Instrument and Transducer Upgrade for 2005 Hunter 33

[McPhee]

My Hunter 33 has older Raymarine instruments for speed and depth (ST60, I believe), with no wind transducer. To plan the upgrade, I've put together a small diagram that I wanted to run past this community for feedback, tips, and traps:

For this version, I'm routing the speed and depth transducers to the nav station, along with the new cable from the masthead wind transducer. Looking at the ITC-5. Looking at the images, it seems to convert 2 analog transducers, at most, to 1 Seatalk-NG. In this case, I suppose I'll need two of these for a) speed, b) depth, & c) wind.

My plan is to use the Seatalk-NG T's to drive two new Raymarine i70s displays replacing the ST60s.

Questions:

1. I'm interested in installing a SignalK server on a Pi, or purchasing something like the iKommunicate, but I don't think this gets around the need for an ITC-5, right? Because those signals are not NMEA 0183 but direct signals from the transducers? I couldn't find a lot of data on these online, so let me know if I'm wrong. Using something like an iKommunicate instead would save me money on the ITC-5 and solve my problem of driving my chart plotter on the iPad.
2. Is there an easier way to go about this? The goal is to add in a wind transducer and hopefully not have to add another display to the limited space on the helm station. The i70s seems to solve this and I can eliminate two of the redundant analog cables and instead run them to the Nav Station as a hub.

 

[McPhee]

I read the ITC-5 manual: iTC-5 Manuals | Raymarine. Turns out those are Seatalk backbone and spur connections I saw on the image, and one module can translate the signals for most transducers.

 

[jssailem]

one module can translate the signals for most transducers.

Yes.

• Speed and sea temperature transducer connections
• Wind connections
• Fluxgate compass connections
• Depth transducer connections
• Rudder reference connections

All get pumped into your SeatalkNG network. You connect the helm displays to your network and the displays select the data required from the stream based on out you set up the i70s or your MF display (chart plotter) at the helm.

 

[jssailem]

The iPad as a display is another structure. You will need to interface the data in the network to a unit able to communicate with the iPad and the app(software) on the iPad.

I handle this using a gateway/wifi feature of my AIS transceiver. I bought the Vesper XB8000 for this function. The unit has an interface for the SeatalkNG data. It provides AIS data to the network and uploads network data to the iPad or upto 5 wifi connectable devices (i.e. laptop).

For example my depth transducer connects to the ITC5. The ITC5 provides the depth data to the network. My iPad using NavX connects to the Vesper where it gets the GPS/Depth/AIS data that is on the SeatalkNG network.