pvb
Well-Known Member
As PaulRainbow has pointed out, your claim is rubbish.
New plotter
- Thread starter Laysula
- Start date
As PaulRainbow has pointed out, your claim is rubbish.
fredrussell
Well-Known Member
I was all set to buy an Onwa plotter with AIS until I saw the cable connectors at rear of unit, one or two of which did not look even slightly waterproof to me. This was a couple of years back so maybe they’ve improved the design now. I bought a Garmin Echomap and I’m very happy with it.
ColinR
Well-Known Member
I have been looking at plotters too as my radar conked out. It seems that to get a new radar you have to get a MFD (multi function display) these days. Mostly touch screen. I don't fancy touch screen in the cockpit where I'm likely to have wet fingers and screen when I most need it, plus I'm happy with my Garmin 50s. Its simple, has buttons and gives me all I need. Plus I already invested in charts for it and Garmin stuff goes on forever. I do use a tablet for Antares charts (west coast of Scotland) so am a going with a wifi radar that connect to the tablet. I wouldn't want to rely on a tablet as my main plotter, but for extra functions like this I'm okay with it. To be honest I don't really want a big screen permanently in the cockpit, its nice to get away from the things. Someone mentioned Raymarine Elements. They do connect to radar also by wifi.
Refueler
Well-Known Member
The Onwa has as base - a worldwide chart same as Lowrance and all others have ... its basic and not much use other than to start and reference the GPS side of the Plotter. No-one uses that... well anyone with any sense !!
Onwa provides FREE download of K Charts which are based on same chart source as are ALL others ... You can read all sorts of rubbish about this being better etc. - but it comes down to the transfer of that chart data to whatever format they use.
K-Charts may have some odd small detail missing - but it is more than a match for any need we have.
The downloads are again .. FREE ... grouped into regions - so you can download all or just what you want. No need to visit Agents to get an SD card made ... YOU do it on a standard mini SD card.
Once you have downloaded and copied to the card .. put it in plotter ... tell the plotter to upload the charts ... away you go.
Home | K-Chart Map
ColinR
Well-Known Member
out of interest, what waterproof case? I need one for my tablet
Refueler
Well-Known Member
Have you checked out Playstore for example or Apples ..... there are so many Free and Paid Chart plotting apps for phone / tablet that makes offers like that unnecessary.
According to 'pvb' ... service etc. is unnecessary !!
Yes well considering the number of threads about connecting gear that get posted ... having someone like Alan at Aves instead of some 'college kid' behind a shop desk able to assist with that setup / wiring etc. is in my book worth it.
pvb
Well-Known Member
Don't misquote me. I wrote "At the end of the day, you're buying a box with a plotter in it, where does the "old fashioned service" come into it?"
Mudisox
Well-Known Member
Slight thread drift but..........
I use a Memory map European edition with all the UK Hydrographic Office charts of Uk waters, my old 15inch laptop with an external antenna. Excellent and it does all I want it to do and more.
I also thought that I had bought the ability to have the French charts but cannot manage to get them onscreen. I am not worried about updates, I am still using paper charts from 1987.
It would be nice however to get France onto my laptop.
Any ideas?
I use a Memory map European edition with all the UK Hydrographic Office charts of Uk waters, my old 15inch laptop with an external antenna. Excellent and it does all I want it to do and more.
I also thought that I had bought the ability to have the French charts but cannot manage to get them onscreen. I am not worried about updates, I am still using paper charts from 1987.
It would be nice however to get France onto my laptop.
Any ideas?
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
I'm aware of many of the App's. Can you point me at a free one, that includes £200+ worth of free Garmin charts, that can be used on two devices, that synchronises with the Garmin plotters and if it's a GPSMap mirrors it and allows all network data to be shown on the tablet ?
That'll be a no.
But, if you're happy with a Playstore App', why have a plotter at all ?
Not what he said.
Pretty much 100% of the interconnecting/integration threads that crop up on here are related to NMEA 0183, not N2K.
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Well, I bought my new plotter via @PaulRainbow , and was very pleased to have the service provided by him! I would certainly NOT have wished to try and install it myself; I'd have spent ages figuring out what equipment I needed and how to integrate the new plotter into the existing system; Paul's service was essential to achieving the result I wanted. I also got a good price on the equipment; perhaps I could have got it cheaper from a box-shifter, but I would then have had to waste vast amounts of time figuring out what ancillary bits and pieces I needed, not to mention incidentals where you inevitably find you don't have the size you need in your box of bits!
For similar reasons, I buy my desktop PCs from a local well-respected company that is willing to stand behind its kit and where I am certain their choice of components is governed by their guarantee to customers. And they are much the same price as the one-size-fits-all offerings of the box-shifters!
pvb
Well-Known Member
Glad to hear you had a good experience - PaulRainbow is very knowledgeable and a good choice if you were unhappy to do the install yourself. The relentless move to NMEA2000 has the benefit of making installation much easier for most people - it's literally plug'n'play.
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Paul had to cope with an existing system with a mix of NMEA0183 and Seatalk (the original kind). Not at all a trivial matter to sort that out!
pvb
Well-Known Member
Indeed! But in a few years' time, hopefully the nightmare of fiddly wiring associated with NMEA0183 and SeaTalk will be a thing of the past.
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
I think your "few years" might be a lot more than you envisage!
Mine dates back 14 years, and if it hadn't been for changes in my circumstances might have gone on for another 14, so I wouldn't hold your breath! My existing ST60 instruments are perfectly fine, and the ONLY drawback is that they are Seatalk; barring catastrophic failure I can't see me replacing them any time soon; they do what I need, are nice clear displays and I can't see any functionality in new kit that I don't already have. And my existing perfectly functional radio, an ICOM one, requires NMEA 0183 for the GPS input. Given that I've also got that set up with a command mike etc., I can't see me changing that any time soon, either.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
It might be, if companies cease to make NMEA 0183 devices
We're still having issues (albeit not as significant as with older 0183/ST1/Robnet etc) where some manufacturers insist on not conforming to the N2K standards.
For instance, go buy yourself a new Raymarine Axiom MFD, EVO autopilot and a Quantum radar. The Axiom will be N2K (Devicenet) and the EVO will be STNG. So you then have to work out if you want to convert STNG to N2K or vice-versa, which might depend on if you plan to use other STNG or N2K kit. Sometimes i have to fit split backbones, so we can use a mix of both. The Quantum will come with a Raynet cable, just about long enough to get through the deck of the average yacht, to extend it back to the helm will require at least one extension cable (£110 for a 10m) and a "patch" cable (400mm long @ £60) to connect them together.
In contrast, the Garmin gear i fitted to AP's boat was all N2K and the radar cable was long enough to reach the cockpit, with cable to spare.
Baggywrinkle
Well-Known Member
N2K is far less complicated than NMEA0183 IMO .... basically N2K is plug and play. Once you have a backbone, to add another device or sensor, you need a drop cable, a t-piece and the sensor/device ... just make sure the terminators are on each end of the backbone and place the clusters of t-pieces where the devices/sensors are. One up front for the forward water tank and depth/speed sensors, one at the chart table for displays and instruments, one in the engine room for engine and rear tank age, and one at the helm for instruments is what I did. For a comparison of N2K/0183 complexity, my boat has a mixture of N2K, 0183 and Seatalk1 ... it was quite complicated to network it all together.
pvb
Well-Known Member
I think Raymarine have always tried to make things excessively complicated - and succeeded! Garmin stuff generally is much easier to install.
Sea-Fever
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure I'd give advice to buy any piece of technology on the basis of "future proofing". That term has been used for every now-obselete piece of tech you can think of....N2K will be no different.
The natural course of events for boat equipment will be a move wireless, with the sole requirement in hard wired connection being 12v.
The natural course of events for boat equipment will be a move wireless, with the sole requirement in hard wired connection being 12v.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
I don't think so. Wireless on boats has thus far been less than reliable. Raymarine even supply a network cable with the wireless Quantum.
I have a Garmin wireless wind system, not impressed with it.
I friend just removed wireless wind, also not impressed.
Just fitted a Quantum radar for a customer, he specifically asked me to hard wire it, as he had a wireless Quantum on his last boat and it was unreliable.
Anyway, future proofing makes sense to me. Why fit 0183 kit now, when most other new equipment won't interface with it without converters ?
Baggywrinkle
Well-Known Member
I don't think complicated is quite the right word - proprietary is more accurate IMO. They always attempted to lock users into their eco-system - which in turn created a market for gateways and gadgets to join Raymarine equipment to the rest of the world.