Winge about Raymarine compatibility

[dralex]

I've just been on the Raymarine website to see if my current RAYMARINE Pathfinder Radar is compatible with a new C series plotter. I would expect other manufactureres to make things a bit difficult to encourage you to stick to their products, but to my surprise, my relatively recent Raymarine product is not compatible with more e recent Raymarine kit. Is this just greedy marketing, or is there a genuine technical reason for the incompatability?

I would love to be told I'm wrong on this, and if I am I apologise, but it looks like Raymarine has lost a customer. It makes no sense not to be able to do rolling upgrades within the same company.

Winge over. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

[johna]

I agree not only have they changed the technology they have changed the chart type as well. It would be interesting to know why they opted for a single station system, C series, and then quickly followed this with the E series multi station system.

I am upgrading to colour by taking advantage of the reduced price on the RL series at about the same cost as the new C series unit. Watch this space or owing to price limits another place, as there will be a R520 chart plotter available soon.

 

[Redmond]

I feel much the same with 5g worth of 2.5 year old raydar / chartplotter - being told that its obsolete is very annoying. I understand that I'm not the only one. With this kind of cavalier attitude the only answer I feel is to treat Radars as sensors and do the clever bits on a PC where you can control hardware costs and not pay marine type premiums - With C Map you can also hold far more in the way of charts on board on CDs - 5 CDs I think cover most of the world- buying, by unlocking the sections, what you need over the phone.
It seems to me that Raymarine move has pushed me in a new and for Raymarine less profitable route.

 

[Guest]

Not only that ..........

Seatalk ........... why why why ??? OK the idea is good to have a single cable etc. But its such a proprieatry system that it makes life difficult to integrate with any other gear. Everyone else has opted for NMEA and I believe benefited from that decision. Raymarine can only suffer by going the lone route.

 

[dralex]

Re: Not only that ..........

The only plus point I can see is that the new Raymarine plotters accept NMEA inputs, so you can use your old GPS for positioning. I still won't be getting one. It's a rip off IMO because you have to buy the whole system. They imply flexibility by having multiple components, but seem like you just have to buy the whole lot anyway. This is all my own view.

 

[tome]

Re: Not only that ..........

Nobody uses NMEA for communications except to the outside world. At 4800 baud it simply hasn't the bandwidth. Raymarine use Seatalk (and hsb for even higher speed), Simrad use RobLink and B&G use Fastnet. All dedicated high speed data buses.

 

[pvb]

Interesting anomoly ..........

This thing about SeaTalk being faster than NMEA is interesting. I've just fitted a Raymarine Smart Heading System, and that has to be wired up using SeaTalk to calibrate it, but using NMEA to transmit the rapid position update signal to the radar. Why do you reckon that's necessary?

 

[tome]

Re: Interesting anomoly ..........

Doing a calibration involves putting the compass into a special mode - much easier to achieve using proprietary commands (on Seatalk) as well as safer. Seatalk uses binary codes and the throughput can be more than 20 times as fast as NMEA.

Autopilots and Radars are often stabilised with fast heading sensors, including gyros or full inertial platforms. Not everyone would chose a Raymarine sensor (personally I believe the Honeywell products are the best on the market at the moment - they are very stable and also give pitch and roll). It makes sense to use NMEA inputs for these universal applications.

 

[Oldhand]

Why do you want to change from Pathfinder Series in the first place? You can currently buy the RL70CRC for under £900 and either hook it up to your existing "Plus" Pathfinder radar display by hsb2 (which is marvellous and its what I have just done) or just replace your existing unit. You will then have a super colour radar and C-Map Plotter for less than a "C" or "E" series unit. Also I think you will find most people prefer C-Map to Navionics charting.

 

[Guest]

Evolution is great .... but

Everything evolves .... marine gadgetry, computers etc. etc. But BBC computers, VIC20's, C-64's still work as well as when they were sold. 286, 386, 486 computers still work. A 486 will run Win 95 ......

I agree that old gear is best for museum, but some of the NEW gear is evolution for evolution sake and to continue sales ..... If the gear on boat si working and reliable - is it necessary to spend out on the new-fangled stuff ....

I like PC charting as many know ... I use Celeron notebooks and lately updated myself with a new Acer job .... but does it do the job any different -not really, except it forced me to buy another cable !!
I am thinking about plotters - with baltic trip in mind - it may be an idea to have dual system ... PC and plotter ? Will I buy new job ?? Probably not - I will most likely pick up a s/hand bargain where someone else upgrades to latest fandango job.

In fact it's the system I apply to most things ..... !!

 

[johna]

AS you will see from my earlier post I am doing the same as you suggest. However, once all the RL70CRC units have been sold to use the C or E series units it will be necessary to change the scanner as well as the display, not a straight forward upgrade.

 

[dralex]

Thanks Oldhand- as usual it takes a different mind to see all the options. Great idea looking for a second hand unit.

Cheers

 

[jfm]

johna, are you suggesting there's a limited stock of RL70CRC and when they're gone that's it? Or are they conna continue being made for a while?

Incidentally, there was a RL70CRC sold on ebay this morning for £783, brand new in box. That's quite a decent price I think (list is £1700 or summink?)

 

[Oldhand]

I think you mis-understood me Dralex, the price I quoted for a RL70CRC is for a NEW unit, see: http://www.jgtech.com/shop2.htm

London Boat Show prices were considerably lower than the JG Technologies advertised £899. If you are on the S. Coast, try Greenham Regis at Lymington who gave me an unbelievable deal, 'phone 01590-671144. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[dralex]

Just got a new one for £899- I like that. JG Tech extremely helpful.

 

[nealeb]

The message I had from a dealer on the Raymarine stand at the boat show was that new regulations and standards had made the old radars non-compliant - you can use them if you have them, but you can't buy them new. To make the point clear, Raymarine's new radars are not compatible with the old displays and vice versa. I see that the old radars are still being advertised but I am not sure how many of them are left in the supply channel; I suspect that they are no longer being made.

I did the same thing as other people here - bought a RL70CRC to upgrade my monochrome display and still use C-Map. That's the combination that won "premium product" in the recent YM test, if I remember rightly, and now available at half the original price! However, you won't ever be able to use the new C-Map "max" format as Raymarine will not be updating the display firmware to handle it (I was told). Not a big issue for me.

SeaTalk is easier if you are connecting up a bunch of things. My plotter/radar lives over the chart table and repeats the cockpit instruments; with NMEA this could be a nightmare (one NMEA source to multiple devices is OK; multiple NMEA inputs to a single device is not so easy - possible, but just not so easy). SeaTalk uses a bus system where every device understands that it is shared, so multiple senders/multiple readers is easy. But NMEA-defined standards across a bus technology like ethernet would be better and potentially more interoperable!

 

[johna]

See the nealeb post I have the same understanding of the situation. Interesting though when I spoke to Raymarine about a compatibility I spoke to someone in the USA, he was not aware that the RL70CRC was being sold at a reduced price and if you look on the US web sites these units are still for sale at normal US prices. For units in the UK try Kevin at www.yachtbits.fsnet.co.uk or Greenham marine. Both will be better than the E-Bay figure and you will have a guarantee.

 

[yachtbits]

RL70CRC price

The actual deal on the RL70CRC is with it packaged with an SD120 GPS antenna and the list price for the package is £1045.75 inc vat.

We are now able to do that package for £845 inc vat.

We will split off the SD120 and do the displays for £720 inc vat.

These are all brand new with 2 year warranty. Supply will dry up once Raymarine finish the production run.

Should be on the website shortly, but you'll hace to email me to take off the SD120.

kev