I have 3 Raymarine instrument displays that I have tried to re-purpose, unsuccessfully so far. They are the i50 Depth, i50 Speed and i60 Wind. I tried to include them in my NMEA 2000 network with all new B&G instruments and chartplotter. I fashioned a box to hold the displays over my nav station in the saloon and I used the cables that convert the port differences. The theory is that the instruments can be used as REPEATERS, not MASTERS, since the transducers are no longer connected directly to the instruments. The manuals provide a step-by-step procedure to convert the instruments to repeaters, if necessary (the instruments can adapt automatically, it seems).
The wind display converted automatically and has always worked as intended. When I first attempted to change the Depth display, I was able to get the display to read "MASTER" but it is supposed to blink so that you can change it manually to "REPEATER" using either one of the arrow keys. Same thing happened with the Speed instrument. I fussed with it for an hour without getting the result I was looking for.
Several days later, my buddy @Ward H was on the boat and I showed him what I was attempting to do and OMG the display showed a blinking "MASTER"! I don't know what I did differently to get there, but I switched it to "REPEATER" and sure enough I had an accurate depth reading! We did the same thing with the Speed instrument and it was already changed over to "REPEATER"! OH JOY! The only problem was that it wasn't reading the water temp and there were no speed readings for either boat speed or SOG. So apparently, there was something missing.
After Ward left, I turned electronics off and later I turned them back on. The Depth and Speed instruments reverted to "MASTER" and no matter how I tried, they could not be converted. It appears that Ward's magic was missing.
I think that Sue is not going to be happy with that box hanging over the desk with 3 displays so it's going to come down. I realize that I can get all the info I want inside the cabin by installing one B&G Triton display in a discrete location (wind & depth is all I really want while anchored). I'll just give up on the RM displays.
The wind display converted automatically and has always worked as intended. When I first attempted to change the Depth display, I was able to get the display to read "MASTER" but it is supposed to blink so that you can change it manually to "REPEATER" using either one of the arrow keys. Same thing happened with the Speed instrument. I fussed with it for an hour without getting the result I was looking for.
Several days later, my buddy @Ward H was on the boat and I showed him what I was attempting to do and OMG the display showed a blinking "MASTER"! I don't know what I did differently to get there, but I switched it to "REPEATER" and sure enough I had an accurate depth reading! We did the same thing with the Speed instrument and it was already changed over to "REPEATER"! OH JOY! The only problem was that it wasn't reading the water temp and there were no speed readings for either boat speed or SOG. So apparently, there was something missing.
After Ward left, I turned electronics off and later I turned them back on. The Depth and Speed instruments reverted to "MASTER" and no matter how I tried, they could not be converted. It appears that Ward's magic was missing.
I think that Sue is not going to be happy with that box hanging over the desk with 3 displays so it's going to come down. I realize that I can get all the info I want inside the cabin by installing one B&G Triton display in a discrete location (wind & depth is all I really want while anchored). I'll just give up on the RM displays.