raymarine connecting

[Boat44]

All,

Thinking about adding a chartplotter, Raymarine E80/C80, but I need it to connect to my Furuno GPS/Navtex and B&G wind etc.

The kind chaps at raymarine say it will all connect happily, although I might need a NMEA interface box.

Has anybody done this for real and how easy was it? (As you can guess I’m a bit weary about connectivity between different systems with proprietary networks)

Cheers
A

 

[nimbusgb]

[ QUOTE ]
All,

As you can guess I’m a bit weary about connectivity between different systems with proprietary networks


[/ QUOTE ]

I think Raymarine ( amongst others ) is being foolhardy in continuing this policy. What would the average forum members attitude be to an instrument manufacturer who made their systems interconnection policy open, perhaps using standard ethernet?

I find it offensive to be quoted £30 for a couple of metres of cable with proprietary plugs on the ends.

Proprietary systems do not encourage innovation, they are a method of locking in a customer, nothing else. It is a sign of poor management, little vision and archaic thinking

Raymarines new 70 series is a prime example, when I saw that they had implemented yet another version of the interfaces I decided not to add a 70 to my installation.

There, now I've got that off my chest!

 

[Bejasus]

only problems I have had,(SeaTalkng, St70's, E-80, AIS250, Ray240), was how to figure out the best way to connect GPS and also Simrad AP16 into the system. Think I have it all sussed now with help from Raymarine Tech in the UK. Will see when I get back to the boat in a couple of weeks.

 

[aluijten]

Your Furuno GPS can be connected to a C80 without interface box as the C80 has a NMEA input. For the other stuff I can't say as I don't know if B&G outputs NMEA. Connecting your Navtex to the plotter seems kind of pointless. The Furuno Navtex can take an GPS input but you would hook it up to the Furuno GPS directly.
I'm not sure how many NMEA inputs the Raymarine has, but it might be that you need a NMEA multiplexer to combine the different NMEA sources to a single signal.
Also, be aware that a typical AIS receiver operates at a different speed then a normal GPS. Combining the two can be difficult, depending on the AIR receiver.

Cheers,

Arno

 

[Elessar]

Don't listen to the seatalk knockers, it's far easier than NMEA and truly plug and play. Only NMEA 2000 is catching up then you really find out about expensive connectors. With seatalk, find a cable with the right end and chop the end off, join that to another with the right end for the other box. Yellow to yellow, red to red etc none of the dicking around you have to do with NMEA colours.
Where raymarine have fallen down is until the very latest versions which I think have changed, they only have 1 speed you can set the NMEA interface to, both in and out.
Thus you may struggle to get everything to work without a NMEA mulitiplexer which this seems like the right sort of thing.
AIS does use a higher speed but can usually loop the GPS through, if you wind etc needs to be connected then I guess you will need the multiplexer.

 

[Airassmith]

I have more or less exactly this set up, including an AIS and autopilot, and get it all to work through an NMEA multiplexer from Brookhouse that will combine and uprate several NMEA in to 34,800 to the E80 plotter (allowing the AIS to work) and take the output back to 9,200 for the pilot. It all seems to work fine and once you have worked out what you want actually quite easy to set up. It would be much better if raymarine had multiple NMEA ports individually speed configureable, like some other manufacturers do.