Simrad or Furuno??

rigpig

rigpig

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Hi,

I'm looking at electronics for new 44ft cruiser.

Our last boat we just had photocopied charts, a log, GPS, battery powered depth and windex... life was simple.

This time we are planning log, depth, below decks autopilot, GPS and radar. Wind would be nice, plotters are still a mystery to us, but a single nav display does have attractions.

Who makes the most reliable instruments, Simrad or Furuno?

Many thanks,
RP
 
I have some ancient Furono gear, GPS and Depth, both still work fine.
I would avoid a single unit as you would have to keep swoping screen views, maybe I just have a lazy finger!
Chart plotters are great, you can just drive your boat accross the screen, a bit like an arcade game!
And yes, we also plot our progress on a paper chart. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Furuno.

Our electronics are a mixture of Furuno, Icom, Nasa, TackTick, Yeoman, Cetrek & B&G.
Everything works very well together.

The Furuno GP-32 GPS works very well with the Yeoman plotter (also possible to upload waypoints to GPS).
The GPS also linked seemlesly to the Icom DSC VHF & the Cetrek autopilot.
The Furuno Navtex NX-300 is second to none.
I plan the replace the ancient Navico radar with a Furuno 1623 in the near future. We had this unit on our last boat and I was very impressed with it.

You will notice I don't carry Raymarine electronics. Without a doubt they may make some good equipment but one of the main reasons I don't like 'em is: "Doesn't play well with others". Everyone else uses NMEA - they have SeaTalk. A marketing play to get you to buy an all Raymarine boat.
Also, their customer support is supposed to be quite good.
I would not know about Furuno's customer support: none of their equipment on my boat has ever broken down.
 
Whilst we have Raymarine kit on our boat, when it all gets renewed, it will be Tack Tic instruments, and I would today go for Raymarine C or E system, with as Guapa says a Yeoman at the chart table.

With the problems a friend has had with the poor quality and bad customer service he has encountered with Simrad kit fitted to his 4 year old boat (trouble started weeks past the end of the warrenty period!) I would never consider them.

Incidentally our Raymarine kit is now 14 years old and still going OK!
 
[ QUOTE ]
"Doesn't play well with others". Everyone else uses NMEA - they have SeaTalk. A marketing play to get you to buy an all Raymarine boat.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not strictly true as you can get a Seatalk/NMEA interface. I cant say how well this works, as the one we have on Galadriel is not interfacing anything at the moment (note to myself, get the Garmin 152 hooked up to the radar!). The Garmin works well with the Raymarine 54e DSC radio.

However previous owner had Yeoman/Phillips gps/Raymarine radar all connected.
 
I also like raymarine, I'm still looking for an ST50 depth instrument! They are of course discontinued, but my compass, wind, rudder indicator are all ST50 and I like those!
 
[ QUOTE ]
You will notice I don't carry Raymarine electronics. Without a doubt they may make some good equipment but one of the main reasons I don't like 'em is: "Doesn't play well with others". Everyone else uses NMEA - they have SeaTalk. A marketing play to get you to buy an all Raymarine boat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sadly not the case

Raymarine- Seatalk, HSB
Simrad- RobLink,SimNet
Cetrek-C-NET
B&G-Fastnet

etc etc
 
I like Simrad (fitted it to our previous boat) but wouldn't buy their kit again. Some reliability problems and definitely poor after sales service

Either Furuno or Raymarine. In my case, I'd chose Raymarine throughout (with a few exceptions)
 
[ QUOTE ]
Sadly not the case

Raymarine- Seatalk, HSB
Simrad- RobLink,SimNet
Cetrek-C-NET
B&G-Fastnet

etc etc

[/ QUOTE ]

Furuno - NavNet
...
I know

At least, they all talk to each-other without the need for any adapters/convertors etc...
And as Galadriel commented: How well does it work?

The fact that you've now got an 'all Ramarine' boat sort of proves my point.
Nothing wrong with that, but did put me off.
That, and the fact that all the Furuno equipment I have (had) has proved to be bomb-proof.
 
The adaptor (strictly a Seatalk NMEA bridge) works very well

Our boat isn't all Raymarine - we've a far superior fast heading unit which makes their gyro look very crude, Garmin GPS, Nav6+ navtex/nav repeater etc

I agree about Furuno being good kit, though can't resist mentioning that we have here in the lab an LS-6100 Depth sounder and PG-500 fluxgate system. Both of these have had to go back for repair. On the other hand, I think their radar systems are very reliable - just look at the number of fishing boats fitted with them
 
[ QUOTE ]
I think their radar systems are very reliable - just look at the number of fishing boats fitted with them

[/ QUOTE ]

When I started out in sailing I once asked a marine electronics 'expert' advice on what kit to get.

Get whatever fishermen use - if it doesn't work, for you it's just a day sailing lost - for them it's a matter of no money coming in.
 
[ QUOTE ]
And as Galadriel commented: How well does it work?

[/ QUOTE ]

But that is only because I have no personal experience of it, however I have no doubt that it would work, ask me later this season!
 
[ QUOTE ]
The adaptor (strictly a Seatalk NMEA bridge) works very well

[/ QUOTE ]

Though djefabs has one that keeps losing its software (according to Raymarine). Works for 30minutes after installation, then nothing until its reflashed.

Rick
 
My Raymarine ST50, outputs nmea data?? So whats the problem, is it the later raymarine stuff that doesnt?
 
One disadvantage with "mix and match" is that any interfacing problems can be put down to "it must be their kit, our's is all right".

If it's all from one source, this argument can't arise.

Mine's all Raymarine for that reason and there's rarely an ill word spoken of them.
 
The Rayamrine Seatalk/NMEa interface box works fine and also gives you proper RS232 for a PC interface.

Seatalk has one huge advantage over NMEA, you can plug a Seatalk cable anywhere into the system without needing a specific input or output or a multiplexer. Seatalk manages to organise data stream timing without having to use a separate multiplexer to "join" one data stream to another, a very clever feature and a good resaon to use Raymarine on a complex system.
 
[ QUOTE ]
You will notice I don't carry Raymarine electronics. Without a doubt they may make some good equipment but one of the main reasons I don't like 'em is: "Doesn't play well with others". Everyone else uses NMEA - they have SeaTalk.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not true, My Raymarine C70 has a NMEA out which is currently very happily provding all sorts of data with no hassles to my Navman Fuel system. The GPS ariel is also NMEA - again no problems. My ST60, Autohelm and plotter however were all interfaced in 2 minutes through Seatalk, which made the whole thing very easy.
 
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