Electronics, Raymarine in particular

[doris]

Anyone who pays £100 for knob deserves to.

Very difficult to find an alternative that keeps an expensive bit of kit running.

 

[doris]

Goodness what are you using?

In the last year I've upgraded my 35 year old Stowe kit with Garmin and spent less than £3000. Just waiting for the 35 year old Raymarine autohelm to fail and I can change that over to Garmin.

Six or seven years ago a nearby boat was hit by lightening, zapping the electronics of at least half a dozen nearby boats. Th replacement of my electronics was about £12k. That was 5 B&G Triton displays plus all transducers. Raymarine e120 hybrid touch plotter, radar, AIS, a and b, auto pilot control head, , stand alone Furuno GP32, stereo, engine hours counter, Furuno Navtex and all the necessary cabling and installation. I think that covers it.

Was considered cheap at the time by the insurance company.

 

[rotrax]

If you're familiar with the design and operation or the E and C series wide unicontroller and how it interfaces with the actuators below and believe you can fabricate an alternative which prevents any water ingress to the unit in an amount of time which makes it economically viable perhaps you should set up in competition to these canucks: there's obviously a market for this. I suspect you will need a 3D printer though: a bit of wood and a whittling knife probably won't cut it.

Actually in my case *if* I were retired and had nothing better to do with my time I would have gone down a route of rubber moulding as it was that, as the connecting piece of the various parts, which was the problem. However I have precious little free time and don't own a house with an attached workshop so "spend the money and just go sailing" was the logical option rather than having the disconnected plotter sitting in a locker for weeks and a plastic bag duct taped to the helm pod

If you just need to turn the shaft knocking up something is a doddle.

We have an E120. I shall look at it when next on board. I dont believe the rotating knob does much sealing, but will soon find out.

Our is inside our pilothouse, so water ingress is a minor issue for us.

 

[laika]

If you just need to turn the shaft knocking up something is a doddle.

We have an E120.

The “classic” E and C series were different to the wides. The Ws have a central button which sits in a moulded rubber boot and presses on different parts of it depress the actuators underneath which interact with the various switches on the circuit board. The central rubber boot should be bonded to the outer plastic ring, but that’s the bit which had perished on mine. A knob it may be, but it’s a fancy one which does rather more than rotate

 

[Stemar]

There's a lot to be said for navionics on phone and tablet (s), and basic log/ depth.

Yup.

I've just ordered a tablet & AIS receiver from London Chartplotters - a waterproof, daylight viewable Samsung 8" tablet with tough case and Quark AIS receiver for £250. I rather think I'd pay at least double for a "proper" 8" plotter, plus I should be able to double up the software on my phone as a backup.

 

[laika]

Update on the “unicontroller” (aka fancy knob). It arrived Friday. Plastic is a bit rougher and glossier than the original due to being 3d printed so doesn’t look *quite* as good and is a bit stiffer in use, but it fitted perfectly and works just fine so I’m counting it as a win. Yes it was insanely over priced but I have a functional plotter again which may last me till I change boats.

 

[DJE]

My point really is that no one seems to be paying attention to the fact that a nicely presented ten year old boat probably needs £12 grand, maybe more, to be spent on the electronics.
I quite agree that the efficiency of modern kit is amazing but I'm very unconvinced that the functionality has much improved over the last decade. The huge jump was made 10-15 years ago and, apart from auto-pilots, has plateaued since then.

I replaced the networked instruments and autopilot on my boat and added a chartplotter. All new Raymarine kit and it cost about £6,000 but I installed it myself.

The old Navico Corus stuff was still working but most of the displays were failing and it was about 20 years old.

 

[Lightwave395]

Update on the “unicontroller” (aka fancy knob). It arrived Friday. Plastic is a bit rougher and glossier than the original due to being 3d printed so doesn’t look *quite* as good and is a bit stiffer in use, but it fitted perfectly and works just fine so I’m counting it as a win. Yes it was insanely over priced but I have a functional plotter again which may last me till I change boats.

I have a Raymarine C90W bought on ebay 5 years ago for £400 (replced an RC520), I believe it does everything I would ever need WRT navigation and it lives on the chart table. As I recall, it's still possible to get the electronics repaired so 18 months ago I bought another one with a dead screen for £90 from which I have a large bag of the 'mechanical' bits. Worth keeping an eye out for IMHO !
I'm still running ST60+'s, an S1G pilot and a Type 1 ram, still going strong after 16 years with the exception that the windvane had finally given up.

I do have a Samsung tablet I can see at the helm for close quarters rock hopping but I've never understood the need to have an expensive piece of electronics out in the elements all the time, especially when out in the open sea (Apologies, my preference is not meant to start an argument...)

 

[doris]

I've never understood the need to have an expensive piece of electronics out in the elements all the time, especially when out in the open sea (Apologies, my preference is not meant to start an argument...)

Quite agree Ken. And not just the weather but the scrotes who nick the memory cards etc

 

[MattS]

I keep being tempted to take a punt on one of these Onwa KP39A. AIS B+ SOTDMA V3.6 version high gain tranceiver, 24 month Warranty. | eBay which look pretty bad, but with an integrated AIS B+ transponder might just be priced keenly enough to ignore it!

 

[AngusMcDoon]

I keep being tempted to take a punt on one of these Onwa KP39A. AIS B+ SOTDMA V3.6 version high gain tranceiver, 24 month Warranty. | eBay which look pretty bad, but with an integrated AIS B+ transponder might just be priced keenly enough to ignore it!

The price of AIS transceivers is coming down, including SOTDMA ones...

B951 Class B 5W SOTDMA HIGH PERFORMANCE

 

[roblpm]

The price of AIS transceivers is coming down, including SOTDMA ones...

B951 Class B 5W SOTDMA HIGH PERFORMANCE

I can't see why people are talking about 10k plus for electronics! ?

I suppose the waterproof screens, sensors and autopilot rams actually cost some money but the electronics themselves are hardly supercomputer complicated. I also suppose that the low volume makes the software expensive. OK maybe now I see....? But I don't have 10k. I will have a lot of great gadgets for a lot less.... ?

 

[Tranona]

I can't see why people are talking about 10k plus for electronics! ?

Just do the sums with instruments, 10" chartplotter autopilot, radar, AIS and cabling from any of the three biggies at chandlery prices and you are close to £9k.

Of course there are cheaper ways of getting similar functionality and not everybody is starting from scratch. Looking at it another way, adding autopilot, chartplotter, wind, AIS (not transponder) to the basic speed/depth and VHF on my Bavaria at the factory cost £7K including VAT

 

[KeelsonGraham]

The big name stuff is overpriced garbage (hardware and especially software) which people for some reason accept as normal (as they do with their phones and computer operating systems). There's a few that are better quality, Maretron being one of them, but they cost even more and the

Complete and utter nonsense.

 

[Halo]

I have had good service in repairing my 17 year old Raymarine C80 MFD from the service centre. https://theservicecentreuk.com Before panicing or replacing I would talk to them.. I have no connection to them other than being a satisfield customer

 

[laika]

A PM from a fellow forumite has prompted me to post a follow-up on the unicontroller wheel thingy to help those facing the same failure and considering whether this somewhat expensive punt is worth it. For me it was. Aside from the minor aesthetic differences mentioned above which frankly no-one but the owner will ever notice the replacement fitted and functions just fine. The hardest part was getting the bezel off the plotter. Well, not actually hard, more stressful as the method recommended both in the C90W installation manual (page 49 in the link below)...

Box

...and the replacement manufacturer's instruction video (E-series shown but C is pretty much the same)...

...say to pop off the bezel with a screwdriver, starting at the corner and working your way round. I was scared of breaking some little plastic lug but actually someone more self confident than I would have found it easy. I probably could have done this in situ without taking the plotter out of the helm pod but I didn't know how hard it was going to be, so I took the plotter out and into the cabin.

Do be careful not to lose the little plastic actuators when you're replacing the wheel but not the actuators.

I don't think I mentioned before but in trying to find a uk supplier (I couldn't and ordered from canada) I contacted the service centre who not unreasonably pointed out to me that they make money on servicing electronics rather than supplying parts but I gathered (I could be mistaken) that these are what they use for replacements.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Just do the sums with instruments, 10" chartplotter autopilot, radar, AIS and cabling from any of the three biggies at chandlery prices and you are close to £9k.

Of course there are cheaper ways of getting similar functionality and not everybody is starting from scratch. Looking at it another way, adding autopilot, chartplotter, wind, AIS (not transponder) to the basic speed/depth and VHF on my Bavaria at the factory cost £7K including VAT

Don't forget the cost of cabling. Certain manufacturers a) use proprietary moulded on connectors and b) charge through the nose for cables and c) only provide particular lengths.

 

[KompetentKrew]

Don't forget the cost of cabling. Certain manufacturers a) use proprietary moulded on connectors and b) charge through the nose for cables and c) only provide particular lengths.

Isn't it pretty much all NMEA 2000 now?

Suspect it's expensive because NMEA 2000 cable is expensive - the cheapest bare NMEA 2000 cable, without any connectors, is £7 or £8 per meter from Farnell.

NMEA 2000 cable is somewhat similar to ethernet cable, but it's several times the price, presumably because it has a tiny fraction of the volume in sales. The differences are that it's also shielded, and it contains only two twisted pairs, for data and power, but the power pair is thicker than the data pair.

Raymarine's SeatalkNG is a proprietary version of NMEA 2000 - with, as you say, proprietary moulded connectors - but there is some sense to why Raymarine did it. As per this thread, an additional pin allows the old Seatalk1 protocol to be carried on the same cables. It can be a pain in the ass connecting Raymarine SeatalkNG devices to NMEA 2000 equipment from other manufacturers, but at the time it was introduced it allowed Raymarine's instruments using the new protocol to connect to a boat's existing instruments. I believe some Raymarine instruments talk both Seatalk1 and SeatalkNG, acting as "bridges".