Electronics (learning)

Posted by Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit | sailing | View on Reddit | 22 comments

Are there pros and cons to where you mount radar?

What are some common bundles for electronics?

What do you use, and what talks well with each other?

I think I want to have: forward facing sonar, depth sounder/CHIRP, AIS, radar, anchor alarm, auto pilot.

I’m planning on starting down the eastern seaboard USA, and then into the Caribbean/ British virgin islands. 27-35ft sailboat (once I buy it)

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whyrumalwaysgone@reddit

Marine electrician here, I install this stuff on a daily basis, heres my 2 cents. Personal opinions only from my own experience:

Ais, depth, charts, and radar can all be combined (plus lots of other stuff) on an MFD. This is your chartplotter, pick a brand and size and use this as a starting point. I recommend Garmin or Simrad for generally decent quality, price, and tech support that actually answers the phone. But aside from very minor stuff all brands offer the same basic stuff, and any of them will do fine.

For radar on a sailboat, get a broadband radome (never open array), and get it as high as possible. Radar is great in fog and at night, learn how to use it while it's daytime though. AIS is not optional, one of the biggest safety bonuses for the least money, it can and will save you at some point. Depth the scanning stuff is a cool toy, get it if you have the budget but basic water depth/temp/speed in a triducer is more important.

Auto pilot can be a stand alone system, no need to interface with the MFD. You can, but the features are minimal and it creates a single point of failure if something breaks. Lots of opinions about this, it doesn't really matter as long as you have a pilot control/display separate from your plotter.

Add wind instruments to your list, worth it.

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SVAuspicious@reddit

With respect, I steer people away from Garmin because Navionics is not safe for navigation. I would rip it out if it's there, but I wouldn't buy it.

I'll add that MFDs and autopilots often support multiple interfaces (NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000) and can save you the cost of a protocol converter. This can be a big deal if you're keeping older instruments and upgrading MFD and A/P.

I would add a WiFi NMEA box if not built into your MFD. I much prefer an MFD in the cockpit, but it's lovely to have a laptop (OpenCPN is my choice) on the nav station and nav apps on phones and tablets (Aqua Map).

Radar imagery interpretation is not intuitive. Take a class like the one from Starpath. Or the right job for a few years especially in the military or a few other agencies and someone will spend tens of thousands of dollars training you on RF, optical, and acoustic imagery interpretation. Recommended. *grin*

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

So helpful and a great jumping off point to start picking devices and budgeting. Thank you so much!!!

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mikeboatman@reddit

Forget about forward facing sonar for the time being. B&G doesn't support it on their new MFDs.

Depth and a decent MFD are the most important. Radar and AIS are next. Autopilot is great, but expensive. Wind instrument is helpful but not essential to sail.

Solo sailing makes an autopilot more important than if you are with others.

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

I am solo sailing and auto pilot will be a must… but not right away as I’m learning and doing shorter sails. I’ll probly go with a windvane type.

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SVAuspicious@reddit

Wind vane doesn't help when you're motoring. Most cruisers starting out use the ICW on the US East Coast so you'll be motoring a lot.

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SVAuspicious@reddit

When you run the numbers, forward-facing sonar has limited utility. Depth sounder is the first thing I'd put on a boat. Radar. AIS. Auto pilot. Lots of good anchor alarms, some free, on your phone. VHF. Chartplotter. Depending on how much you sail, Starlink; if you don't have Starlink then weather fax. Lots and lots of capacitors to cut down on RFI/EMI.

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millijuna@reddit

My boat is a whole mix of things as it’s grown over time. But since it’s all NMEA 2000, it all plays together rather nicely.

Sailing Instruments were originally Silva Nexus. This included wind, speed log, depth. They eventually got bought out by Garmin. When the old system eventually died, we stuck with Garmin because we could reuse the through hulls. We’re pretty happy with it.
Autopilot: We’re a tiller steered boat, so options are limited. But we like our Simrad TP32. It’s also plugged into the N2K network.
AIS: We have a Vesper XB8000. Unfortunately Garmin bought them up and killed the product line. But it acts as our AIS transponder, main ship’s GPS, N2K to 0183 gateway (both wired and wifi).
VHF: Icom m509. Gets its position via N2k. Unfortunately discontinued, and the replacement has some stupid design choices.
Compass: Old School Furuno PG-500. Quite accurate, but NMEA 0183 only. Puts its data on the bus via the Vesper.
Chartplotter: our iPads and other devices. I run iNavX on my iPad, my co-owner runs AquaMaps on his. Both work well, and are integrated with the boat’s instruments via wifi.
Internet/Wifi: We finally broke down and bought a StarLink mini. It’s on a post attached to our pushpit. Most of the time we keep it on the $7/mo standby plan

Other things on our network is our entire Victron based electrical system. We have 460AHr of Lithium battery storage. Our little Beta Marine engine is also on the network both via our Wakespeed Alternator regulator and the VDO Tachometer that Beta included.

The one thing we don’t have is radar. But I don’t really see a good way to install it. It’s just a 27’ boat. Forward of the spreaders would probably intrude too much into our foresail.

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

Thank you for sharing your setup. I’ve seen tons of van/solar/hookups/ect and am fluent is all of that. But sailboat tech is a new world for me that I need to learn.

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millijuna@reddit

The key thing is that NMEA 2000 is actually pretty darned reliable, and very interoperable. Plus, all the big players are using it. It’s just that some (Simrad and Raymarine) use proprietary connectors. SimNet, and SeaTalk NG are both just NMEA 2000, but on different connectors.

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Mehfisto666@reddit

From what i hear the most important thing is to start with an mfd and radar of the same brand. Other instruments are somewhat easier to plug and play into different system.

Raymarine has a terrible fame of not supporting older products to push you into buying the new stuff. I learnt that the hard way.

That's all i know.

But yeah if you are going to blow big money on electronics you can for sure find some professionals that will include installation as a deal. Running cables and stuff is horrible

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whyrumalwaysgone@reddit

Yeah one of my customers just blew $3600 on new gear because the rail mounted Raymarine GPS antenna puck died. Cheap part, but literally no possible compatible replacement to make their primary plotter work again. Sounds insane but its the Raymarine business model.

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

I appreciate that. Your the second person that has said to stay away from raymarine for that reason ty

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Mehfisto666@reddit

I bought an expensive original raymarine adapter SPECIFICALLY to make OLD seatalk electronics talk to new ones and after trying to figure out why it did not work i found out this one thing was not supported by thee adapter because it's old. There is also an expensive afrermarket device that adapts the adapter to make it work also with my piece of equipment. So no reason why it shouldn't work other than then not wanting me to use it.

Wish i knew earlier

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

….sounds complicated and expensive.

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Most_Lie4970@reddit

Don’t forget the marine VHF radio. You can really get AIS and a lot of other things when it’s interference

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Extreme_Map9543@reddit

“Sailboat electronics simplified” by Don Casey, and the “Boat owners illustrated electrical handbook” by Charles wing. Are two books you should buy and read. And in my opinion you should keep electronics as simple as possible. depth sounder, speedometer, lights, VHF. Maybe a radar. Your “autopilot” should be a monitor windvane if you’re cruising on a small boat.

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

Great info I appreciate it !!

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plopsicle@reddit

I'm a big big fan of do everything yourself and you'll learn along the way and save money. But if you're going to spend $10-20k on all these electronics I do think you'd benefit from some professional advice at the very least.

Also bare in mind that the boat you buy will likely already have many of those things already installed, so you will want to probably keep the existing system and add into it. So if the boat has all B&G instruments for example, you'll want to add more B&G things as they all talk to eachother nicely.

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

I’m thinking more, find a boat that comes with some of it and find the rest from marketplace. 5k ish budget

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Intelligent_Rice7117@reddit (OP)

I’m transitioning from 6 years vanlife all diy to sailboat. I have a few sailing capt friends that will teach me some stuff this summer. Cheap is the goal. And I’m very good at YouTube university haha

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Skeebo-57@reddit

I'd recommend taking Basic Marine Electronics install (MEI) from NMEA. It covers a lot of information you're looking for. When I took it it gave all relevant ABYC regulations as well, which is great for reference.