Which Instruments?

[DJE]

The boat that we bought a year ago came with a full set of Navico Corus networked instruments and autopilot. They are still working after a fashion but the displays are starting to fail. Things are a bit better since I wired the NMEA output to a repeater display on an old chartplotter by the companionway hatch; but the Corus system only outputs NMEA data once every five seconds which is a bit slow. So I'm now starting to muse about replacing most of the old system as spare parts are no longer available.

The current cluster of four display heads directly in front of the wheel will have to go as only the helmsman can see them and then only when standing on the centreline whereas the most comfortable helming position is in the corner of the cockpit. So I am thinking of displays in pods on the coachroof either side of the companionway. This gives a viewing distance of 2.5m to 3.0m. Will standard 100mm displays be easily readable at that range I wonder? I would be looking for speed, depth, wind (possibly close-hauled wind too), heading, some sort of GPS repeater, and an autopilot controller. But the autopilot controller will have to be near the wheel unless I am going to use a remote.

The Corus transducers all seem to be working well and the wind instruments seem to be better than the Raymarine ST60 kit on the previous boat. I understand that I can get a box to convert the Corus (Airmar) speed and depth to NMEA 2000 so I might be able to keep those two. Is there any chance of keeping the masthead wind transducer? And what about the compass transducer? The Corus autopilot controller has NMEA 0183 input and is working fine so I might be able to keep that too. GPS data is available on NMEA 0183 or 2000 from the AIS transducer but I would want to feed in waypoint data from a chartplotter or computer (ideally both/either). I don't mind doing a bit of wiring myself and seem to be able to get bits of NMEA kit to talk to each other most of the time.

Then we come to the choice of displays and network. The obvious ones are Raymarine, B&G, or Garmin. Who uses what and what do you think of them? Is it easy to mix and match different manufacturer's kit now that they all have NMEA 2000?

 

[dom]

There's a lot in here, but quickly:

1. Re vis at 2.5-3m: the answer here is yes and no. For sure if you just have one or possibly two items on the display, but one of the best features of modern displays is that one can display many different fields in different formats and so on. 3m is too far for a lot of this stuff.

2. Re multi-system functionality: again the answer is yes and no! Something like an independent AIS will be fine, but whilst all manufacturers talk about NMEA 2000, few are fully NMEA2000 compliant and therefore APs often don't talk well to some heads, MFDs don't properly talk to radar and so on.

3. Re transducer cross compatibility: it might be best to direct such questions to the manufacturer.

 

[DJE]

On the display visibility I am wondering whether I need the big displays that race boats mount on their masts. Probably not if I have one item per display as you say. And I could make room for six 100mm displays if I had to.

 

[dom]

The big race displays are great, crystal clear, 100% waterproof, power efficient, fast and so on ...but have a stiff whiskey to hand before looking at the prices

Another thought as you mentioned race boats -- it is increasingly common to have 2x smallish MFDs mounted on the port and starboard bulkheads. I've gone for a compromise with a 7.5inch MFD on just the port bulkhead with a collection of 100mm displays around the wheel and it all works quite well. Even on the 7.5 inch it is possible to have AWS/TWS/AWA/TWA in a central part of the screen and then 4 other data fields in the corner with all being perfectly readable. If you want to split-screen chart and data you might consider a 9" or even a 12". And don't forget most are compatible with really good remote key pads.

Either way, spending the thick end of £2k on 4x modern 100mm displays mounted on the hatch garage seems a bit sub-optimal to me. The the new 100mm displays can display almost anything you want (data, wind vectors, graphs, alarms, etc) at the touch of a button, but you need to touch it!

Feel free to come down and have a play around with mine if you like and see what you think.

 

[pvb]

On the display visibility I am wondering whether I need the big displays that race boats mount on their masts. Probably not if I have one item per display as you say. And I could make room for six 100mm displays if I had to.

The reason modern displays are so expensive is that they have huge capability to display lots of different graphics. If you were to get 6 of them, each only displaying one thing, it would be a rather expensive exercise.

 

[prv]

The reason modern displays are so expensive is that they have huge capability to display lots of different graphics. If you were to get 6 of them, each only displaying one thing, it would be a rather expensive exercise.

Mm, and yet it strikes me as far more ergonomic to have the six dedicated displays so that "selecting" depth or speed is as simple as moving my eyeballs slightly

Fortunately it looks like Raymarine understand this, and also offer the i50 and i60 dedicated displays alongside the i70 everything-in-one. If I were starting from scratch with brand-new kit, I might have a row of dedicated units for wind, speed, and depth, and then an i70 next to them for all the additional fiddly bits.

Pete

 

[Champagne Murphy]

We to have a Navico Corus set up, ageing now , as you say. They're still in position and (mostly) still working. The exception is the wind transducer which, at the moment, I've left in place. In the end I decided on a backup of a small Garmin plotter which displays headings etc but can be adapted to display depth when I'm good and ready. In the meantime I have a TackTick wireless wind display with the transducer mounted next to the non functioning Corus one.
Total cost was £250 for the plotter iirc, the TackTick I admit I won in a draw so it was free! The bigger names (Raymarine, B&G etc) all seem very pricey.
If you do decide to lose the Navico gear then Odin Marine might be interested in the parts. PM me if you want their number. I'd certainly be interested in the wind transducer.

 

[FullCircle]

Warning: My B&G Tritons are lovely, but will not light group to the Raymarine P70 autopilot head, so you have to turn the backlighting down separately at night.
Other than that, they talk to each other very well

 

[adwuk]

We have Triton displays on the hatch garage, easy to see from the helm. They are easy to confgure and can cycle between screens automatically. We dont use that feature much, but it can be helpful. They play nicely with a Garmin chartplotter (0183) interfaced with an Actisense NGW, an ICOM VHF/AIS receiver and some other B&G devices (Zeus2 plotter and sensors). It was all easy to install and setup, and I am becoming increasingly confident to add my own stuff to the network. Its not an open standard, but 2000 is certainly being reverse engineered by a number of folks.

 

[lpdsn]

The reason modern displays are so expensive is that they have huge capability to display lots of different graphics. If you were to get 6 of them, each only displaying one thing, it would be a rather expensive exercise.

What's the expense? If you have code to take in one NMEA0183 or NMEA2000 sentence/PGN and display it do you really think it takes many man months of coding to cover a few others?

I'm told that the cost of a waterproof housing and the cost of protecting against numpties wiring it up wrongly are the major costs, but I still find it hard to believe that a significant part of the price of a major manufacturer's display isn't profit.

I suspect the price is what they think the market will bear.

 

[prv]

I suspect the price is what they think the market will bear.

If they price it any other way, they're incompetent at running a business.

Pete

 

[vyv_cox]

Our B&G Triton set of four are sited over the companionway and perfectly visible from the tiller. We use the scrolling feature constantly on one of them but otherwise change pages manually occasionally. I find them to be superb. Interfaced with Zeus2 everything works well, although I find the route navigation function of the latter to be highly frustrating, editing just doesn't work. For me touch screens are hopeless, I far preferred the ease of my old Garmin 2010.

 

[snowleopard]

I recently did a trip on a boat with a Tacktick wireless system. Each instrument could display any two data items except for the wind unit which was dedicated. I found them quite useable though the wind speed seemed to over-read, showing 12-15 kts true when the sea state looked like the bottom end of F3 i.e. a few crests starting to show. At the end of the trip the heads cold be unclipped and stowed below. Each unit was powered by a small solar panel. I don't know how they would perform on a long night passage with illumination or whether there was any other way of charging them.

 

[Lucky Duck]

The Zeus2 plotter has the ability to control HV displays on the boat's network, it would be nice if it has similar functionality for the Triton units.

 

[Martin_J]

DJE

I have a similar size boat to yours (Moody s38) and I also have two places to locate instruments.. At the wheel on a pod (or two) and also at the companionway.

I have just upgraded from ST50 wind displays above the companionway to the i60 wind displays - because I like the true analogue display rather than an lcd image of a pointer.. Very nice and clear but obviously each only has one purpose. I did try wind displayed as a dial on a Garmin GMI10 but it didn't look right. The i60 displays are NMEA2000 (Seatallk NG) but happily read the wind from a Simrad/B&G/Triton 508 IS20 wind sensor at the masthead. (That replaced a previous ST50 MHU).

At the wheel have the B&G Zeus 7" screen - Charts and a selection of NMEA2000 readings can all be shown on the display but numbers do get small if you go for too much information above the chart... But can easily switch to a wind/instrument style only display and all the data is very big then!

Just updating autopilots as well now so I have the old ST6000 control head and the new p70 head at the wheel. Whilst the p70 is not otherwise in use it can also display any navigation data on the screen.. so it could be good for depth.

Above the coachroof - I also currently have an ST50 depth (old LCD) but over the weekend might replace it with the Garmin GMI10 that I have spare.. That should make depth or any other data visible from anywhere in the cockpit .. we'll have to see what the numbers look like since I wasn't happy with it displaying wind.

You're only in Fareham.. PM me if you want to take a look and play around with the displays/settings... Ah.. forgot to say.. Lowrance Point-1 was my choice for NMEA2000 heading info (because it has GPS and 10Hz heading) and 3G radar by Simrad because of the low power and instant start up.