Migrating to B&G Zeus Touch

[so34chi]

Our 2000 Jeanneau SO40 has the complete suite of Raytheon ST60 instruments, monochrome radar, and chartplotters from the turn of the century. I'm contemplating migrating to the B&G Zeus Touch displays, B&G 4G radar (aka Simrad), autopilot, and, over time, other instruments.

Has anyone gone down this road?

It appears that I can take the NMEA0183 data output from the ST60 multifunction instrument and feed that into the Zeus Touch NMEA0183 input, giving the Zeus all of the basic data generated by the ST60 system, but no Autohelm control. And I could initially mock this up by acquiring only the Zeus display and seeing of the connectivity can be made to work.

Presuming that it works, I could then expand the number of Zeus displays, add 4G radar, then a new B&G autopilot, and onward until the funds and/or patience end!

--Karl

[Dockhead]

I made the same migration, but I did it all at once -- ripped out all the Raymarine stuff and started over from zero.

You can use NMEA0183 data in the Zeus, but the Zeus has only one NMEA0183 input, so the data needs to be multiplexed before it gets there.

It will work much better with NMEA2000 data.

The B&G Triton displays are wonderful -- if you do a search, you'll find a lot of information about them here.

It would be a shame not to have the pilot interfaced to the plotter -- no nav mode, no routes, and no pilot control from the plotter (very well implemented in the Zeus). If I were doing this and couldn't do it all at once, I would probably make a new Simrad/B&G pilot controller a priority.

[goboatingnow]

Just be aware that the NMEA 0182 IN port on the ST 60+ graphic unit only really accepts a very limited number of NMEA sentences, i.e. from memory, you cannot for example drive the wind or depth instruments from the NMEA in. so if you are planning on using NMEA 2000 sensors in the future etc these will not propagate to the ST60 displays.

Of course the reverse is functional, local wind and depth information derived from the ST60 transducers will propagate out onto the 0182 interface and can be connected to the Zeus.


dave

[smac999]

does your pilot have a 183 input? just connect the st60 to the plotter input and the pilot to the plotter output.

I put a 12" b&G zeus with 3g radar in this week on a boat. nice screens. no idea on the difference from the simrads. only played with it for a few mins. I used the nmea port for the matrix 2150 though at high speed for ais. so currently I haven't gotten the old wind gauges into it.