Anybody using NavNet 3D

[Microship]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Steve,
I've been meaning to tell you how cool it is to see you here -- I remember following your bicycle adventures many years ago. My low-power crusade isn't as bold as yours was (is?), but every amp-hour drawn from my batteries feels like blood flowing from my veins!

Thanks, Paul! Just had a look at Valis - beautiful boat! Side view of mine is below...

The power project is never-ending. I'm a little intimidated by Big Scary Diesels (I have two - the 77 HP turbo main and a 7.5 KW genset, both Yanmar), and keep having fantasies of a full electric repower... but that's a pretty massive project. I think I'm about to get a Torqeedo for the dink, though...

I'm trying to figure out how to reliably package about a kilowatt of solar panels, many stashed in a deck box when not in use...

Anyway, back to the NavNet 3D stuff... I'm pretty impressed from what I've seen, and proper management of sleep modes may let one take care of the 0183-N2K conversion when only the instrument displays are needed. We'll see how it all shakes out... and I'll post impressions here.

Thanks for the kind words, and fair winds from another 44!

-Steve

[Paul Elliott]

Here's a datapoint:

I hooked up my MFD8, a PG-500 fluxgate compass, and a GP-320B GPS (all Furuno). Together, they drew 1.7A @12.5V, MFD8 screen brightness at max. With the screen fully dimmed, they drew 1.1A. I haven't tried all the display options, and don't know if the power consumption increases when the screen is being updated, but I woudn't expect much effect there.

These are really good numbers. I still need to connect the radar and the other chartplotter (To Be Delivered), the ethernet hub, and via my NMEA mux the other nav gear plus AIS receiver, but so far so good. This current drain is low enough that perhaps I won't mind leaving the small chartplotter running 24/7.

By the way, the 3D display is really cool. I can see my boat in the slip on the satellite photo overlay, and both the raster and vector charts look good.

[Microship]

Paul...

As I understand it, the networked MFDs are in sleep mode when any other one is on, but the last one being turned off really goes off. I would love to see a workaround for this, as I want to use the MFD8 at the inside helm to gateway the NMEA0183 leftovers into the new N2K network. Naturally a stand-alone translator could do this, but the fewer gadgets, the better... know any tricks with sleep config? I don't have mine in hand yet, so can't tinker...

Steve

[Paul Elliott]

Steve,

No info on that yet, I've just got the single unit at the moment. I do know that the sleep mode and "auto-sync" functions for waypoints etc. require the Furuno hub, or I suppose a direct ethernet connection without a hub. I think you need a hub to connect two chartplotters and the new radar together. The "spare" pairs in the ethernet cable carry some sort of signals that control the sleep mode in the attached equipment. You can disable this by not connecting these extra pairs. But I suppose that you already know this part!

I will need to figure out if the features enabled by using the extra ethernet pairs are worth (to me) the cost in additional power consumption. I'm planning to use my Shipmodul Bluetooth NMEA mux to combine and route the NMEA0183 signals, but of course plans may change as I get more familiar with the new gear's capabilities.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Just in case anybody is interested, I received the MFD8 chartplotter yesterday. They are supposed to be shipping me the MFD12 chartplotter and the DRS4D 4KW radar in a week or so.

I'm not going to rip out my old stuff and install the new until it all shows up, but I will probably hook up on the bench the pieces I do have and see what happens.

I received the DRS4D 4KW radar today. It didn't come in time for me to rip out the old Raymarine unit before the Pacific Cup (we start July 14), and I am still waiting for the MFD12 chartplotter. Oh well, at least I can burn this gear in on the bench. Yes, I know I'm not allowed to run the radar unless it's in the boat.

It's probably just as well that I didn't have all this brand-new gear installed just before we sail to Hawaii and back. Better to wait until some of the dust settles.

[Agility]

Anyone have any experiences yet?

[David M]

Not yet, still waiting for some time to install my NavNet system.

[SV Someday Came]

Originally Posted by BlueRhapCity

Anyone have any experiences yet?

Knock knock..... wake up thread please! Any experiences yet? I am thinking of going down this same path.

Michael

[David M]

Still waiting to install it. I will post my opinions about the system when its up and running and I have had a chance to put it to use. I have to take my boat out of commission for about a week or so to install it. That's why it is taking so long.

[SV Someday Came]

Thanks Dave. When I saw the post dates I decided to wake up the thread.

Michael

[Doghouse]

ok, so I have benched my system and have it up and running. MFD8 with the GP330B it is outstanding!
I have been setting up the displays I want, and benchtesting the functionality.
I highly recomend doing this as I have already learned a bunch of settings that I would have never looked at if it was on the boat.
you can set the viewing angle of the lcd, and it adjusts the contrast so you get a clearer picture.
The rotokey is not defaulted to the maximum number of options, you need to change that so you can set all the features.
The databoxes are helpful, but the navigation window is quicker to understand and allows for more options. IMHO

[Doghouse]

Update:

One disappointment is that there is no marina data available. I am shocked they missed something that big!

I started a twitter sheet Twitter / Navnet3D

send me you findings and I will add them to the posts.

I will be adding ais this week, and then the full install next week. Will post info on the trip back.

Using a split screen of raster and vector provides some interesting details. I keep the raster zoomed out, and the vector in to where I get the most detail. There is a lot of info that is not enabled by default, you have to go into the settings to change that. I find that I turned everything on, and am slowly turning off features that I find annoying or useless. System does not slow down with all of that data!

I did not see anything about DSC in any of the manuals, but the NMEA 183 input will read DSC and DSE. Hmmmm....

[David M]

I have my NavNet 3D system up and running now. It's a MFDBB (black box) version. I have a mouse and keyboard connected into it. Navigating the menus goes pretty quick. I have two 1024 x 768 monitors hooked up side by side at the steering console so you can run the mouse cursor from one screen right across to the other screen. I also have another computer which has Nobeltec. I put a KVM switch between the Black Box and the Nobeltec computer connected to the starboard monitor so I can have either system on that monitor. I double click the Scroll Lock key to change the monitors source. The desktop with Nobeltec will make a decent backup if the Furuno system goes down.

I took a class out on the SF Bay today. I used this as an opportunity to become more familiar with the system and all the menus...tweaking it to my tastes. This is one hell of a nice system...nicer than I had originally thought. I was curious how close the AIS position was to the actual contacts position..its pretty darn close, within a tenth of a mile typically. The ARPA feature does a pretty good job of acquiring contacts as well. The ARPA acquired a large flock of birds today...that was interesting to see the birds course and speed change and how rapidly the ARPA could keep up with those changes. It did pretty good overall.

I still can't decide if I like Furuno's vector charts better than NOAA's raster charts. Nobeltec has an excellent vector chart which was an almost direct copy of a NOAA chart. Both have their pluses and minuses. I wish Furuno had made a vector chart which looks just like a NOAA chart. When you scroll the raster charts in and out, you go through some small boat charts....which are poor because of their lack of detail. Plus the lettering in small boat charts are not North Up, which I prefer. I am going to have to figure out how to deactivate those charts so they never show up.

Thanks for the tip on turning up the features on the scroll wheel. I saw that today but did not change it. I think I will give it a try tomorrow.

Does anyone know how to load in a bunch of points into the system? I have to load in the Lat and Long and labels of about a total of 100 NOAA and Cal Fish and Game sampling stations. I saw the directions on how upload the contents of a SD card but what the directions never say is what types of files the data needs to be stored in that the black box recognizes. Is it a MS Word file or an Excel file or something different?

[Doghouse]

Export the tracks and waypoints from your system. this will give you 4 files
{filename}_grp.csv - this contians the groups for your waypoints
{filename}_rte.csv - this contains the waypoints in your routes
{filename}_twp.csv - this contains the point locations for your routes
{filename}_wpt.csv - contains the waypoint information
Format is:
WP,1,2
#Date:2009/FEB/26 10:10:54
1,3,0,37-03.6981-N,076-16.7078-W,SALT PONDS,Feb2309 074230 AM,0,0,6,18,0,2009,2,23,7,42,30

WP,1,2
#Date:{date exported} {time exported}
index,{don't know},{don't know},lat,long,{Name in CAPS},{DateCreated},0,0,color_index,icon_index,0,y ear_entered,Month_entered,Day_entered,Hour,Min,Sec

If you mess it up, your system will flicker, go to menu and delete all points. They will stay on your sd card, go back and retry.

I will work on a program that will allow you to build waypoints.
After I get that working I will try to get routes. The format is a little more confusing.

[Paul Elliott]

Furuno tech support has just confirmed a problem I discovered when I recently updated my West Coast USA vector charts to release 2: Some detail charts that were in release 1 are missing from release 2. For example, Richardson Bay in the San Francisco bay shows no usable detail. My Sausalito marina there has completely disappeared. I'm not sure what other charts are missing.

So I wouldn't update your vector charts just yet, unless you have a way to restore the old versions (which are no longer on the Furuno website). I'm going to mail Furuno a SD-card and they will return it to me with the release 1 charts. I fully expect that they will take care of this, but until then be careful!

Fortunately, the raster charts are fine, so that's what I'm going to be using until the vector chart problem is solved.

Furuno has also recently release a system software update that looks like it addresses some of the issues I had, and contains several enhancements. Before I install it though, I'm going to make sure I still have a copy of the previous version.