Garmin, Furono, B&G What to choose HELP!

[jdisarro]

I am Looking to upgrade all my electonics, I have a 38' 2001 cat with furuno chartplotters and radar, and B&g instrumentation and autopilot,
I am leaning towards going to all Garmin, 740S chartplotters and radar or even the 546 for radar inside and Garmin wind and depth as well. Reason: Good customer service ( I here) and a little less expensive and all nema 2000 compatible built in GPS and charts included for us and Bahamas.

Any Recommendations and or warnings to stay away from are welcome, and very much appreciated.

[colemj]

Furuno and B&G are also fully NMEA2000 compliant and their chartplotters also have all US charts free in both vector and raster formats. They also use both CMap and Navionics charts. We have had good customer service from both companies.

If you plan to go completely with one single company's gear, then communication protocol or compatibility isn't really a factor.

Have heard of lots of problems with Garmin's wind transducer.

Mark

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by colemj

Have heard of lots of problems with Garmin's wind transducer.

Thus far in 3 years I've had no problems with the Garmin GWS10 wind transducer. I've seen one report of someone's anemometer cups falling off. The only issue I've noted with the Garmin transducer is that there is no quickfit mechanism for removing it from the mast--you have to undo a couple of screws instead.

[colemj]

Here are 4 people with the problem: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...off-70863.html

Mark

[sabray]

To funny a friggin osprey unscrewed my ray marine wind indicators and then threw it at me in the cockpit . Ray marine couldn't replace it so I bought one off eBay. When eBay is your best support for a marine product that tells a lot.
Maybe ray has changed up the connections on their auto pilot system. Mine had these piss poor spring screw fittings. That went in the hopper. I am skeptical if garmin lately. Though they have upped their game and are once again interfacing with customers at a better level.

[Sailnguy35]

I have the garmin 740s with the 18hd radar. The system works well and i havent had any issues. I like the split screen options. I have not added any other options yet other than the sounder but everything works great. I have had wonderful results from garmin customer service in the past with a hand held gps. It was out of warranty but they took care of my problems at no charge. With the way MOST customer service is today, anybody that will stand behind their product, thats my choice!

[Freedom45]

I have had Garmin 4212/GMR 40 for 6+ years, GHP12 auto plot, 2+, ais 600...no issues at all, everything works great. Installed everything myself.

Chuck

[CAELESTIS]

Consider a system with one chartplotter that is wifi compatible and an iPad in an otterbox (or similar). Simrad and B&G offer it, I am sure others do as well.

[sbrin]

I installed a Simrad A-Pilot 3 years ago to replace the old and not very well functioning Autohelm unit - love it. Last year, I replaced my old Signet instruments with B&G Tritons - These are wonderful. They all interface (NMEA 2000) well and I have been able to tie my Garmin chart-plotter to the system as well.
If this helps your decision, great, but all of the brands you mentioned are pretty good.

[Tim R.]

Originally Posted by Ziggy

Thus far in 3 years I've had no problems with the Garmin GWS10 wind transducer. I've seen one report of someone's anemometer cups falling off. The only issue I've noted with the Garmin transducer is that there is no quickfit mechanism for removing it from the mast--you have to undo a couple of screws instead.

I have also not had any problems with my Garmin wind. In fact I updated all my instruments 2 years ago with all Garmin and the only problem I have had is with a failed Airmar(Garmin OEM) transducer. Garmins support was good but I had to tell them that the transducer from Airmar has a 2 year warranty unlike Garmins one year warranty.

[Opie91]

Originally Posted by jdisarro

I am leaning towards going to all Garmin, 740S chartplotters and radar or even the 546 for radar inside and Garmin wind and depth as well.

I do not think the 546 will display radar. Pretty sure the 700 series is the bottom line radar unit.

Some people have had problems with the Garmin wind transducer. You could check out the Maretron WSO100 or something other type of ultrasonic wind transducer. No cups and NMEA 2000 compatible.

[rolandcavanagh]

I have a Garmin 188C GPSMAP Sounder on my sportfisher, purchased new in 2005, that they stopped supporting the software and selling chart updates for in 2008. In 2011 they even ceased selling the data chips (that weren't updated...). I moved the boat and need a chip for the West US, and would like up-to-date charts. Garmin rep I spoke with at the Fort Lauderdale show in Oct was unsympathetic "old technology, buy a new one". Very poor support as far as I'm concerned. Haven't sorted out what to do, tried iPhone with earthNC, still quirky, but better than nothing. BTW I'm a very happy user of Coastal Explorer on a laptop on my trawler. Bottom line, I'm not buying Garmin again.