Refitting a 1984 34' O'Day: all new wiring, plumbing, deck repair, engine referb. Now it is time to select a chartplotter and radar. I have purchased Raymarine wind, depth, and knot meter with transducers to be installed during the summer haulout. Any help will be welcomed.
Need help selecting Chartplotter/Radar to go with Raymarine instruments
- Thread starter Stargazer79
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Presumably your new Raymarine transducers are NMEA 2000 / SeaTalkNG? If so, any vendor's chart plotter that communicates over N2K will work. I have a Raymarine eS78 chart plotter/sounder with CPT-100 transducer, which I integrated with a Raymarine EV100 autopilot and a Vesper Marine (now Cortex / Garmin?) XB-8000 AIS transceiver, and a Raymarine Ray50 VHF. Everything works together.
I wish I had thought this one out a while back. I got a terrific price on a Garmin 74 DV. I had a Raymarine Auto Tiller, which was not compatible to the Garmin, as in not plug and play. I sold my old boat, but kept my GPS. When I bought my Oday 30, I bought a Raymarine auto wheel pilot, which is also not plug and play, with the GPS. I am constantly looking for an Axiom 7 bargain to have a complete Raymarine set up. At that point I'll look into depth, speed and wind to complete my set up.
I found a sale on a B&G Vulcan 7" for $600 and am moving it to the new boat. It is GREAT, especially after a Garmin 541. The menus, set-up options, and lay-out are much more intuitive for a sailboat than any of the Garmins. Plus, it can live at the nav station below and mirror to a common iPad at the helm or anywhere else. (My helm is covered by a bimini so wetness is not much of an issue.) Because it's real NMEA 2000 and NOT in the limited Raymarine Seatalk architecture, everything hooks up with no problem. The Standard Horizon AIS plays seamlessly on it.
If I had to do it all over, I'd probably hold out for the Zeus version at twice the price because it is the same thing with physical buttons and knobs. Again, the B&G was designed for sailing. But the Vulcan/iPad combo does fine as-is & I hope to add a B&G Triton2 display at the helm soon.
www.bandg.com
www.bandg.com
If I had to do it all over, I'd probably hold out for the Zeus version at twice the price because it is the same thing with physical buttons and knobs. Again, the B&G was designed for sailing. But the Vulcan/iPad combo does fine as-is & I hope to add a B&G Triton2 display at the helm soon.
Vulcan 7 | B&G Sailing USA
7-inch sailing chartplotter. Easy-to-use, touchscreen display with built in GPS, Wi-Fi and dedicated sailing features
Triton² Digital display | B&G Sailing USA
Multi-purpose sailing instrument and autopilot display with a 4.1-inch colour screen.
There are several good sources for Multi Functional Displays to guide you on your cruising adventures. If your existing hardware requires updates you will need a common MFD to upgrade any software. The EV100 AP for instance has upgrade software. You need a Raymarine Chartplotter to complete the upgrade or you need to take your AP to a Raymarine dealer.
Our reliance on technology sometimes works against our opportunity to shop for deals or competitors products.
Our reliance on technology sometimes works against our opportunity to shop for deals or competitors products.
I have upgraded/replaced all the instrumentation on my boat, with Raymarine everything. Depth / speed. Wireless wind, RayMarine Axiom 7 MFD. RayMarine Autopilot.
Oh - I lied, I have a Simrad VHF, with AIS.
Everything is NMEA 2000, all RayMarine is SeaTalkNG networking.
Be prepared for high priced cabling.
Most any modern MFD which is NMEA 2000 compliant should work with the appropriate cable adapters.
But, why not go with RayMarine for 100% compatibility?
My RayMarine Axiom 7 MFD is quite intuitive to use, it displays AIS targets from the Simrad VHF.
The Simrad VHF gets its GPS position from the MFD. I only bought the Simrad VHF because it was ridiculously cheap because the EU had just come out with a regulation that VHF's would have to have built in GPS, which these units did not, so Simrad was discontinuing them, and dumping them on the market.
My Raymarine autopilot will steer the boat in apparent wind angle mode from the RayMarine wind vane.
Because I have all the necessary data on the network, the MFD will display not only apparent wind angle/speed, but calculate true wind angle/speed as well (which is very useful for a sailor).
My advice would be to go with all one brand, as much as possible. B&G, or RayMarine, etc.
Less calls to tech support. You just plug it in, and it works.
B&G looks good also.
Fair winds.
Oh - I lied, I have a Simrad VHF, with AIS.
Everything is NMEA 2000, all RayMarine is SeaTalkNG networking.
Be prepared for high priced cabling.
Most any modern MFD which is NMEA 2000 compliant should work with the appropriate cable adapters.
But, why not go with RayMarine for 100% compatibility?
My RayMarine Axiom 7 MFD is quite intuitive to use, it displays AIS targets from the Simrad VHF.
The Simrad VHF gets its GPS position from the MFD. I only bought the Simrad VHF because it was ridiculously cheap because the EU had just come out with a regulation that VHF's would have to have built in GPS, which these units did not, so Simrad was discontinuing them, and dumping them on the market.
My Raymarine autopilot will steer the boat in apparent wind angle mode from the RayMarine wind vane.
Because I have all the necessary data on the network, the MFD will display not only apparent wind angle/speed, but calculate true wind angle/speed as well (which is very useful for a sailor).
My advice would be to go with all one brand, as much as possible. B&G, or RayMarine, etc.
Less calls to tech support. You just plug it in, and it works.
B&G looks good also.
Fair winds.
A great observation. I think of it as… when the shit starts to hit the fan, it is no time to lose control of your equipment.
Sure the promise is that it works in all weather. But that is like the chicken and pig discussion about an egg and bacon breakfast. For one it is a real commitment
I like the Raymarine Axiom 7. Works well with EV100 autopilot and Raymarine AIS. I also have a down vision transducer to see the fish and bottom. All connects easily with the Seatalkng network. Some of the cables were too short. Had to order special sizes.