Instruments Again

roblpm said:
Does the gps repeater have a screen that just shows the location and SOG? (website doesnt have pictures of all the screens that I can see?
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Yes, there are options for lat long display on its own screen and,iirc, you can change the default screen fields to include SOG - it's definitely in there somewhere. I quite like NASA except the wind instrument; the transducer is too delicate and unreliable to bother with, IMO.
 
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prv said:
You can connect several listening devices in parallel to one output - I think the official number might only be two or three but in practice four will almost certainly be fine. What you can't do is connect multiple talkers together - NMEA 0183 doesn't include any provision for taking turns, so they all just talk over the top of each other and the result is gibberish.

Pete
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Sounds like my ex.
 
roblpm said:
I asked why not as the others do and got a cheery reply that they hadn't got round to it yet! Its a shame as makes replacing a set quite difficult!!
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I wouldn't ever buy current Nasa products. The design is clunky, the manuals are dreadful, the graphics are awful, the connectability is suspect. Just because they're cheaper than competitors isn't a compelling reason to buy.
 
pvb said:
I wouldn't ever buy current Nasa products. The design is clunky, the manuals are dreadful, the graphics are awful, the connectability is suspect. Just because they're cheaper than competitors isn't a compelling reason to buy.
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I am going round in circles with this. The buttons are knackered on my stowe displays, one of them got stuck on the wrong screen at a crucial racing moment at the weekend.

So back to the original plan. I suppose if I use the kids inheritance to buy 2 I70s I can leave them one each in my will!
 
roblpm said:
I am going round in circles with this. The buttons are knackered on my stowe displays, one of them got stuck on the wrong screen at a crucial racing moment at the weekend.

So back to the original plan. I suppose if I use the kids inheritance to buy 2 I70s I can leave them one each in my will!
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Biscuit's recommendation of the Echopilot kit was a very sensible one in my view. Personally I would steer clear of the NASA stuff if possible. I did buy some once but after a year or two I replaced it with proper equipment (Cetrek C-net 2000 in my case, but that is no longer made). The NASA wind instrument in particular was a real chocolate teapot job.

When looking at second hand boats, I will now mentally "mark down" a boat which has NASA gear fitted as it suggests to me that the previous owner was skimping. That's just me though....
 
Storyline said:
So am I :)

Such a pity Stowe went out of business as their displays looked good, were not too flash and were affordable.

Take pvb's point though, if the NASA stuff is suspect it might cost more in the long run (as in 'buy cheap, buy twice')
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Well they are still trading under new ownership and sell this which is ideal:
http://www.stowemarine.com/dataline.htm

However at 293 plus vat each (and i need 2 really) for the trade in price I am sinking another £700 in to an aging system whereas if i go nmea 2000 i can use the displays subsequently on another boat.

So i think that is what i am going to do! Actisense ngw1 and 2 i70s here i come!
 
I've seen a lot of boats with 20+ year old Nasa instruments still working perfectly... the masthead unit for the wind thing obviously has mixed reviews - but so do many other masthead units and the NASA is much cheaper to replace. The NASA stuff actually seems good quality to me in general, and superb value for money. I don't get the prejudice against it?

In terms of ease of use they are better than any menu driven system for quick access to data, and the instruments have some visual appeal (I don't like the look of the echopilot ones).

From what they told me the NMEA depth is a work in progress so that doesn't put me off too much. Especially given the plotter I buy may well have a sounder built in anyway.
 
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All that said - I'm looking at the Simrad IS20 combi before I make a final decision. It's reasonable value and networks with my current fave plotter...
 
roblpm said:
Well they are still trading under new ownership and sell this which is ideal:
http://www.stowemarine.com/dataline.htm

However at 293 plus vat each (and i need 2 really) for the trade in price I am sinking another £700 in to an aging system whereas if i go nmea 2000 i can use the displays subsequently on another boat.

So i think that is what i am going to do! Actisense ngw1 and 2 i70s here i come!
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I strongly agree that NMEA2000 is the ideal way to go for a future proofed system. Also really like the Garmin wind transducer which I reckon should be reliable for a long time and that uses 2k.

It is the choice of display that I still cannot decide on.
 
Ironic... I'm pondering two Simrad IS40 displays and feeding data from cheap NASA transducers via some actisense kit....
 
pvb said:
There's a reason Nasa stuff is cheap....
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Agreed...

I just don't buy it's only a 3rd as good as the competition. Having taken some of it apart, my view was it was well constructed. It's basic in feature set and construction, and designed by a small band rather than large teams. Even if you look at the competition... a masthead unit is a few $ of plastic and at most $50 of electronics - most of the cost is not in materials. There is a lot being paid for design, developing advanced and therefore complex features, and for company overheads like expensive executives and marketing which NASA may do more efficiently and at this stage a lot of the design cost has been spread over a long period.

Yes the kit might not be as good as the top brands - but I do think the value, when defined as bang-per-buck is probably better.

Quality of the displays at least is good. I have to admit I've not handled one of their masthead units - and I don't doubt some have had bad experiences - but in general those with bad experience speak louder than those without and they've sold a lot of units. I doubt I'll need 3 complete units or 1/2 units and a lot of replacement plastic bits in the time I would otherwise have had 1 rayradurunomin.

And any accidental damage is less financially catastrophic....

If I'm careful the amount I save could pay for half a radar...

The displays are a different matter. The posh ones have expensive high end (though low resolution screens) and a reasonable amount of computing power.... the Simrad IS40 price of about £350 if you shop around doesn't seem totally unreasonable given the probable lack of volume in comparison to something like a cheap laptop.
 
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roblpm said:
I am going round in circles with this. The buttons are knackered on my stowe displays, one of them got stuck on the wrong screen at a crucial racing moment at the weekend.

So back to the original plan. I suppose if I use the kids inheritance to buy 2 I70s I can leave them one each in my will!
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I had Stowe Dataline displays on my last boat. I also experienced button problems but fixed them by taking the display to pieces and cleaning the button contacts. Reassemble and seal with silicone sealant.

I think I still have some spare displays if you're interested.
 
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