Raymarine Plotter Power Consumption?

[john_morris_uk]

If Raymarine say that their C120W plotter uses 22 watts (ie perhaps approx 1.7 amps from your 12 v system) at full brightness what would the consumption be at normal working brightness. Is it very much lower? I imagine that a lot of the power consumption is in driving the screen. Do you save much power by turning the brightness down a bit?

We haven't got a plotter yet and I am just trying to do some power and housekeeping calculations...

 

[alan]

Raymarine Plotter Power Consumption

John,
When I am on the boat tomorrow I will do a test with my C70 plotter if it will help you? I imagine the C120W will consume proportionally more power than the C70, but it may give you a practical figure to work with.

Alan.

 

[pvb]

If Raymarine say that their C120W plotter uses 22 watts (ie perhaps approx 1.7 amps from your 12 v system) at full brightness what would the consumption be at normal working brightness. Is it very much lower?

Unlikely to save much more than half an amp. If your electrical supply is that crucial, be better to upgrade it before spending £2.5K on a plotter. If it helps, I use my C120 on full brightness except at night.

 

[Shuggy]

I have an E120, and there is a large difference in dim/bright power consumption. I can't tell you what the numbers are as I'm not on board, but I always make sure that we're on as dim a setting as we can handle.

From an electrical capacity standpoint, I would not fit one - but it was on the boat when we bought it. We have a swinging mooring and if the fridge and the plotter are on, we're stuffed until we can get to an occasional pontoon and can regain full charge.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Unlikely to save much more than half an amp. If your electrical supply is that crucial, be better to upgrade it before spending £2.5K on a plotter. If it helps, I use my C120 on full brightness except at night.

The electric supply is not that crucial - in the sense that we have over 400Ah of domestic batteries (say 200 Ah of useable power reserve) and we already have a large wind generator and a smart charging system off the alternator etc. Its just that we are hoping to live on board for an extended period sometime soon and although I will get some large solar panels, I was trying to do as accurate an estimation of power consumption as possible. Half an amp is 12 Ah a day on the load so if a truly representitive figure for the consumption of a C120W is 1.2 amps rather than the 1.7 amps it all adds up - if you follow what I mean.

 

[Twister_Ken]

John,

One consideration might be how often you need the plotter switched on. Not at anchor, and not at sea when off soundings. So if it is only used for 'pilotage' sailing, or occasionally on passage to check ETA or XTE, then there's no need to multiply consumption by 24h.

 

[Mark-1]

If Raymarine say that their C120W plotter uses 22 watts (ie perhaps approx 1.7 amps from your 12 v system) at full brightness what would the consumption be at normal working brightness. Is it very much lower? I imagine that a lot of the power consumption is in driving the screen. Do you save much power by turning the brightness down a bit?

I've got an E140W here with a 12v power supply. At full back light brightness it uses 2.9 Amps. At lowest back light brightness it uses 1.1 Amps. Half way it uses 1.3Amps. With Night Palette on it uses between 1.1 and 1.3 Amps min to max back light brightness.

 

[Robin]

The wise answer is to assume the worst case scenario such that any economy of power by turning down brightness is a pleasant bonus. In daylight outside you will need max screen brightness I suspect, but at night it will get turned down anyway for night vision reasons. Turning off is a possibility but then you lose other features too, like AIS but also the ability to display BTW/COG/SOG/VMG/DTW etc that you will be used to having.

We had two Navman (Navmen??) plotters, a spare Raymarine one and a Yeoman. The spare Raymarine one was left off but the others were in use except the Yeoman only used when offshore. The Navmen used about 0.5/0.6A each and were on full screen brightness at all times in daylight hours.

If you are close to the bubble on available power the real answer is to add to the battery, solar and wind capability because having to be on a strict power diet isn't going to be fun.

 

[Guitarrich]

With the C120W of course the GPS is built in. This reduces one's onclination to power it down, (unless you have a seperate GPS), but it's well worth dropping the illumination right down when you don't need it. It's worth keeping it powered on for alarms such as AIS etc too. Fabulous machine mind.

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

With the C120W of course the GPS is built in. This reduces one's onclination to power it down, (unless you have a seperate GPS), but it's well worth dropping the illumination right down when you don't need it. It's worth keeping it powered on for alarms such as AIS etc too. Fabulous machine mind.

My radio takes the GPS from the plotter being switched on and so if I didn't have the plotter on in an emergerncy, the DSC would only operate once powered up. I have reasonable battery sizes but I've never had low batteries due to a 913 windvane 'doing its bit'.






www.sailingscotty.com

 

[iainbluk]

I was on a mates boat the other day, he has a E120 plotter. At full brightness the plotter took 4 amps, he then turned down the brightness and the consumption reduced to 2 amps.
Saw it with my own eyes.....

 

[Guitarrich]

I was on a mates boat the other day, he has a E120 plotter. At full brightness the plotter took 4 amps, he then turned down the brightness and the consumption reduced to 2 amps.
Saw it with my own eyes.....

The screens on the "Classic" E-Series are incredibly thirsty, but they are also incredibly bright! Those numbers don't surprise me at all. When sailing on passage, I think it's a good plan to turn the brightness right down when not actually viewing it.