New boat electronics

[Dan Gurney]

E7D it is, due to good pricing from Redbay and the fact that it appeals to the geek in me.

Delivery before the end of March 2015.

[cmcdowall90]

Radar

[boristhebold]

Originally Posted by Clamchowder

E7D it is, due to good pricing from Redbay and the fact that it appeals to the geek in me.

Delivery before the end of March 2015.

Nice unit I have one, one nice feature of it is you can customise lots of small screens to display what you want to, takes a bit of time setting up to display what you want but only if you dont like looking through manuals, most config options are self explanatary to some degree.

Have you thought about connectivity to your other electronics, nemea 0183 nmea 2000 or seatalk ? I also fitted the raymarine AIS650 and the AIS 100 splitter units, all works well.

[boristhebold]

I connected all my electronics via NMEA0183 (all that could communicate that way) Raymarine E7D, Icom VHF, Raymarine AIS650 & Flux Heading Sensor using spade terminal blocks which I cut into segments of 4 across and then built my own housing from a weather resistant electrical box and fed the wires into, as pics.

[Dan Gurney]

Originally Posted by boristhebold

Nice unit I have one, one nice feature of it is you can customise lots of small screens to display what you want to, takes a bit of time setting up to display what you want but only if you dont like looking through manuals, most config options are self explanatary to some degree.

Have you thought about connectivity to your other electronics, nemea 0183 nmea 2000 or seatalk ? I also fitted the raymarine AIS650 and the AIS 100 splitter units, all works well.

Leaving all that to Redbay. Pretty sure they are going NMEA but tbh I hadn't considered the diff flavours. What are the pros and cons?

[SteveHall]

2k is miles better, a lot faster and so much easier to add onto the network using a T.

Really would push for 2K if you have the option! I added a 2K network first between my plotter and fish finder, then added the engine, fuel tank, sonic hub, VHF with AISm storage unit (to keep a log of my fuel use)

Its really easy to add onto the network.

[Ovey]

NMEA 2000 (N2K) is the way ahead and most modern equipment has connections for it. You can pretty much monitor/control everything from your chartplotter and let multiple plotters see the same data from one source. The only drawback is that you are limited to which VHFs are N2K currently, although most manufacturers are upgrading new versions to use N2K.

You have to install an N2K backbone and then everything else just hangs off it, sharing the data along the backbone. You can also extend the backbone as you feed more kit off it. It doesn't really matter which flavour of N2K backbone you get since most manufacturers do a "my equipment to other equipment" converter cables. I've got a Raymarine backbone connecting my Raymarine plotter and Lowrance VHF, as the Raymarine starter kit was on offer. I may get a second plotter in time, or even a Fusion stereo so that I can control that from my plotter. Unfortunately my engine is too old to fit an N2K communication module so I won't bother with that or a fuel gauge.

[Dan Gurney]

One would assume they'll be fitting the latest on a brand new Rib but since all I said was that I wanted the Engine to talk to the plotter I guess I better check.

[SteveHall]

If the engine is talking with the plotter that will be N2K

Its brilliant when its working, you can get so much information on the plotters - although my last outing it went a little bit crazy and told me I had used 18,941lts of fuel playing about for the day!


When is the delivery date - We will have to plan a weekend out!

[boristhebold]

Yes I agree NMEA0183 is getting a bit old hat these days, NMEA2000 probably the way to go, as ive now got alot of raymarine stuff im thinking of sometime next year ripping out the nmea0183 and either replaceing with NMEA2000 with a backbone or using raymarine seatalk with a nmea2000 converter for some elements.

as you add kit its a pain unless youve thought in advance and have the backbone allready in place. So for a new build if I were having a new boat I would insist probably on a NMEA2000 backbone plus a decent fused positive and the negative type of terminal buses etc to make a nice installation.

[Dan Gurney]

Originally Posted by SteveHall

When is the delivery date - We will have to plan a weekend out!

No exact date yet; "before the end of March" is what we have. Which is fine. Think we're going to try and keep P&J's over the summer if they have room, that way we'll get more use out of her. Being new it shouldn't need quite so much fettling in between runs.

[Chris Caton]

Originally Posted by Clamchowder

No exact date yet; "before the end of March" is what we have. Which is fine. Think we're going to try and keep P&J's over the summer if they have room, that way we'll get more use out of her. Being new it shouldn't need quite so much fettling in between runs.

I'm sure P&JS will fit you in Dan, but no harm giving them a call n booking a slot, especially if it's for a nice new rib, looking forward to a having a good look

[pow2gran]

Dan really looking forward to seeing your new rib. Are you going to post some build pics?

[Dan Gurney]

If I get some I'll def post them, but since I can't pop over very easily I'll have to hope that willk happens to pop in sometime.

[willk]

Originally Posted by Clamchowder

I'll have to hope that willk happens to pop in sometime.

As it happens, it's unlikely that I'll be at HQ during that period (although I'll be there over the next week or so). Ribochet is in there regularly, 'cos Ricochet lives in the yard. Gary has been known to email the odd photo - but you'll have to keep after him....

[Ovey]

Originally Posted by boristhebold

Yes I agree NMEA0183 is getting a bit old hat these days, NMEA2000 probably the way to go, as ive now got alot of raymarine stuff im thinking of sometime next year ripping out the nmea0183 and either replaceing with NMEA2000 with a backbone or using raymarine seatalk with a nmea2000 converter for some elements.



as you add kit its a pain unless youve thought in advance and have the backbone allready in place. So for a new build if I were having a new boat I would insist probably on a NMEA2000 backbone plus a decent fused positive and the negative type of terminal buses etc to make a nice installation.

Raymarine do a SeatalkNG (their own connectors but N2K protocol) converter for previous versions of Seatalk if your old network is Raymarine? They also do a pure NMEA0183 converter for older non raymarine too. If it's one of the other networks I'm sure they do similar converters.

The beauty is that once you have the first part of the network it's easy to extend.


Sent from my iPhone using RIB Net

[Dan Gurney]

Originally Posted by willk

As it happens, it's unlikely that I'll be at HQ during that period (although I'll be there over the next week or so). Ribochet is in there regularly, 'cos Ricochet lives in the yard. Gary has been known to email the odd photo - but you'll have to keep after him....

Bugger.

[Barrowboy]

Dan, have you decided which electronics you'll be installing?

I was planning on taking a trip to the Excel Boat Show in order to get down-and-dirty with some plotters but I've just had a look at the exhibitors list for the show and Navico/Lowrance/B&G/Simrad, whose NSS (non-touchscreen) plotters are of interest, don't appear on the list? Simrad's website states that they will be exhibiting but I wonder if their presence at the show will be a bloke on (say) the MES Ltd stand?

Garmin and Raymarine have their own stands.

Seriously considering taking a Flybe from Manchester to Dusseldorf for £160 round trip later in the month instead...

[whackywoody]

Originally Posted by Barrowboy

Dan, have you decided which electronics you'll be installing?

I was planning on taking a trip to the Excel Boat Show in order to get down-and-dirty with some plotters but I've just had a look at the exhibitors list for the show and Navico/Lowrance/B&G/Simrad, whose NSS (non-touchscreen) plotters are of interest, don't appear on the list? Simrad's website states that they will be exhibiting but I wonder if their presence at the show will be a bloke on (say) the MES Ltd stand?

Garmin and Raymarine have their own stands.

Seriously considering taking a Flybe from Manchester to Dusseldorf for £160 round trip later in the month instead...

Tony, this is why I went to the boatshow at Southampton last year as I wanted to purchase a cheap chartplotter and had already narrowed it down to a short list of 7" screen chartplotters :

1.) Raymarine eD7 (sonar transducer compatible unit) - This was my preferred unit as its a hybrid touch screen unit. However the boat show prices were coming in at over £800 for the unit, plus £150 for the transducer and then over £230 for the navionics chart which I don't believe it is as good as the garmin charts (IMHO). Conclusion was maybe a £100 saving outside boat show remit and an expensive package

2.) Garmin echomap 70s (sonar transducer compatible unit). A full touch screen unit but my console doesn't get that wet as I'm a fair weather boater and Chris Caton has had a Garmin touch screen for a few years and if its good enough for him its good enough for me . Anyway cheapest price I could get at the boat show was £715 for the unit, £100 for the sonar in hull transducer and the Garmin charts I can get at very cheap price . Conclusion was a much more competitive price but only an £85 saving on the garmin unit itself at the boat show.

So as the Garmin echomap 70s was a far more competitive price and as I have used Garmin before I have just bought a new unit from ebay from a company based in the US. Full price including postage and customs charges is £510 and I have just bought the transducer from Cactus marine for £100.

Hope this helps Tony

P.S. Both the Garmin and Raymarine had there own exhibits at Southampton Boat Show but you couldn't buy direct off them at the boat show

[Dan Gurney]

Originally Posted by Barrowboy

Dan, have you decided which electronics you'll be installing...

Raymarine e7 - wanted hybrid touch control which pretty much rules out Garmin at my size/price point. Redbay offered a good price and I think it's a neat looking unit. If I was retro fitting it would be as toss up between that and the 7" Simrad. Trevor has /had one on Baby Blue that works very well and is hybrid.