Furuno/Raymarine compatible?

[gosstyla]

I'm selecting the radar, chart plotter, autopilot, and nav instruments.

Initially I was going to use 100% Raymarine to minimize compatibility issues.

However, I do like Furuno radar better. So now I'm thinking of using Furuno radar/chart plotter and Raymarine for autohelm and nav instruments.

Has anyone experience matching these two? Are they fairly compatible or should I just go 100% with one or the other.

[NoTies]

I'm not sure how they stack up nowadays but a few years back Furuno spoke an entirely different language and wouldn't interface with anything other than Furuno. I guess some Guru has come up with a solution by now but tread carefully.

[Jon D]

It depends what you want the two environments to do. They both talk NEMA so basic info can be exchanged between them however if you want complete multifunction overlays and the ability to display everything on a PC seamlessly etc I'm not sure if that's possible in a hybrid environment.

If your supplier can guarantee it - OK.

We run a mixed environment and the B&G sailing instruments send info to the Simrad autohelm and the GPS sends info to the PC and PC to autohelm but it was built up over time and it is way to many $ to do a trade out.

[Rick]

Furuno has a good quality autopilot now which you should consider if you desire to have their nice radar/plotter/gps as well.

BTW Autohelm is a brand name and, although many people have used that brand the name is not actually synominous with the word and meaning of autopilot. Just ask any commercial vessel operator and they would not probably even have ever heard the name Autohelm, which makes "toy" autopilots compared to the quality and power of the commercial ones.

[gosstyla]

Thanks for the input.

I decided to make the compromise and go 100% Raymarine. The likelyhood of the least number of compatibility problems was the determining factor.