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07-15-2017 12:54 PM #51Senior Member
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
- Posts
- 164
Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
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Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
Thanks Reefgeorge and others for the great advice. This blog is a wonderful resource with so many knowledgeable and experienced members. Sure saves a lot of wasted expense and learning the hard way.
The Furuno system that came with my boat actually works pretty well, except the depth sounder is temperamental and seems to work when it feels like it. I can be going along and it's reading 250' and suddenly, it will lose the bottom and start searching for it, eventually finding it and displaying correctly. Even at the 50 KZ (supposedly 600 watt) setting, it has a problem hitting the bottom at more than 500'.
Of course, when I'm in another boat's wake, it loses the bottom, but that's not unusual. And the darn thing doesn't even have sea temp. Maybe all I need is a better transducer with temp sender and a new nav chip.
The separate PC system displays nav data different than the furuno, so I assume it has it's own GPS. I have two 15" displays so can view both at once. The radar and nav are fine, except the chart is 4 years old.
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Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
Your depth finder range is heavily influenced by how clean the water is passing over the transducer (turbulance) when you are running and how clear the water is in general. Try your depth experiments when the boat is at its slowest speed or standing still vs running. I have fancy huge transducer fairings that are well placed so I get the same depth at almost any speed up to 30 knots but my maximum depth off the east coast of Florida vs the Bahamas is vastly different. Also, I have had boats with a loust transducer install and depth at speed was a problem.
GeorgeLast edited by Reefgeorge; 07-15-2017 at 07:06 PM.
Florida
2002 Cabo 47
MAN mechanical 800/8's
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality"
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07-18-2017 10:04 PM #54Senior Member
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
- Posts
- 4,974
Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
FTFD... i drive a slow 1968 41c381
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Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
I certainly prefer Garmin. I just upgraded one of my old units two weeks ago to Garmin 7610XSV. Plan to get rid of the second Raymarine unit with winter work. Very happy with the unit and it interfaces with my iphone using Garmin's helm function and with wireless connection I can do nav planning on BlueCharts on my ipad or iphone and then download it when I get to the boat. The NEMA 2000 network lets you expand later and just plug the new stuff in to a connector. I didn't even have to really look at the manual. Just touch the screen and play around with it and its simple to use.
Regards,
Dr. T
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08-16-2017 06:38 PM #56
Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
I have a couple older 12"Garmin units...5212, 7212. They have been great in general. I also have a PC based OpenCPN setup (read free software with free NOAA charts) with RTL-SDR AIS, NEMA 2000 and some other custom tools that I wrote for monitoring the Outback inverter systems and NEMA 2000 dashboarding. I love the control of a PC system, but I also am in the software business so I have some expertise with PC hardware and software so I can self solve issues that come out when the boats away from the dock. I'm also using a custom built RasPi Cell router with big Cell and Wifi antennas which pretty much works 90% of the places I have been around Puget Sound which makes remote access easy when coupled with the PC. On the other hand, Reliability wise and time wise the Garmins just run. My only bad Garmin experience so far was with a 441s that I bought for the dinghy. When it arrived it had a bad GPS chip and was DOA which was somewhat frustrating. Definitely a fan otherwise.
On the Autopilot front, For those of you with 32 volt systems and Garmin autopilots, what hydraulic pump have you used? I am looking at the Garmin Reactor + Hyprodrive PC45 / Constant Raymarine with a 24v convertor to replace the old wood freeman pump / comnav 1420 that I currently have. Very curious to hear how folks have upgraded to new pumps and control units.
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08-17-2017 08:00 AM #57
Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
I use 2 each converters tied together for redundancy. Set correctly they will share the load and if one dies the other should get you home.
The Garmin smart pump is the best option. I just installed one on a 50 ocean that I will seat trial this afternoon. So far I have had 0 failures on the smartpump.
FWIW this is the 3rd to be installed this month by me.Scott
41C117 "Hattatude"
Port Canaveral Florida.
Marine Electronics and Electrical Products Distributor.
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08-17-2017 11:30 AM #58
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08-17-2017 12:21 PM #59
Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
The smart pump seems to be a amazing option. However it's max cylinder volume is 24CC and I am not sure that is big enough for our extended 61'. But in fairness I haven't checked the volume yet. In comparison the Wood freeman supports up to 50CC of cylinder volume and the Raymarine pump is in the neighborhood of 30-80.
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08-17-2017 12:29 PM #60
Re: Electronics Recommendations & Resource
I have mechanical as well in the ER so I would consider going gauge less , but I am not fully there yet. My end game is to have all tanks, mains and generators on NEMA 2000 and have all of that data sent up to Azure (Cloud) and dash boarded.
The problem that I have found is that the NEMA 2000 hardware is cheap and primarily designed for newer boats and senders and there really are only 3 options for Analog to NEMA 2000 and at this time I think only one will work for us. On other notes, Instrument reliability on our boat is already questionable given that the factory 12v convertor for instruments on each screw is a single point of failure. I am guessing you have a 24v boat so maybe its not as big of a convertor side show as our boat.