FURUNO or B&G

[rla]

I would be careful with B&G. I had their equip but it all blew up when the alternator went over voltage. B&G had no protectionfor this unlike nearly every other instrument maker, many cover up to 60v excursions. I recently used a Simrad autopilot, for a 700 mile trip Baltic and canals, which was the best ever. Now a B&G company I think. Open cpn and an old laptop have been my main plotter for hundreds of miles.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by rla

I would be careful with B&G. I had their equip but it all blew up when the alternator went over voltage. B&G had no protectionfor this unlike nearly every other instrument maker, many cover up to 60v excursions. I recently used a Simrad autopilot, for a 700 mile trip Baltic and canals, which was the best ever. Now a B&G company I think. Open cpn and an old laptop have been my main plotter for hundreds of miles.

It's a good idea with any piece of nav gear NOT to connect directly to a system with an alternator in it (and bow thrusters and windlasses etc.), but through a DC-DC converter which will stabilize the voltage at 13.6v. My whole network is connected through DC-DC converters.

[Moo]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Another view on touch screens:


I have two B&G Zeus plotters, one classic non-touch all-button one, one first generation touch.


I was firmly against touch screens and thought I would hate the touch version, and bought ONE of the touch ones only because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get GoFree to work.


Well, as it turns out, the touch interface is not actually so bad at all and even has some advantages. In the Navico implementation you have a few buttons anyway so you can do quite a bit without touching the screen. And the touch screen itself works very well -- can be used in driving rain for example.



The most recent touch screen plotters have more and more buttons. The Raymarine one is even called a "touch hybrid".


In any case my recommendation would be to TRY and buy not just based on prejudice. You may be surprised as I was.


When I bought mine, I planned to put the touch one at the nav table in a dry environment. But the non-touch one wouldn't fit in my instrument pod!! So I ended up with the touch one at the helm and was almost immediately surprised at how well it worked. And that in this wet, cold climate -- I haven't been below 50N in several years.

This reply was to my post but presumably directed at others.

I should add that marine electronics is what I do for a job and to some extent a hobby (the raspberry pi etc.). I don't have a bias just experience a lot of miles at sea playing with this stuff.

If you never go to sea, or never get cold wet mushy fingers, you won't suffer the issues I mention. You really have to match the gear to your use scenario.

I agree the modern touch ergonomics are very good.. With dry clean hands

One problem with this thread is that the OP never gave much info on what he does or plans to do.

[Moo]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

And that in this wet, cold climate -- I haven't been below 50N in several years.

My usual hunting grounds are 50 to 70 South... But I have been to 0 too

[sailjumanji]

We had Raymarine ST60 (depth, wind, speed) vintage stuff and their wheel pilot on our previous Seawind cat. It held up for over a dozen years. The original chartplotter was Garmin, but we replaced that with a B&G Zeus 2 chartplotter. It worked very well for three years, and then we sold the boat. That is a touch screen unit, but also has a knob. Never had any issues with wet fingers, etc. On the Seawind 1000, the plotter is under a hard top though. So it would get wet, but never rained on. We used an ST to STng converter to get all of the ST60 data onto the NMEA2000 network. Also had a Vesper AIS that sent data to the Zeus 2. And we had B&G 4G radar, which I thought was outstanding.

When we commissioned build of our Seawind 1160 Lite in 2018, the manufacturer was tied to B&G. We took delivery of that boat early 2019, cruised it hard for four months thru the Bahamas, and then back across the Gulf of Mexico to Texas. For this round, we went with a 12 inch Zeus 3 plotter, the B&G ram autopilot, and B&G wind and depth/speed, and 4G radar. All of the systems have worked well for the year we have them onboard. Originally we had issue with the chartplotter, but after a quick replacement by B&G, we found it was a boat wiring issue. (Some solder connectors that weren't soldered, and would restrict amps on plotter startup, which would trigger the plotter to shut down. A second attempt at start always worked though!)

The ram autopilot worked very well and we used it a lot while cruising, including in some quartering wave conditions where it did better job steering than the crew! No problems with Zeus 3 touch screen, and the Zeus 3 has even better viewing from side angle than the Zeus 2. For AIS, I am still a believe in Vesper being best in class, and we went with an XB8000. For VHF, we went with ICOM, who to me is better than B&G offerings, albeit more expensive.

If I did it again (actually, to get another boat so soon, I would be divorced!), I would still go with B&G. Only issue is that I am not crazy about their combined depth/speed transducer, as here we get a lot of growth, and have shallow water. I would prefer to have separate units so I could leave the depth in all of the time, but only put the speed transducer in when we cruise or race. That said, there is no true wind calculation without boat speed thru water.

[s/v Jedi]

FYI: B&G sells remote control panels for their Zeus and Vulcan plotters. These have the buttons like the Zeus3 so you can make a Zeus out of a Vulcan. These connect anywhere in your NMEA2000 network and there are landscape and portrait oriented models. I may add one to my new 9” Vulcan later, if I still desire buttons. The disadvantage of buttons is that they can break.

[Moo]

Originally Posted by sailjumanji

If I did it again (actually, to get another boat so soon, I would be divorced!), I would still go with B&G. Only issue is that I am not crazy about their combined depth/speed transducer, as here we get a lot of growth, and have shallow water. I would prefer to have separate units so I could leave the depth in all of the time, but only put the speed transducer in when we cruise or race. That said, there is no true wind calculation without boat speed thru water.

There is no need to use B&G supplied transducer... Just choose what you like. They can all be interfaced

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You mean these are fake? How does Australia stand above International maritime law?

No, they are real but they are not all boats.
Look at the pic included, like I said,over here there are thousands of boats and a handful of targets.
Look at any marina and popular anchorage in the land and only a small % have ais.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

No, they are real but they are not all boats.
Look at the pic included, like I said,over here there are thousands of boats and a handful of targets.
Look at any marina and popular anchorage in the land and only a small % have ais.

LOL you’re talking about boats in marinas and anchorages... I’m talking about 300t must-carry ships that are underway

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

To the OP's question: As a long-time (almost 10 years) B&G user, my anwer would be -- Furuno. The B&G 4G radar has some very good points, but overall it is not such a great radar, and MARPA is useless. All of the Navico gear is dropped from support after a few years. All of it is to some extent or another, buggy, and occasionally unstable. I miss the rock-solid military hardware type qualities of my old Raymarine Pathfinder system, which the Navico really lacks -- the Navico gear is kind of toy-like, engineered to consumer electronics standards, in comparison. I will go with Furuno next time.

I've owned 3 radars so far. A Raymarine, Furuno, and B&G 3G. The Raymarine failed and was replaced by Furuno, which failed a couple of years ago to be replaced by B&G. Not directly comparable since each unit had newer generation technology. Each unit performed its basic job (locating other boats in fog most of the time). The B&G, with its solid state FM-CW technology has clearly the best performance at relatively close range (a few miles.) Also, the B&G is far less expensive than a comparable Furuno. I could almost buy 2 B&Gs for the cost of one Furuno and keep one as a spare. Despite it's reputed reliability and apparently solid construction, the Furuno failed 2 years ago and could not be repaired. I never had a Garmin radar, but I have found their electronics super reliable, to perform well, and easy to use. The only reason I didn't get a Garmin radar was that the cabling between the scanner and the display was going to be more difficult to run. By the way, I think the benefit of B&G 4G relative to 3G is marginal and the 3G is better value. Also, the B&G 3G and 4G technology is getting long in the tooth and I suspect that the new Raymarine and Garmin models perform better. So my advice is pick whatever system you like the best and don't worry too much about brand reputation. I don't think you can really go wrong with Furuno, Garmin, Raymarine, or Simrad/B&G.

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

No, they are real but they are not all boats.
Look at the pic included, like I said,over here there are thousands of boats and a handful of targets.
Look at any marina and popular anchorage in the land and only a small % have ais.

I usually turn off my AIS when in a marina, on a mooring, or at anchor. I suspect many others do likewise.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Ziggy

I've owned 3 radars so far. A Raymarine, Furuno, and B&G 3G. The Raymarine failed and was replaced by Furuno, which failed a couple of years ago to be replaced by B&G. Not directly comparable since each unit had newer generation technology. Each unit performed its basic job (locating other boats in fog most of the time). The B&G, with its solid state FM-CW technology has clearly the best performance at relatively close range (a few miles.) Also, the B&G is far less expensive than a comparable Furuno. I could almost buy 2 B&Gs for the cost of one Furuno and keep one as a spare. Despite it's reputed reliability and apparently solid construction, the Furuno failed 2 years ago and could not be repaired. I never had a Garmin radar, but I have found their electronics super reliable, to perform well, and easy to use. The only reason I didn't get a Garmin radar was that the cabling between the scanner and the display was going to be more difficult to run. By the way, I think the benefit of B&G 4G relative to 3G is marginal and the 3G is better value. Also, the B&G 3G and 4G technology is getting long in the tooth and I suspect that the new Raymarine and Garmin models perform better. So my advice is pick whatever system you like the best and don't worry too much about brand reputation. I don't think you can really go wrong with Furuno, Garmin, Raymarine, or Simrad/B&G.

What I said doesn't really contradict this.

The 4G radar has some good points -- and the best point is superb DSP which reduces false alarms in the guard zones to near nil in reasonable weather, which enormously increases the value of the guard zones.

That same quality greatly enhances the radar picture in short ranges.


So this radar is quite usuable for 90% of what rec sailors need it to do -- see stuff in fog or darkness at close ranges, basic radar navigation, basic radar plotting, guard zones.


But I don't think these are things the Furuno radars, the new generation ones, can't do, and besides that the 4G radar has many weak points, like utterly useless MARPA, poor bearing discrimination (no amount of signal processing can overcome the inherent limitations of the small antenna), and reliability issues (Missing Spoke Data etc.).

[s/v Jedi]

So if you want cheaper than the 4G then you can get 3G. If you want more features, like solid MARPA tracking, Doppler etc. then you can select one from the Halo range. B&G has more than just broadband
https://www.bandg.com/bg/type/radar/halo24bg24radar/

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by kenbo

To the OP, don't make your navigation electronics choices based on bells and whistles. Choose reliability and customer service. The folks that make their living every day on the water make Furuno their choice in the far majority of cases.

We are running and using every day a B&G Hercules system which was installed on this vessel in 1979 and upgraded in 1986 and 1995.

We've had some failures at times but for the last 10 years it has been flawless, so reliability does not seem to be a problem with B&G.

Not all people who make their living on the water choose Furuno. For reasons of functionality for sailing, B&G is the choice of the vast majority of high end racing sailboats.

Regarding radar, it is my feeling that on a shorthanded cruising sailing yacht it is difficult to maintain a radar watch for reasons of power and crew attention, We often need to be doing other things than sitting or standing and looking at a radar display.

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

No, they are real but they are not all boats.
Look at the pic included, like I said,over here there are thousands of boats and a handful of targets.
Look at any marina and popular anchorage in the land and only a small % have ais.

Who runs AIS at anchor, or in a marina? I know one large sportfisher that does because they use them as alarm system to detect boat movement (i.e., someone stealing their boat). Otherwise, everyone else i knows turns it off when the boat is stationary. If not, in a marina or mooring field you would be getting an alarm every time another AIS boat moves near you.

Thats said, tugs, workboats and ships anchored around here (Texas Gulf Coast) do keep AIS running when anchored or stationary. Which is good because they - especially tugs working barges - can start up at a moments notice, and present a pretty large target. On the ICW, AIS is is something i wouldnt be without. Transceiver, not just receive.