What next for Marine Electronics ?

[maby]

AFAIK B&G and Raymarine purchase sensors from the same manufacturer. I must say I'm tempted by these doppler jobs -- yes they're pricey, but the strategy here is to get the missus to clean out the 'orrible, weird and slimy Jurassic life which colonises the paddle-wheel each week. Then I can buy her one as a birthday present

Do you think that the doppler version is going to need less cleaning? I would have thought that the transducers are going to foul as much as the paddle wheel does and will also stop working.

Anyway, your strategy would not work for me - my missus cleans the paddlewheel anyway.

 

[dom]

Do you think that the doppler version is going to need less cleaning? I would have thought that the transducers are going to foul as much as the paddle wheel does and will also stop working.

Anyway, your strategy would not work for me - my missus cleans the paddlewheel anyway.

Re cleaning, that's a question I will pose to the manufacturers first, but perhaps just wiping the kit off will be easier than my current effort of poking around the paddle-wheel with a toothpick in one hand and kitchen roll in the other :ambivalence:

BTW you mention ^^^^ about an electronics upgrade, which I have just done. FWIW I naturally prefer B&G but this time chose Raymarine for a variety of reasons. I have single wheel and don't have anywhere for a MFD mounting at the wheel as the mainsheet traveler is right in front of the wheel and would most likely damage it. What I went for -- apart from the i70s -- was a bulkhead mounted MFD (just beside companionway / aSeries so no pesky knob) and with an RX-9 remote keypad beside the wheel. The big advantage of this is that offshore with the boat on AP it is possible to easily see the MFD whilst sitting in the cockpit and without peering around behind the wheel.

Down below I banged in another MFD, as whilst the the iPad is great, I find it useful to have a proper unit fully integrated into the system downbelow so that on a blowy day one can get out of the weather to open the pilot books, tide tables, almanac, etc and think about the passage. Also good for setting anchor alarm at night without going up on deck. In addition I have a single 4" data display unit downstairs for depth, monitoring windspeed, heading and so on.

Just some thoughts really.

 

[maby]

Re cleaning, that's a question I will pose to the manufacturers first, but perhaps just wiping the kit off will be easier than my current effort of poking around the paddle-wheel with a toothpick in one hand and kitchen roll in the other :ambivalence:

BTW you mention ^^^^ about an electronics upgrade, which I have just done. FWIW I naturally prefer B&G but this time chose Raymarine for a variety of reasons.

...

Just some thoughts really.

I tend to prefer B&G, but the boat is all set up with Raymarine including an almost new autopilot. I did try to make a Raymarine AP work with Simrad (cheap B&G) gear on our previous boat and they never played together nicely, so I really don't want to risk it again. The thing that really attracted me to B&G/Simrad is their broadband radar, but Raymarine are now offering something very similar, so I'm less concerned about the difference now.

 

[laika]

Darn this forum. That's the second time I've gone to edit a post using android and ended up deleting it accidentally. Back to NMEA OneNet...

So *if* it ever happens (headed our way in 2013 eh?) it's IP over ethernet, but it's IPv6 over ethernet. So the sensible thing would be for all marine apps which want to co-exist with it on the same physical network to use IPv6. Of course none (except kplex, which unfortunately is NMEA-0183 only) currently support IPv6. I have a nasty feeling that "sensible" will be skipped and people will just use a program which reads IPv6 and spits data back out as IPv4, but hey, we can hope that Vint Cerf will give the boating world the thumbs up.

 

[jwilson]

Interesting thread!

What I'd LIKE to see would be far better sensors. There must be a better solution than the paddlewheel for the log. There must be a better solution than the wirlygig for the windspeed.

I sailed on a boat with a Doppler log sensor back in around 1978/79. Think it was a Seafarer product. Boat also had a Walker towed log, and they often disagreed. Used to base DR on the Walker.

 

[dom]

I tend to prefer B&G, but the boat is all set up with Raymarine including an almost new autopilot. I did try to make a Raymarine AP work with Simrad (cheap B&G) gear on our previous boat and they never played together nicely, so I really don't want to risk it again. The thing that really attracted me to B&G/Simrad is their broadband radar, but Raymarine are now offering something very similar, so I'm less concerned about the difference now.

Not sure if the first install of a Quantum has been completed, but reviews of the demo-gear seem positive:http://www.panbo.com/archives/2016/...p_pulse_compression_radar_in_radome_form.html

 

[mattonthesea]

Back in the real world, it will be interesting to see just how much diy electronics does catch on with the likes of openplotter/raspberry pi providing a viable alternative to chart plotters very keenly priced and low power, just add a tablet to view in the cockpit.

I'm in the process of exploring raspberry Pi for dedicated nav at this moment. The main issue is defining requirements ready for setting it up. Unlike a laptop or tablet (which have everything you want but not quite!) the Pi starts with basically nothing but the processor. then you design the structure around your needs.

I'm still getting my head around being able to control it from a tablet though :nonchalance:

 

[Heckler]

All the IPad does is to replace the computing power of the boat plotter and to replace the screen with currently an inferior one. The critical bits on board remain the same - the sensors like radar AIS, wind, log, depth but maybe a time will come when all these can be bluetoothed to a tablet. Maybe also the tablet software will get to the level of the plotter software. Unlikely that the tablet will have the knobs that a decent plotter has - touch screens are a PITA on a moving wet boat.

Personally I dont see the point. Inevitably a tablet will be / is to some degree compromised compared to true plotter. Maybe there is a cost saving but in the grand scheme of things it doesnt amount to much.

Bit like in your car where your phone can give you directions but it isnt half as good as a Garmin or a built in GPS.

I bought a vYachtWifi module, squirt in AIS through wire and it wirelessly squirts it all around the boat, am working on letting it MUX the B&G nmea and also squirt that around wirelessly. Then any pad can be used anywhere on the boat to diplay all that you say. Just need Navionics to come on board with plug ins ro display it all!
Stu

 

[GHA]

I'm in the process of exploring raspberry Pi for dedicated nav at this moment. The main issue is defining requirements ready for setting it up. Unlike a laptop or tablet (which have everything you want but not quite!) the Pi starts with basically nothing but the processor. then you design the structure around your needs. I'm still getting my head around being able to control it from a tablet though :nonchalance:

Have you tried openplotter? By far the best available imho, just download the latest image, burn to an sd card and you're up and running in about 20 minutes. Opencpn included with all the latest plugins plus laika's kplex multiplexing prog with a graphical interface for easy set up of gps & ais feeds etc. Check it out, I've done a good few passages using it on a pi 3 and an Xperia tablet in the cockpit, works a treat

 

[Rivers & creeks]

I agree with your post, so asked a Navionics rep why their tablet software doesn't support AIS. He said that it would be an easy add-on, but that the company lawyers were adamant that the app is for planning only and not for navigation. Perhaps that will change in time.

Very disappointing attitude on their part, what should it matter to them what we use their app for?

 

[Allan]

Very disappointing attitude on their part, what should it matter to them what we use their app for?

I can think of two answers!
1. As I said before, charts on my tablet £40 equivalent for MFD, hundreds or more.
2. Now we are little America, if someone messes up, they blame Navionics and sue for millions!
I'm sure others can think of more reasons.
Allan

 

[SiteSurfer]

I can think of two answers!
1. As I said before, charts on my tablet £40 equivalent for MFD, hundreds or more.
2. Now we are little America, if someone messes up, they blame Navionics and sue for millions!
I'm sure others can think of more reasons.
Allan

A small point - £40 per year now..

 

[GHA]

A small point - £40 per year now..

If you want to pay for updates, navionics on Android still works if you just pay once for charts.

 

[dom]

Very disappointing attitude on their part, what should it matter to them what we use their app for?

I agree; they however pointed to this part of ToCs which they really have to stick by: hence the slightly dodgy/clunky inApp route planning, etc:

"Marine and lakes Products are designed to provide ancillary aid to navigation by facilitating the use of authorized government charts, not to replace such charts. Only official government charts and notices to mariners contain all information needed for safe navigation. The user is responsible for the prudent use of Products. Any track generated by electronic charts, autorouting software or similar tools are basic suggestions for route planning only and must not be used for direct navigation."

​

BTW they say (and I'm happy to be corrected here) that whilst most of the dedicated nav Apps (ISailor, iNavX, MaxSea, etc) allow features like AIS, none of the packages sold buy the official chart suppliers do: Navionics, Jeppesen's Plan2Nav and Garmin's BlueChart.

 

[GHA]

It's a bit puzzling why more transducers/stand alone displays aren't coming onto the market with built in ability to transmit nmea over wifi given the price, even us punters can get the likes of esp8266 chips off eBay for a couple of quid.
Are the manufacturers just not that forward thinking? Or does it take ages to work through the design stages into a finished product?
Never having had a MFD, are there any which can accept nmea coming in over wifi?

 

[FWB]

I've had an ultrasonic log transducer on the boat for 14 years. It never needs cleaning, just like the depth transducer. What is there to clean?

 

[pmagowan]

The thing is, the computing power is no longer the issue. Your phone can handle it, or any number of cheap alternatives along the Pi line. The issue is twofold

1) getting waterproof, useable screens.
2) software to link everything together into a robust user friendly interface.

The first seems to be a major issue. The second seems to be being worked on by enthusiasts and geeks who like that sort of thing. If these issues are addressed then the major companies may need to do something pretty dramatic to make their expensive products worth investing in.

 

[Birdseye]

AFAIK B&G and Raymarine purchase sensors from the same manufacturer. I must say I'm tempted by these doppler jobs -- yes they're pricey, but the strategy here is to get the missus to clean out the 'orrible, weird and slimy Jurassic life which colonises the paddle-wheel each week. Then I can buy her one as a birthday present

Do you need one? I've gone 3 years now with the blanking plug in my log housing and not missed the log reading once. After all what matters is your speed over the ground towards your destination. Thats what you need to maximise even when racing.

 

[Ceirwan]

Do you need one? I've gone 3 years now with the blanking plug in my log housing and not missed the log reading once. After all what matters is your speed over the ground towards your destination. Thats what you need to maximise even when racing.

Not entirely true.
A lot of racers use speed through the water to judge how the boat is performing on a given point of sail. Speed over the ground is no good for this as it's influenced by the tide, if you know that close hauled fully powered up you should be doing say 5kts then you know you're pretty much on it. Slower then maybe you're pinching and too high, to fast and maybe you need to harden up more.

Generally used with Polar Diagrams.

 

[Rivers & creeks]

We're no racers for sure! But we use the log a lot, sail tweaks show straight away and it gives an instant calculation of the tide when you compare it to the COG.