Best Compass

I have both the Plastimo Iris 50 and a Vion Axium 2 on board. Both are excellent. If anything I prefer the Axium, but its just a personal preference thing, and if you are going to buy one the Plastimo is probably going to be cheaper and easier to find.
 
I've got a Silva who are renowned for their compasses. It looks very like a Plastimo from the outside but isn't readable from inside. Which is a pity.
 
Iris has been my favourite for 15 years.

Mine has a bubble (apparently diaphram can leak in hot to cold extremes) bu at least I know it has fluid in it !

Now I have binos with compass, Iris is used less.

Mine cost £30, not £50.

7x50 waterproof binos with compass cos £90 or less second hand.
 
Binman said:
How highly rated is the Plastimo Iris 50.
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OK but not as good as the Mini 2000 I had with a 'permanently' glowing Betalight (radioactive tritium gas) - though you don't seem to get those any more. Sadly my old Betalight one has lost it's glow - radioactivity decayed. All the current ones need you to shine a torch on them or hold them against the stern light to charge up the glow that then lasts a few minutes.

You can certainly still get betalight modules, as they are fitted to some pistol (gun) sights, but no-one seems to make compasses with them any more.

The now out of production autohelm digital compasses are very handy to use, but I prefer a magnetic one as you can get an idea of how accurate the bearing is by how much the card is swinging in rough weather.
 
I've had an Iris 50 for many years and I'm very happy with it. I bought it while passing through AMS airport. Came in a nicely crafted wooden box.

Night use is not ideal but is workable. Hide it under your jacket (so as to not ruin night vision) and fire a torch light at it for a few seconds.
 
If you can manage to find an Autohelm I think that you'll find it very useful because you can quickly take several bearings and then jot them down at your leisure.
 
PuffTheMagicDragon said:
If you can manage to find an Autohelm I think that you'll find it very useful because you can quickly take several bearings and then jot them down at your leisure.
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It's good for that, but you cannot use it to steer down a bearing very easily.
You cannot look at a landmark and see the bearing in real time, whcih is sometimes nice.
Horses for courses...?
 
mm42, That has everything, what a great compass, cheapest price I found was from Dragon at £89 pounds, put that on my wish list for later, could only find the one supplier.
 
jwilson said:
OK but not as good as the Mini 2000 I had with a 'permanently' glowing Betalight (radioactive tritium gas) - though you don't seem to get those any more. Sadly my old Betalight one has lost it's glow - radioactivity decayed.
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I replaced the beta light in my old Sowester compass with one from http://www.betalight.nl/. It might be worth investigating. They do loads of different sizes and are quite cheap - in my case under a tenner including postage from the Netherlands. I carefully chiselled the old capsule out with an electrician's screwdriver and secured the new one (actually two, side by side) with a drop of superglue. Works fine and took about ten minutes to do.
 
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jwilson said:
OK but not as good as the Mini 2000 I had with a 'permanently' glowing Betalight (radioactive tritium gas) - though you don't seem to get those any more. Sadly my old Betalight one has lost it's glow - radioactivity decayed. All the current ones need you to shine a torch on them or hold them against the stern light to charge up the glow that then lasts a few minutes.

You can certainly still get betalight modules, as they are fitted to some pistol (gun) sights, but no-one seems to make compasses with them any more.

The now out of production autohelm digital compasses are very handy to use, but I prefer a magnetic one as you can get an idea of how accurate the bearing is by how much the card is swinging in rough weather.
Click to expand...

mm42 said:
I have a variant of the Iris 50, but with trigalights for night use, they glow without need for light source, for use at night, ideal if it's been in your pocket, or locker, during the day. http://www.fireflymarkers.co.uk/navigator-iris-50/view/8

They're pretty robust and do the job they are needed for.
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Have a look at the Firefly I linked to, an iris 50 with betalights, exactly what you're looking for.
 
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