Electronics Recommendations & Resource

[stimmy]

So you carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.

I'm sure there's plenty of reasons why the iPad will be more liked by those wanting to defend their decision but after speaking to pilots and others who can't afford to have lag or failure I am 100% sold on proper gear.

My MFD has never crashed, rebooted or needed a charge. It's seen solid and reliable always had the latest available charts. Having additional info from other sources is ok but I'd not put my eggs in that basket.

In my last boat, I had a Raymarine nav unit crash, just as I was entering the reefs at Molasses in Key Largo. The channel is only a few hundred feet wide in spots, with prop ruining coral either side. The depth sounder will tell you the water's too shallow, after you're up on the coral. I had to wait an hour until I could follow someone in, to avoid a grounding.

[krush]

If you 100% rely on modern electronics and GPS dot on the screen to tell you where you are, then you are asking for trouble anyway.

GPS has been known to be inaccurate at times. Unless you have all the signal checking and fault analysis that the port pilots have on their $20,000 unit, I would say trust your eyes first and verify with GPS second. Big ships get positions many ways, including radar.

The ipad works good as a chart display, but again, GPS showing you where you are on it is merely a tool.

And then, we get back to the other key point....if you blinding follow a chart and think it's always correct, you need to make sure your insurance has good coverage.

During the day, a good set of polarized sunglasses may be more useful than a GPS unit that is possibly inaccurate showing you the boat's position on an incorrect chart...LOL

[Boatsb]

I have 2 GPS units on my boat. 1 is the 12 inch McD. The second is the radar with basic internal charts. I also have my cell phone with avionics.

I've not had either the MFD or radar fail. I have had my phone and loads crash.

[racclarkson@gmail.com]

During the day, a good set of polarized sunglasses may be more useful than a GPS unit that is possibly inaccurate showing you the boat's position on an incorrect chart...LOL

See even that can cause problems. I can't wear polarized glasses because then my neck gets sore from canting my head to read the displays. When my neck hurts I get irritable, and when I get irritable I'm just not as much fun to be around, or so I'm told.

[stimmy]

As my home port was Key Largo at the time, I went in and out to Molasses reef a hundred times or more. My nav unit showed hundreds of crumb trails that were virtually one.
No polarized glasses would show you the coral outcroppings 2 feet below the surface in the murky water. You relied on the nav unit or ran aground.
As long as I coud see the tower at Molasses reef going out, or the tower at Mosquito Bank coming in, I was fine, but there was about a mile or so each way, on a clear day, when they were beyond eyesight.
Right about where the reefs were a few hundred feet apart. I found them once, when I followed a compass course, nicking my prop and bending my rudder. Never again.

[Pascal]

Issues like the one described by stimmy above are why I don't like fully networked systems. At least I want the depth sounder to be a stand alone box so you at least keep that going.

My experience with modern networked system while overall good has been that they do crash or freeze or restart for no apparent reason. I ve had this happen regularly in a boat with dual Furuno Navnets (2003 vintage I ran for years. I ve seen raymarine E series do that as well ornloose depths for no reason

More recently I ve been using Furuno navnet 3D (2009) with the black box and two large monitors. It also restarts for no reason as much as once a day. Maybe it's because sometimes the system stays on for days if not weeks when we cruise on the hook in the Exumas. I guess if you do Day trips and shut it down at night it s more reliable

Usually the failures happen in conditions where a 3 minute reboot is no big deal but a few times I would have been in real trouble without the iPad and bluechatts already on as a back up Would I only rely on an iPad? Probably not. Would I not have my iPad ready? Hell no. And it almost never crashes

[Boatsb]

A properly designed system will not have those issues.

A black box sounder will not shut down if 1 of multiple screens reboots. It will still feed the other screens.

A radar will also support multiple screens and not shut down with any 1 screen if properly installed.

I've not had the issues you guys are speaking of with any of my installs but who knows how others do them.

[stimmy]

The boat is in Ocean City, MD, getting ready for the White Marlin Open.
Any good recommendations for an electronics dealer/installer? I'll probably stick with Furuno since everything is Furuno now.

[Boatsb]

If you fish seriously and want the best sounder the furuno chirp system is not it.

The best suite lately is the garmin. I like the flexibility of the black box dsm and multiple screens.

As I've stated before I sell and install garmin almost 90% of the time.

[Reefgeorge]

I spent my working life in the electronics industry and had a strong hand in the design and implimention of my boat(s) electronics. In one case I did everything myself. There are multiple issues swirling around here.

First is the quality of the devices. Not all have the same failure rates. Hell, I chose Northstar for my main chart plotter which had a great reputation and the high voltage screen driver went out on my first trip. Pure failure, not system or installation related.

Next is the design and installation of the system, not all companies have the same competence and can embed networking conflicts or voltage problems.

Of course then there is the feature issue. I'm a techie and love fancy new capability but not in my mission critical boat electronics. I do the things stated here, distant cruising, dangerous inslets, etc.

Once you pick high quality stuff, stick with proven generations, hire the best installers and programmers you have tilted the odds in your favor but you still need to be prepared for failure. That includes redundant capability on the important stuff that are not networked together (separate chart plotter/different GPS antenna, separate transducer/simple digital depth), and on the fly back ups not permanently installed )ipads, hand held radios with cable connectors). Fancy new plasma panels and 3D graphics are all great fun but if you cant watch any more movies until you get back home no problem but if you can't see where you are at San Salvador, not so good.

I hang on to my old stuff as long as humanly possible for these types of systems because I have all the bugs worked out, I knoe how to fix everything, I have spare parts and all functions are covered. If you tear everything out and start over and then head to the far reaches of the Bahamas or Mexico then things might get exciting. Because of my background, extensive tools and spare parts I have bailed many boats out with failures while cruising in the Bahamas because the captains were dead in the water. The last major event was a family with a single networked system that went completely dead. The problem was complicated and the failure difficult to trace. I would up pulling dedicated power wires to the critical systems, and getting then depth and chart plotting so that they could go home so they were OK but what if I had not been there that week. I have had a few key failures over the last 15 years on my system but in every case I had an independent back up that let me finish the trip. There all all kinds of tricks like picking redundant equipment that uses the same model of GPS antennas, setting up you power distribution for easy isolation/testing and re-routing ...

Make sure that the installation outfit gives you a final and very accurate set of wiring diagrams when they are done. In the case of the failed networked system I worked on, no diagrams, newest technology (did I mention that it was Raymarine), no manuals, flybridge boat with cables buried everywhere. I sent them off with my Frankenstein power cable solution because they came to me at mid day and had a hard stop to leave at day break. Panels off everywhere, trying to learn an undocumented system, new networking approach. Would have been a ton easier with documentation.

Of course if you cruise an uneventful waterway with good navigation aides in good weather and are retired then all of this is much less critical so a more relaxed approach may be appropriate.

George