Quote:
I run Maxsea and have that on the Nav station monitor now how can I get the same information up to the steering station without spending next years beer budget doing it.
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Making a display that can handle the
weather,
water, and brightness is what
marine display terminals are all about. At about 15 inches I will say they get expensive. Anything else won't hold up or won't be bright enough to see. To get around that you need a whole different method becuase there are no
cheap marine display terminals.
This is a cheap alternative and I think also the cheapest alternative.
Place the an ordinary
laptop computer down below in a safe location running what ever chart
software you own. Run
NMEA IN / OUT wires to the
helm from the
laptop also add a set of 12 volt wires too with a circuit breaker / fuse. Then connect a basic
GPS to the
helm and load routes to it from the laptop then send the
GPS signal from the GPS to the laptop. A small GPS display is cheap and reads well in bright light. With an active
route it will compute all sorts of numerical data about speed, direction course cross track, ETA and many more. You don't need the image of the chart at this point if you have made a plan. If you need a new plan then go below and make one with all your tools and resources available. The GPS is now the primary display and you could turn off the computer or leave it on to save your track.
Planning routes with a chart plotter is quite helpful and a large
screen display is most helpful. Laptop
computers do that job well below
deck but the display is poor in daylight and they are not made for
cockpit use. Fitting the task with the device in this way works well. This way is not expensive and if you add a redundant GPS it's very reliable. Most GPS displays are
weather tight and readable.