Best GPS-Radar-Sonar overlay display

[Wolfhound]

Who now has the best?


Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno NavNet 3D??? Others?


Quality (accuracy) of display, ease (intuitiveness) of use? Reliability? Price?


I'm thinking of practical piloting and navigational use, and don't care if we can identify fish 700 feet down...


User comments on recent systems will be especially appreciated.


All the best,


Wolf Hound

[s/v Jedi]

Radar and sonar overlay is as accurate as the chart is. For sonar, you're gonna need a professional line searchlight sonar like from Furuno so that would seal the deal to Furuno. You can then throw in a Furuno FAR radar and you got gear for life

[David M]

I have a Furuno MFDBB system that interfaces very well. It's expensive but I think you get what you pay for. The quality and customer support is excellent. I have included a sounder, fluxgate, AIS transponder, chart with ARPA, radar and acoustic speed sensor (SOW). There is the option to add up to four video cameras. By the time you purchase all this hardware you are easily at $20k.

http://www.furuno.com/en/business_pr...s=recreational

If you want less expensive I would look at the Garmin nav systems. I think the quality with Garmin is pretty good. It's good bang for the buck. Garmin also makes really nice aircraft instrumentation for private aircraft and business jets.

I'm not a fan of Raymarine because of their lousy customer support, design and questionable quality hardware. In this forum I see more problems with Raymarine hardware than any other nav equipment company by far, and it isn't just because of Raymarine's popularity. I have read many horror stories about them and how poorly they sometimes treat their customers. Good customer service is extremely important with marine electronics, because almost inevitably you will need their help with installation or further on down the road when something fails or you can't figure out how to get something to work. Don't fall into the trap of thinking cheaper is better with marine electronics.

Simrad is another company to look at. Much of their hardware is excellent.

Both Furuno and Simrad also make nav hardware for large commercial vessels.

[jeremiason]

You should have asked APPLE MAC or IBM.... I assume this thread will go the way of an anchor discussion


We have a Raymarine E120, 4KW Radar and AIS Class B. Our forwrd looking sonar is InterPhase and is stand alone.

Most of the the commercial power boats I have worked on tend to use Furuno.

The market tends to be Raymarine for sailboats and Furuno for Power Boats. Garmin is now grabbing a percentage of both markets.


You should play with all the units on other peoples boats and get a feel for how well you brain wraps around the software. For me Raymarine just works better in my brain than others.

[Wolfhound]

It’s worth checking out this 8-min.video...

http://www.sportfishingmag.com/videos-sf/boat-show-first-looks/furuno-navnet-3d

Compass, sextant, charts, line & log, ranges, pelorus, etc. are all excellent (and necessary) piloting back-ups, but what may now be done electronically is extraordinary.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by David M

I have a Furuno MFDBB system that interfaces very well. It's expensive but I think you get what you pay for. The quality and customer support is excellent. I have included a sounder, fluxgate, AIS transponder, chart with ARPA, radar and acoustic speed sensor (SOW). There is the option to add up to four video cameras. By the time you purchase all this hardware you are easily at $20k.

MULTI FUNCTION DISPLAY BLACK BOX MFDBB | Products:NavNet 3D Series | Marine Equipment For Recreational Boats | Business Fields & Product List | FURUNO's Product Site

If you want less expensive I would look at the Garmin nav systems. I think the quality with Garmin is pretty good. It's good bang for the buck. Garmin also makes really nice aircraft instrumentation for private aircraft and business jets.

I'm not a fan of Raymarine because of their lousy customer support, design and questionable quality hardware. In this forum I see more problems with Raymarine hardware than any other nav equipment company by far, and it isn't just because of Raymarine's popularity. I have read many horror stories about them and how poorly they sometimes treat their customers. Good customer service is extremely important with marine electronics, because almost inevitably you will need their help with installation or further on down the road when something fails or you can't figure out how to get something to work. Don't fall into the trap of thinking cheaper is better with marine electronics.

Simrad is another company to look at. Much of their hardware is excellent.

Both Furuno and Simrad also make nav hardware for large commercial vessels.

Given a round up at the moment, Id say SIMRAD ( Navico) is out in the lead, followed by Raymarine, Garmin, Furuno. but only if sounders are important.

Simrad was once once by Konisberg, that used to make commercial equipment , but SIMRAD has been owned for a few years now by Navico/Lowrance , just like Raymarine ( Rayetheon) used to make commercial equipment too , before the MBO.

Id have to counter the view expressed above on Ray marine, I find there customer support excellent, and the new range of product is class leading , and they are innovating fast under FLIRs money and direction.

Dave

[s/v Jedi]

So, tell me how you guys get a sonar overlay on the chart without a searchlight sonar like the Furuno? I don't believe it for a second that Raymarine can do it.

Who had that sidescan unit? Humminbird? *Googling* yes Humminbird, but I see no overlay:

[goboatingnow]

Explanation of Raymarine ClearPulse CHIRP Technology

I dont think the OP was talking sidescan, ( nor even fish finders), merely a good sonar. Raymarines CHirP isnt bad by all accounts ( its still like the other s in the $2000 range, I think that might not be what the OP is talking about)

[goboatingnow]

I wasnt aware that Furuno SearchLight worked with Navnet3D , you learn something new everyday. I have seen them on small trawlers with a standalone display

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I wasnt aware that Furuno SearchLight worked with Navnet3D , you learn something new everyday. I have seen them on small trawlers with a standalone display

It doesn't; but I think the FAR radar can be connected. The OP asked for overlay sonar...

I don't see the Furuno doing overlays. Strangely, I find this "FAR sonar" that does:

[s/v Jedi]

nice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4YOpwDMlXI

[goboatingnow]

yes but well out of our league nick

At the moment, SIMRAD with Structure scan and other broadband sounders are out there in front. I suspect Garmin will do something eventually once they get their head around Interphase.

Dave

[Wolfhound]

So, replacing really old (non-functional) electronics with new everything, who now has the best overall chartplotter deal if spending under $6,000?

Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno ??? Others?

Quality (accuracy) of display, ease (intuitiveness) of use? Reliability? Price?

Has anyone here made a major purchase in the last year and, if so, what are your thoughts, please, now that you've used it this season?

Wolf Hound

[Robin3]

We are currently having an all new Garmin system installed, NMEA 2000 plug and play stuff. Ours is not the cheapest as we opted for a Garmin 4210 display, plus HD radar, AIS transceiver, heading display, plus we are also including new thru hull traducer for boatspeed, depth and temp and a masthead wind transducer for windspeed/direction with a separate displayhead that can be configured to display pretty much anything available on the NMEA 2000 bus. When we were looking, Garmin had some deals ( see West marine) on the 740 series that could be packaged with radar at a very good price. I wanted a larger display and I prefer buttons to the 740's touchscreen operation hence the 4210 choice .

Edited to add that we can display boatspeed and wind data on the plotter screen in analogue format on one page, like wind direction and closehauled analogue views so it is not necessary to have multiple instrument heads as before with the Raymarine stuff we are ditching, most of which was old and non-working.

OOps sorry I realise I missed sonar but I think Garmin offer it as an expensive option. WE have opted for a G@ CHart upgrade to shoew more depth info as well as allow other fesatures like automatic suggested route creation between waypoints taking into account boat draught,Air draught etc.

[JRM]

Originally Posted by Wolfhound

So, replacing really old (non-functional) electronics with new everything, who now has the best overall chartplotter deal if spending under $6,000?

Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno NavNet 3D??? Others?

Quality (accuracy) of display, ease (intuitiveness) of use? Reliability? Price?

Has anyone here made a major purchase in the last year and, if so, what are your thoughts, please, now that you've used it this season?

Wolf Hound

I have, and I went Garmin. The driving force being that the admiral feels it's more intuitive. Obviously, this is a purely subjective metric.

I have the older GS22 high def sounder because I got a steal on it. It's awesome. I had to call Garmin once for tech support on it when it started doing silly stuff, turned out the ground was sketch. They were very helpful.

I think Raymarine (ok, all of them really) is ahead of Garmin in technology, but the boss just didn't like operating it. I think you'll find it's a lot like anything... Similar capabilities and life expectancies, so go with what you like to use. Spend a bit of time messing about with the different units at a local retailer or boat show, and go with what scratches your itch.

I love tech toys, but I try not to play Space Invaders when using the boat. It's like a magnet: if it's on I'm tempted to look at / play with it. If I had the 3-D stuff I might never even look out :-). Luckily the screen has a polarized filter on it, so I have to take my sunglasses off to really see it. This helps with the temptation to stare at it every few seconds. Or at least until I get tired of tilting my head.

Good luck. If I can be more unhelpful just drop me a line :-).

JRM