Tired of Bugs in Navico Equipment

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I won't do Garmin because of the cartography issue (they should give the plotters for free if you are forced to buy their cartography, I say),

Hi Dockhead,

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by the cartography issue? Is it that you have to buy Garmin charts only and can't use other formats or do you not like the Garmin charts?

If its due to being forced to buy their charts, I thought that was the case with a lot of companies, not just Garmin.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Sorry to hear you've had these issues.

When you say "crashes", what do you mean exactly? Does it lock up, or shut itself down?

I have to say my NSS 12 has had none of the problems you've had.

Still has a couple of bugs though - sometimes when it's first switched on it doesn't display the chart over the whole screen - there's a blank strip down the right hand side. If I select another page the chart is right when I come back to it though. And before the last software update, it occasionally wouldn't accept waypoints or routes. But that seems fixed now.

You're right about the software not being fully sorted, just glad mine seems to be a bit better sorted than yours!

Yes, "crash" means same as with a computer. Locks up and requires a cold reboot. The pilot keypad does that regularly, as do both plotters. The cold reboot for the plotters is a PITA because I have to unscrew an instrument panel to get at the breakers

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Hi Dockhead,

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by the cartography issue? Is it that you have to buy Garmin charts only and can't use other formats or do you not like the Garmin charts?

If its due to being forced to buy their charts, I thought that was the case with a lot of companies, not just Garmin.

Yes, I mean no choice of charts.

All others now have open systems which can use most kinds of charts. My Zeuses will use Navionics, C-Map, or even local types like those from NV Verlag of the Baltic. I would not give up this freedom of choice after having once tasted it.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by colemj

We have ours interfaced with our sailing instruments. That part is pretty easy, but limited in functionality - mostly because of limitations of the apps themselves, but also because of the wifi NMEA mess out there.

Then there is the whole business of swiping through screens to get to the instrument display you want. Unless you have 6 of them stuck to your helm station, I suppose...

Autopilots are a no-go. Even the big names that have full functionality apps (radar, plotting, etc) purposefully do not let those apps control the autopilot.

We love the iPad as a remote station, but it isn't a primary piece of gear by a long shot. It could be used as a primary if one was just toodeling around known waters they visit constantly and only needed a simple chart follower with basic instrumentation. We know many people who use them this way.

They can also serve as a primary charting device for those who are fine cruising without much need for integration or full data sets. I don't think that applies to Dockhead…

Mark

Ditto.

I do have an IPad, with INavX on it. It flawlessly receives all network data via wifi and GoFree. It actually works pretty well, but I would never in a million years use it as a primary nav device. It is consumer electronics, not waterproof, not shock resistant, not daylight visible, and not robust in any way. You can get a real marine plotter, which is ruggedized, waterproof, and integrated into your network, for the same price as an IPad; why in the world would you not do that?

This is a bit of thread drift, and has been discussed before, but I couldn't resist.

[alctel]

Originally Posted by colemj

Do you know of any single case where this radio has actually worked well on a network? It seems to be the #1 cause of problems with other Navico instrumentation. The threads here, as well as around the internet, are rife with complaints about this radio.

Mark

Yeah it seems to be a POS, mine had all kind of issues (Simrad RS35 branded version)

Having said that, when I sent mine back to them they replaced it instantly and the new one (so far) works perfectly.

[travellerw]

I know this isn't a Garmin bashing thread, but I thought I ask since Mainsail posted about his experience.

I heard through the grapevine that Garmin has terrible service as well. In one case they refused to repair a Radar because it was off warranty and no longer made, yet its till sold by WM and Amazon. They advised the customer to simply purchase a new unit.

This combined with the lack of chart choices is why I went wiht B&G.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes, I mean no choice of charts.

All others now have open systems which can use most kinds of charts. My Zeuses will use Navionics, C-Map, or even local types like those from NV Verlag of the Baltic. I would not give up this freedom of choice after having once tasted it.

Any concerns about the quality, accuracy, etc of Garmin charts vs the others?

What about cost? I checked Garmin chips for all of Europe, all the Med and parts of N Africa and looks like around $1200. How do the others compare?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Any concerns about the quality, accuracy, etc of Garmin charts vs the others?

What about cost? I checked Garmin chips for all of Europe, all the Med and parts of N Africa and looks like around $1200. How do the others compare?

I want to have a choice. I have used Garmin cartography and plotters, and they are ok, but for some areas other types are better. Especially in case there is a local company with very specific cartography for a specific area, like NV Verlag for the Baltic. And we have no idea what tomorrow holds. What if some new company starts offering even better charts at half the cost of Navionics, C-Map, and Garmin? Exactly this happened with Visitmyharbour.co.uk and charts of UK waters for PCs. I want to have the ability to take advantage of any such development in the future, and with Garmin, I'm locked into their cartography. Simply unacceptable for me.

[SV Sedna]

For what its worth, I have a pretty full Navico install, Zues 8 at the helm, Zues2 at the nav station, AIS, Auto pilot, wifi, sounder, and a bunch of other gadgets. I too had problems and glitchy-ness. I found that I had a bad N2K backbone cable. Replaced it. I also found that when I walked the device tree there was a phantom Raymarine device installed. No Ray products on my boat. Deleted it. After these two changes things seem more stable and many of the quirks no longer repro. Overall I really like their product.

[Saltyhog]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Any concerns about the quality, accuracy, etc of Garmin charts vs the others?

What about cost? I checked Garmin chips for all of Europe, all the Med and parts of N Africa and looks like around $1200. How do the others compare?

I believe the concern WRT Garmin cartography is quality and accuracy. If I was sure that Garmin charts were as good or better than anything else for any area I may choose to cruise, I'd buy Garmin in a heartbeat. But I think that the e-cartography landscape is fairly fractured. In some areas, Garmin may be fine, but in others is it lacking and others are (much) better. If only cruising the US and Bahamas, I'd say Garmin is pretty good, as they use the Explorer charts for the Bahamas. But there are plenty of areas where there are much better choices and Garmin won't support them. Garmin want's to own and control the whole pie. The other guys (Navico, Ray, Furuno) are happy to sell you the hardware, and let you buy your content (charts) from whomever you choose.

With regard to the original question, has anyone seen (in person) the new TZtouch-2 from Furuno? Other than being too big for my helm (the smallest is 12"), it looks really nice. Furuno certainly has a good reputation for service and reliability, but at least the chartplotters generally seem a bit clunky and use a lot more power than the other guys. That's another reason I was set on B&G as they have really good power numbers. There is no clear winner here that I can see.

[neophytecruiser]

This thread has been an interesting and entertaining read. Having started my on the water experience at a relatively young age, the choice of marine electronics was limited. The VHF on the family boat was the size of a small suitcase and most of the limited choices for consumer marine electronics were provided in the form of hooded metal boxes from Raytheon. RDF's could be a help in checking one's deduced reckoning position, depending on where you might be located relative to the available transmitters. Current paper charts, watches, reliable compasses and a reasonable method for estimating boat speed coupled with experience estimating current, tides and drift were the sum total of most recreational boaters navigation resources.

The birth and development of affordable digital instrumentation ushered in a step change in how recreational (and commercial) boaters approach navigation. The choices and sophistication of the electronic offerings are almost overwhelming. The level of relative security and safety they have afforded has been a game changer, especially for those new to navigation. They've allowed people who may not have years of traditional navigation experience to enjoy boating gain a sense of competency (albeit, sometimes falsely) to tackle cruising. Overall, IMHO, it's been all to the good.

Discussions, like these in this thread, are useful in communicating experiences with specific manufacturers and the ease of integrating various instrumentation to afford access and use of all the data provided. The advent of tablets to the market place, while an obvious point of opinion, has opened novel opportunities to achieve this same level of integration, either via bluetooth or WiFi, without having to deal with sometimes incompatible network backbones needed to connect disparate instruments. It is possible to integrate charts with GPS, AIS and radar data (Furuno DRS4W). I suspect soon it will be possible to integrate tablets with autopilots. While these advances may not be appropriate for everyones needs or comfort, neither is sole reliance on the digital instrumentation (stand alone or networked), the subject of this thread. There are also strong POV whether networking is advantageous over using stand alone instruments.

I hope this discussion continues with a spirit of openness and constructive exchange of opinion so we all can learn. In the meantime, don't discount paper charts and your own common sense and experience when it comes to navigation, but thank heaven for reliable GPS...far more accurate than my skills taking celestial fixes!

[mstrebe]

I've got all stock B&G gear on my 38', factory installed and integrated.

On my 26', I installed a custom system myself consisting of a Garmin 740 chart-plotter, a RayMarine EV-1 autopilot, Maretron anemometer, SIMRAD RS-35 (same as B&G V50) VHF, MadMan WiFi repeater & AP control (0183 via RayMarine SeaTalk to SeaTalkNG adapter) and a silly Garmin Quatix ANT+ repeater.

<rant>

You'd think I would have had more issues with the random collection of gear on my 26'. Nope. Zero issues, not even with the SIMRAD VHF that's causing so many problems on my all stock B&G system. I hand wired SeaTalkNG to NMEA2000 cables to integrate the RayMarine autopilot gear, but the RayMarine and Garmin talk to one another with no issues. AIS receive data on the Garmin from the SIMRAD no problem. Connecting the wireless autopilot controller (NMEA2000) to the RayMarine autopilot through a SeaTalk to SeaTalkNG converter--worked just fine. Controlling the RayMarine autopilot from the Garmin--no problem. And everything worked the first time, just by plugging it in and configuring it. No troubleshooting necessary at all.

I've had zero issues with my hand-wired system integrating equipment from most of the major vendors together.

But an ALL Navico system that has been stamped out over and over on thousands of boats, supposedly bench tested, with no custom additions at all, is a crashy pile of crap.

My Chartplotter should not crash on boot if I leave the Navionics chart chip in and press "accept" before a few seconds have gone by. No idea why that happens, but I can either insert the chip later, or press accept after a minute, and it's fine. And no, there's nothing but stock Navionics chart data on the chip. It's not trying to load a firmware image or anything like that.

My Triducer and/or Wind Instruments shouldn't randomly fall offline after a few hours, requiring a circuit power on/off to restore--A problem that disappeared with a FIRMWARE UPDATE on the chart-plotter. So, obviously not a physical bus problem.

Turning on the VHF should not crash the autopilot (AC42) and have my boat helm suddenly off course, requiring the entire NAV circuit to be power cycled to get the Autopilot to come back up on the network.

But that same exact radio on my Garmin/RayMarine network does not cause the RayMarine Autopilot to crap out. I haven't had to do a single firmware update on anything on my 26' boat's network. And I installed that EV-1 as soon as they came out. It's on 1.0 firmware and has no issues.

Autopilot issues that happen silently are a safety issue that goes beyond simple inconvenience.

Navico doesn't seem like it's using it's own equipment in the field or even bench testing it for compatibility with even its own systems.

It's pathetic that a random collection of hardware works considerably better than an all-one-vendor system.

And why is it that NONE of these chart-plotters include NMEA2K and 0183 data logging, so you can at least see what the heck is going on with network problems? They're on the bus, they see all the data, and logging it to a text file on the chart chip would be simple as pie. Basic, basic troubleshooting capability that wouldn't take but a tiny bit of extra code to implement--heck the code is probably already their for internal testing but disabled. With network bus logging, a lot of these problems could be readily diagnosed either directly by the owners or by posting logs on forums for those who know what they're looking at to help diagnose. If nothing other than identifying the bad talkers on the network to disconnect them it would be extremely valuable. It would also allow factory support to see exactly what was going wrong with interconnect communications so they could perform real troubleshooting.

This state of affairs persists because we consumers allow it to. We should be voting with our dollars and demanding better quality testing, complete vendor neutral compliance with standards (including for configuration) and troubleshooting interfaces that don't make these systems black boxes when we're out in the deep ocean with no ability to contact support.

</rant>

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Ditto.

I do have an IPad, with INavX on it. It flawlessly receives all network data via wifi and GoFree. It actually works pretty well, but I would never in a million years use it as a primary nav device. It is consumer electronics, not waterproof, not shock resistant, not daylight visible, and not robust in any way. You can get a real marine plotter, which is ruggedized, waterproof, and integrated into your network, for the same price as an IPad; why in the world would you not do that?

This is a bit of thread drift, and has been discussed before, but I couldn't resist.

Place your ipad in a Lifeproof case and it will be more waterproof, shock proof and more robust than your chartplotter. Lifeproof case is waterproof down to 1 meter.

For the price of one chartplotter, you can have the redundancy of three or four cellular gps capable ipads. No need to be on any network wifi or otherwise, since each is a stand alone unit. Just saying, there's more than one way to solve the problem. Under our bimini which is up all summer for shade, there's no issue with then screen brightness.

The only thing that can't be integrated on the ipad is wind speed and wind direction, we have raymarine taking care of those functions for us.

[PHerzfeld]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

For the price of one chartplotter, you can have the redundancy of three or four cellular gps capable ipads. .

I'm curious, what do you do when you're 30 miles offshore without a cell signal or wifi connection to be had and your iPad has no positional reference?

[DeepFrz]

Originally Posted by PHerzfeld

I'm curious, what do you do when you're 30 miles offshore without a cell signal or wifi connection to be had and your iPad has no positional reference?

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