B&G software updates

Ningaloo

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I am a big fan of my B&G instruments. They have not been without issues - notably the wind sensor which was susceptible to static electricity in thunderstorms and was replaced twice under warranty.

However the sailsteer display is very useful. So good that I replaced a small Triton display with a Vulcan 7 MFD. This also gave me redundancy should my primary Zeus3 fail.

In the past B&G have published a couple of software updates for the Zeus/Vulcan range every year. These have usually included genuinely useful new features such as race start line assistance and GRIB weather integration.

But something went wrong with the 18.3 upgrade issued about 18 months ago and it took them 6 months (and two attempts) to issue a fix.

So it is now over 18 months since any new features have been added. My Zeus3 is less than 2 years old and I must say I'm a little disappointed. On a couple of occasions I have had an opportunity to talk to the development team and I have passed on many suggestions for improvements, and even offered to be an unpaid beta tester (I am a summer cruising live-aboard software consultant).

I'd love to hear from anyone at B&G/Simrad about their future plans for this product.
 

matt1

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I have a pretty full, new boat B&G spec and tbh would have preferred Raymarine. That said the pilot is a world apart from my old Raymarine tiller pilot but that’s probably not a fair comparison.

Extremely comprehensive features, 90% of which I don’t use and as a mainly weekend sailor wouldn’t be able to remember how to use. Biggest bug bear is that unlike my 15yr old Raymarine instrument I have no ability to look back at the end of the day and either view the highest wind speed or the highest boat speed. This seems nuts.

Also, being a bear of small brain, the sailsteer display for me is overly complex and I’d prefer a more analogue wind display. (But I realise I’m likely in a minority with this)

move had the odd glitch but have it on good authority from those in the know that Raymarine is somewhat more “robust”.
 

Lucky Duck

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Assuming you have a B&G plotter then fastest speed of the day is stored under 'trip calculator' (or some such)

On my last boat I changed from ST60 kit to their new i70s and the same complaint that some information was now hidden in menus rather than a touch of a button applied then.

On plotter software updates, the most recent one seemed to concern sending SMS messages and other unimportant stuff so I didn't bother.
 

matt1

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Thanks. Unfortunately the trip record only shows GPS speed, rather rather than speed through the water. No point bragging about 13kn if it was with the tide off St Albans ;)
 

KompetentKrew

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Biggest bug bear is that unlike my 15yr old Raymarine instrument I have no ability to look back at the end of the day and either view the highest wind speed or the highest boat speed. This seems nuts.
There's an option to have max speed displayed in the right-hand sidebar at all times. I can't immediately find an option for max wind speed, but I'm assuming it's there somewhere.

tv6mPA6.png

You can have 1 or 2 rows of items in the sidebar, or alternating between them.


Thanks. Unfortunately the trip record only shows GPS speed, rather rather than speed through the water.
Isn't this because you don't have your speed sensor plumed in by NMEA 2000?
 

matt1

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There's an option to have max speed displayed in the right-hand sidebar at all times. I can't immediately find an option for max wind speed, but I'm assuming it's there somewhere.

tv6mPA6.png

You can have 1 or 2 rows of items in the sidebar, or alternating between them.



Isn't this because you don't have your speed sensor plumed in by NMEA 2000?

Yes, speed sensor is on the NMEA bus. Interesting option on that sidebar though, I’ll take a look, although suspect that too will be GPS speed. Certainly the B&G folk at SIBS couldn’t find a way to show me the info. Hopefullya feature that could be added in a new sw release? Thanks everyone, all interesting points ;)
 

jwilson

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My B&G Vulcan when first used in late May after a couple of months "lockdown" showed completely wrong and static AIS positions - AIS positions which came from a B&G AIS-receive VHF were a 'frozen snapshot' of what had previously been seen. Tried several reboots including all instruments off and on. No change.

Did an internet chat with Simrad service (B&G referred me to them) and they said to do a software update and if necessary also a system reset. The software update fixed it.
 
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