Upgrading Raymarine ST50 or new system?

[bumblefish]

Hello, when I bought the old girl she had lots of ST50 equipment, however I have had to replace the masthead wind speed indicator twice in 7 years and the log is causing me a lot of issues! The depth, GPS and wind direction are fine! I have installed a Standard Horizon Matrix with AIS and I plan to install the CP180i soon. I have a SeaTalk to NMEA convertor to bring the Raymarine GPS mushroom signals to the SH stuff. Should I just do it and replace the whole Raymarine stuff with an alternative that is NMEA; new log, GPS, depth and windicator?

 

[superheat6k]

I have ST50 Speed depth and Tri data, plus a similar vintage ST6000 Autohelm. Not quite as modern looking as the ST60, but mine all work just fine. A new Airmar log Impellor might sort your log problem.

If you do have the ST50 Tri data providing the NMEA0183 conversion be aware the later ST60 stuff doesn't provide this so a separate convertor is required.

If you are going to modernise then installing a Garmin NMEA2K starter kit is easy, as is hanging other accessories from it, and you can simply connect all the sensors and instruments where most convenient for you direct to the back bone. You can also add parts a bit at a time.