlay, because no NMEA was required, which would make the GPS more pinpoint accurate, so without recalling all the old units, they simply erase the radar overlay when the unit gets "updated", then you will need to add NMEA to regain the radar overlay. It's really a dirty trick and can't tell you how mad I was.

 Adding FLIR can get beyond expensive. My solution would be to buy a really good handheld model.


 Sorry for rambling David, but you said nobody mention Raymarine yet, so I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in the ring.

  Ted

[David Hall]

It was that Mexico made dsm300 tat was causing me grief for the past several years, it was installed in 2006 and worked well until around three years ago, Raymarine just mailed me a brand new CP370 free of charge. I think since Flir bought them out they are concentrating more on customer satisfaction?  Who can say for certain but I have enjoyed good luck with my Raymarine products as well as furuno products and both of their service departments have been great.  As far as touch screens go, all the manufacturers have turned to them.  It is the wave of the future in marine electronics, the development of a new NMEA system called "one touch"
Which intends to make all peripherals communicate and integrate across all manufacturers is leading the way and all the big name electronics manufacturers are pushing in the same direction.  You will be hard pressed to find the latest features, chirp down vision, side scan sonar, wifi integration, dock to dock auto pilot, Raymarine is at the forefront and everyone is going down the same road.  They also offer an optional keyboard controller with push buttons and joystick wheel called the RMK9, I opted for that option with the gs165 for the same reasons you cited, bloody slimy fish yuk on my hands and touching the screen.  I try to keep them clean but I just catch so many dang fish it's impossible, there's no way I can keep that stuff off the screen, but the control pad is pretty robust and can be wiped down with cleaners.   

[jzumi]

 Several years ago Raymarine got sued for the lack of accuracy on the radar overlay, because no NMEA was required, which would make the GPS more pinpoint accurate, so without recalling all the old units, they simply erase the radar overlay when the unit gets "updated", then you will need to add NMEA to regain the radar overlay. It's really a dirty trick and can't tell you how mad I was.

  Ted

So that explains why my radar overlay does not work after I went from dsm 300 to dsc 370!   Okay, nice to know.  Just exactly how do I add NMEA anyway?  And what other nefarious surprises are in store for living with this aging e80 gear??

Thanks, Ted!
John
I don't even know what NMEA is, I just want this equipment to work reliably...

[David Hall]

Nmea is the national marine electronics association, they are attempting to gain voluntary compliance from electronics manufacturers to manufacture using standardized connectors.  basically it is a network of components that your marine electronics all tie into and talk to each other, Raymarine calls their first generation NMEA 0183  seatalk.  Then they developed seatalk2, and now they are in seatalk ng which stands for next generation.  If your boat is like mine you may have a mix of devices that are NMEA 0183 compliant and some which are newer and older, it's essentially a major pain in the #### because you have to have a bucket full of adapter cables, connectors, cables.  Essentially if you start new, you simple run a seatalkng backbone cable, add some 5way connectors, proper terminators, all your peripherals plug into the backbone connectors.
Run power to the backbone through the same cable type that your electronics use and you have a properly powered and terminated network.  All devices connected to this network will share data (to the extent they are capable) between each other.  At least that is the theory!  I happen to be in the middle of setting all this up on my boat so I have no idea how it's going to shake out in the end. I hope to know the answer to that by the end of this weekend.

[Dominick]

deja vu   

[David Hall]

Old display removed and cutout enlarged to fit the new gs165, new RMK9 remote keypad, new dual slot card reader.
Picture two:  new 12kw open array radar, finished, vhf antenna relocated, new GPS receiver relocated and updated.  Progress progress, this is two men 13hrs so far.  Back at it again tomorrow.

[David Hall]

today after 6 more hours of making up connections the magical hour arrived.  So after a nice lunch at the moss landing cafe I made the final connections to the new mfd.

[David Hall]

The first thing that happened on initial power up was the new AIS went into alarm for dangerously close to another AIS equipped vessel, every ten seconds bleep, bleep, bleep!  After figuring out how to shut the alarm off I turned on the fish finder and found the new sonar module had auto configured and was fully functional, I did have to configure my transducer but that was easy. Installed navionics PP west coast chart card and bam!  It was off and running too.  So far I'm batting a thousand.  Played around with charts for a few minutes then installed second MSD card with updates for charts, and radar.  Mfd found the card by itself and proceeded to update on its own?  Removed the update chip and I see the little icon on the bottom of the screen for auto pilot has a big red X over it?  This means the AP is not being seen.  Don't know why yet have to do some research.
Now it's time to flip the breaker and fire up the radar, mfd recognized 12kw SHD radar, hit the start button, mfd says connection get to radar!  Wait for it, wait for it?  "Radar not connected" WTH?  Try again same result, I can hear the pedestal humming like it's ready to do something, green lights on the voltage converter?  To late to call Raymarine they all went home for the day, so tomorrow morning I'll be back at the boat, on the phone with a Raymarine tech, trying to sort out the bugs.  At least I got sonar!

[MarkT]

Yeah, it's like that!

[David Hall]

Ain't it the truth!  There were two of us working our tails off for 25hrs to get this far.  It's probably going to take me 50hrs to de bug everything.  I did a bit more internet research on my auto pilot, found one guy who had the exact same problem, furuno recommended a software update, users can't do software updates and they want you to send them the controller and they will update it?  He finally gave up, tossed the FAP511 and upgraded to a NMEA 2000 compliant AP.  Wasn't the news I was looking for. We will see what Raymarine has to say in the morning.

[David Hall]

Raymarrine had me run a couple tests, nothing worked,  It was recommended to send the radar core in for service and bench testing, I removed it boxed it up and decided to email Fred Fritz, I've never met him, never spoken with him.  This was Sunday evening, a couple hours later he called me and we talked about the issue, he said he would make himself available to talk me through a sequence on Monday, which he did, it still didn't work so he is taking the issue directly to Raymarine service himself and will get back to me later today.   It looks like the radar is fine, it just doesn't speak the same language the new mfd speaks and since they don't speak the same language apparently they won't have anything to do with each other, the mfd knows the radar is there and what it is, it just won't recognize it among my other external devices and there may not be a way to make them talk to each other?  Say what?
Are they telling me my new MFD and my 8 year old radar need counselling?   I don't know but Fred's going to call me back later today with new from Raymarine that either there is a workaround and we can get these two to talk to each other, or I'm getting a new radar!  Either way I think I'm going to upgrade my auto pilot to evo200 while I'm at it.  I'd be frustrated but it has been fun working on the boat and I know that I will get this sorted out eventually.