Garmin G-Wind - Wired or Wireless?

[Captain Puget]

I am considering adding a wind transducer to my Garmin chart plotter & auto pilot setup (therefore the G-Wind product) and I would appreciate any comments on the wireless vs wired option.

Tradeoffs seem to be:
- battery at masthead that might need servicing/ but no cables to route in the mast
- wireless is $100 more


Comments?

- Thank you

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Captain Puget

I am considering adding a wind transducer to my Garmin chart plotter & auto pilot setup (therefore the G-Wind product) and I would appreciate any comments on the wireless vs wired option.

Tradeoffs seem to be:
- battery at masthead that might need servicing/ but no cables to route in the mast
- wireless is $100 more


Comments?

- Thank you

Hard wired is preferred. However...

The battery at the masthead doesn't have to be replaced often and its easy to take the whole thing down without unscrewing it. So you can bring it down the mast, replace the battery below and then go back up to replace it.

If you have room for the cables and can get the cables into the mast without dropping the mast or if you are bringing the mast down for many reasons then hard wired is generally the better option IMO.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Captain.

[a64pilot]

Do you have a conduit in your mast now and or is your mast keel stepped.
I ask as I have wires that slap around in my mast and drive me nuts, be nice if they weren't there

[bmz]

I have the wired unit; and, it cost me over thousand dollars to install it. It has three separate components, masthead unit, wires and NMEA 2000 transformer. The long set of wires going up the mast were defective, as was the transformer. Troubleshooting was a bear.

[rikker]

Captain P,

I had the same question to myself this spring. I purchased the wireless unit and installed it myself while the mast was on the hard. The unit has worked flawlessly all year. My mast which is deck mounted had a conduit, but getting the wiring the rest of the way through to nav station network location was looking to be brutal. Happy to have spent the $100 to avoid the aggravation. I think between the solar panel and the battery - battery life shouldn't be much of an issue.

Rick

[rbrentp]

Question for BMZ: I have the same set up as you...Have replaced the GBD10 for no change....not getting data. Logic dictates it is the unit or the cable. Any tricks learned. Intertesting to note that two of us who went wired are having similar problems.
Brent

[Captain Puget]

Thank you for the input!

The mast is deck stepped and currently removed during the retrofit (on the hard). Therefore, I have easy access to the conduit.... but the internal wiring to the nav station may be more problematic, and the wireless unit may end up cheaper after the "time cost" of internal cable routing and avoids the "pinch point" during mast stepping.

Current inclination - wireless for both radar & G-Wind

[montenido]

I installed the wireless set up on my boat and it was amazing (sold the boat). Hurricane Odile tore off the stabilizing fins of the wireless transducer and Garmin replaced the whole works free (several months out of warranty). I recommend the wireless.

Cheers, Bill

[rikker]

Cap'n Puget

>>Originally Posted by Captain Puget
I am considering adding a wind transducer to my Garmin chart plotter & auto pilot setup

I bought the Garmin wireless bundle w DST speed and wireless wind to go w a Garmin 741sx and GMI20 instrument. Garmin doesn't have a sailboat wheel autopilot for my boat. What do you have? I was thinking of getting a Raymarine EV100 to go on my Garmin NMEA 2000 network.

Rick

[Captain Puget]

Sorry, no help with the wheel steering option - Current setup is hydraulic steering with:
- Garmin GPSMAP 7607xsv
- Garmin Reactor Hydraulic Corepack with SmartPump
- GRF 10 Rotary Rudder Feedback Sensor

Newly purchased older boat - I had to replace all the current, non-functional electronics with the above and only got a one week of use while repositioning boat for retrofit this winter, but worked fine ... instructions were a little unclear, but figured it out (a menu tree cheat sheet I made really helped). The "auto routing" feature was great! Just select the end point destination and depth requirements, and off you go. Easy and quick when single handing.

Adding (thanks to the advice from all the nice people responding on CF):
- 18xHD Radar
- Gwind Wireless Transducer

[bmz]

Originally Posted by rbrentp

Question for BMZ: I have the same set up as you...Have replaced the GBD10 for no change....not getting data. Logic dictates it is the unit or the cable. Any tricks learned. Intertesting to note that two of us who went wired are having similar problems.
Brent

Surprisingly, the long cable was bad. No one expects a bad cable. I replaced two masthead units and two NMEA Transformers before I tested the cable. Another trick I learned is to essentially bench test all the components; troubleshooting from the masthead is expensive.

[OS2Dude]

I bought a gWind Wireless unit, since I could not afford to have my mast pulled. It is great, except every so often it drops out. Not sure why, contacted Garmin and all they had to offer was 'tighten the cables'. DUH! It still happens occasionally, and to 'fix' it I have to switch off the NMEA 2K network and turn it back on. I do not know if the wireless signal is an issue, the translator (gWind is not native NMEA 2K) has an issue or if it is somewhere down the network. (None of the other NMEA devices have issues though...)

The receiver is located at the top of the hanging locker just starboard of the mast base, the translator is at the bottom of the locker and from there it is about 15 feet to the power connector and the main part of the network.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by OS2Dude

I bought a gWind Wireless unit, since I could not afford to have my mast pulled. It is great, except every so often it drops out. Not sure why, contacted Garmin and all they had to offer was 'tighten the cables'. DUH! It still happens occasionally, and to 'fix' it I have to switch off the NMEA 2K network and turn it back on. I do not know if the wireless signal is an issue, the translator (gWind is not native NMEA 2K) has an issue or if it is somewhere down the network. (None of the other NMEA devices have issues though...)

The receiver is located at the top of the hanging locker just starboard of the mast base, the translator is at the bottom of the locker and from there it is about 15 feet to the power connector and the main part of the network.

I have the same problem with my GWind wireless. Did not have that problem with my previous wired instrument.