Replacement plotter compatability

[felixqld66]

Hi

I used to have a small Navman/northstar 5500i beside my helm, it is no longer working. the rest of my electronics are Raymarine all seatalked up!
The main multifunction display is a C120w with st 60 instruments and a st 70 autopilot head unit.

What options do I have for a compatible small plotter for beside the helm that can network to use the card that is downstairs in the main plotter.

I would be happy with a stand alone if I didnt need to get additional charts

Thanks in advance.
Cheers Alex

[Beausoleil]

Raymarine is moving away from SeaTalk. Their new e- and c-series don't support it directly, so to interface your ST-60 instruments you'd need their SeaTalk/SeaTalkNG converter.

Unfortunately, none of their newer chartplotters support chart sharing with the Classic C- or E-series, nor the C-Wide series. They only support chart-sharing with the E-Wide series, and that's in a special "compatibility" mode. See this thread over at their support forum.

You don't mention if you have radar. If you do, and it's an older analog model, you'll have to replace it with a new digital model if you want radar imagery at the helm.

We just went through all this when our old E-120 Classic died and we replaced it with a new e125. Had to replace a perfectly functioning RD242 radar with a newer digital model, as well as install a new SeaTalkNG network, designing around the 5-device limitation of the SeaTalk/SeaTalkNG converter.

Unfortunately, there's no way to share cartography over the network - no matter what brand of chartplotter you get. And since Navionics has moved to microSD chips, you'll have compatibility problems there.

Of course, you could always sell the C120W on e-Bay and buy something new...

[Dockhead]

Right.

In most cases, radar and plotters strictly have to be made for each other. Nearly everything else from the last 10-15 years can be adapted (so far -- so far most plotters will take NMEA0183 as well as N2K, and the adapters are supposed to work pretty well).

So you will need to replace both plotters (and radar, if you have one).

Seatalk instruments will talk to all (as far as I know) new plotters just fine. There are adapters to translate to NMEA0183 or to N2K via SeatalkNG. I would probably prefer to translate less and plug them into an NMEA0183 input, if you have one, via a multiplexer if you have more than depth-speed-wind.

All of the Navico plotters (Lowrance, Simrad, B&G) have an NMEA0183 input. With two plotters, you probably wouldn't even need a multiplexer since you have one input on each plotter (and they will bridge the data between them).

New plotters are quite cheap so I would probably flog the C120W and start over again, if I were you.

[felixqld66]

Unfortunately the damage done to the Navman plotter was part of the boat being flooded, so I have many things to both repair and replace. I am trying to look for the least expensive option as my diesel and transmission are in for rebuild.
I have my eye on a couple of Northstar/Navman plotter second hand but was trying to work out if I could get a small raymarine unit that would connect to the seatalkNG that runs between my C120w - digital radar - SPX30 course computer.
The old set up worked fine and provided a redundancy just thought there might be another way to approach it.
Thanks for the replies and on with the repairs for me.