simrad vs raymarine

[nickfabbri]

we have just taken delivery of a very nice new hanse 320 which comes with simrad vhf , wind and log ( they are is20's). The question relates to the compatability of these instruments compared to say raymarine stuff. The simrad equipment seems ridiculously expensive and we were going to upgrade our plottter, and add radar and a fish finder over the next year. The raymarine stuff is about half the price and comes highly rated. Will all this equipment work together to allow a binacle mounted screen to interprit data from the vhf, wind and log? it is all meant to be nmea 2000 compatible,

 

[mixmaster]

You'll be able to connect it via nmea 0183, for nmea 2000 you'll need an adapter I think. Have you had a look at the Furuno stuff? I find it more reliable. New plotters are nmea 2000 compatible.

 

[Swagman]

Hi Nicky,
We sold off the Simrad combined log / depth and installed 100% Raymarine kit on our Hanse.
V V few issues over 12,000 covered since, and really intuitive to use.
Cheers
JOHN

 

[RestlessL]

In theory you should be able to get any MNEA 2000 compatible devices to talk with each other, and interact in the way you want. I am also sure that some people would really enjoy solving the problem of how to connect the different bits of kit. However........

You have 2 problems to solve. The first is how to wire the 2 systems together, and the second is making sure they actually work together in the way you want them to.

Taking the wiring first - NMEA 2000 should be a simple plug and play exercise. All you need to do is follow the rules and plug the kit together using standard NMEA plugs and cables. Unfortunately, neither Simrad nor Raymarine appear to use standard NMEA 2000 connections, and each have their own proprietary version, SimNet and SeaTalkNG. You may be able to figure out how to join a Simrad and Raymarine cable together, or you could buy interface boxes for each. I don't know how much these cost, but I doubt if they are cheap.

Having connected the kit together, will they actually talk. The SimRad instruments should transmit specific NMEA 2000 "sentences", which the Raymarine plotter should understand and display the appropriate data. However, I am using a lot of shoulds here, and you wont be realy sure until you try it.

Sorry to be pesimistic, but I would either stick with Simrad, or follow Swagman's advice.

John

 

[Graham_Wright]

Ask Raymarine;- they are very helpful.

 

[RestlessL]

Further to my post above, Maretron ( link ) make interface cables for both Raymarine and Simrad to connect to NMEA 2000 systems.

These should (that word again!) make it feasible to mix Raymarine and Simrad kit.

John

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

Of course, once you use NMEA 2000 to connect devices together you are restricted to the functionality that NMEA 2000 supports, whereas a range from a single manufacturer uses proprietary protocols to communicate and can often do much more..... worth bearing in mind....

 

[RestlessL]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, once you use NMEA 2000 to connect devices together you are restricted to the functionality that NMEA 2000 supports, whereas a range from a single manufacturer uses proprietary protocols to communicate and can often do much more..... worth bearing in mind....

[/ QUOTE ]

A good example of this is the Raymarine LifeTag system. It won't work with, for example, a Garmin chartplotter not because the systems cannot be connected electrically, but because the chartplotter has no idea what to do with the messages from the lifetag.

J