I am at a Milestone. I'm about to start rewiring the Northern 25, but don't know if I should go with Analog or Digital guages. I realize a lot of it has to do with personal taste, but is there an advantage of one over the other? As I am relpacing all the guages, there is nothing to really match up to. I am also going to be redoing the power distribution panals, that is, order new ones but again not sure what I will need as the panal I am replacing was a 6 gang switch, very basic. Does anyone have pics of how they have configured their Nav stations as well as power panals so as to give me an idea of how nice and functional I can make this? I'd like to do it right the first time, for a change.
Analog or Digital Guages?
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Paul K
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We have some analog guages and some digital ones. Which is better depends a bit upon how you use them. Many new guages come as digital. It's fashionable to know that your're going 3.7488909099901 knots. As if the readout was actually that accurate. The needle moving from that value to 3.75 probably wouldn't be visible, especially as a wave swept under the moving boat. We use the instruments a lot at night, because seeing the sails is difficult then. An analog AWI is easier to read in the dark than our digital Tacktic readout, so we go with the analog. The digital speedo does give the impression of being more accurate, though, with it's decimal point. I was pleased this October to find out that 12.50 is not as good as 12.53. I don't know if I'd have been able to see the difference on an analogue dial. Think about what will work best for your situation and go with that. The insruments are only as good as the interpretation you give them.
We have some analog guages and some digital ones. Which is better depends a bit upon how you use them. Many new guages come as digital. It's fashionable to know that your're going 3.7488909099901 knots. As if the readout was actually that accurate. The needle moving from that value to 3.75 probably wouldn't be visible, especially as a wave swept under the moving boat. We use the instruments a lot at night, because seeing the sails is difficult then. An analog AWI is easier to read in the dark than our digital Tacktic readout, so we go with the analog. The digital speedo does give the impression of being more accurate, though, with it's decimal point. I was pleased this October to find out that 12.50 is not as good as 12.53. I don't know if I'd have been able to see the difference on an analogue dial. Think about what will work best for your situation and go with that. The insruments are only as good as the interpretation you give them.
Analog/Digital
Digital is best for when you require an reading value - no interpreting between the lines (ie: radio frequency) Analog is best for varying readings - the direction and rate of needle movement is easy to interpret (ie: changing boat speed) Digital displays seem to backlight better.
Digital is best for when you require an reading value - no interpreting between the lines (ie: radio frequency) Analog is best for varying readings - the direction and rate of needle movement is easy to interpret (ie: changing boat speed) Digital displays seem to backlight better.
digital yuck
I prefer analog, if you have several gauges you need to read, you can sweep a cluster of analogs and know if something's wrong, just by position of the needles, with digital, regardless of how large the display is, you have to actualy read the gauge to know what it says, -108 and +108 can be surprisingly similar on digital, same with 200 and 280 and can cause problems, most of the digital ammeters only turn a + into a - so if you don't or can't spare the time to read the gauge you don't know that the battery's discharging, with analog pointing towards the right is charging or hot, to the left is discharge or cool and it can all be read with a glance. digital to some people looks better, and I had a 'fling' with digital, but went back to analogue a year later simply because they told me more quicker. digital CAN be more accurate, but for the most part you don't realy need that level of accuracy, 'almost 101' is close enough to 100.97 to let you know what you need to know Ken.
I prefer analog, if you have several gauges you need to read, you can sweep a cluster of analogs and know if something's wrong, just by position of the needles, with digital, regardless of how large the display is, you have to actualy read the gauge to know what it says, -108 and +108 can be surprisingly similar on digital, same with 200 and 280 and can cause problems, most of the digital ammeters only turn a + into a - so if you don't or can't spare the time to read the gauge you don't know that the battery's discharging, with analog pointing towards the right is charging or hot, to the left is discharge or cool and it can all be read with a glance. digital to some people looks better, and I had a 'fling' with digital, but went back to analogue a year later simply because they told me more quicker. digital CAN be more accurate, but for the most part you don't realy need that level of accuracy, 'almost 101' is close enough to 100.97 to let you know what you need to know Ken.
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