Remote Anchor Alarm / Buzzer

[Palarran]

I have Furuno chartplotters that are located to far away from my berth to hear the anchor alarm. Do any of you have a buzzer connected to yours which will wake you? I've looked on Furuno's site but can't locate how to do this and what parts I would need.

[Dockhead]

The killer solution to this would be another plotter at your berth.

[Palarran]

I should have asked if they make one that mimic's the primary plotter. I really don't want to have to set three of them or have all of them running at night.

[ActiveCaptain]

Turn off the Furuno. Use a mobile device/phone as your anchor alarm. That'll allow you to keep it right next to you in the stateroom or wherever you are in the boat. You'll save power and have better warning capabilities. Make sure you have a backup battery to keep the phone powered all night.

[AnsleyS]

I have a Furuno GPS 7000 plotter and I put a remote alarm buzzer in for just the same conditions of which your are thinking. My Furuno has wiring for an external alarm through the data wiring cable which sends 12 volts down the cable when the alarm is activated. I went to Radio Shack and got a 12 volt piezo buzzer and a 12 volt red LED which I mounted below with a switch to allow selective usage. Now I can set the alarm on the plotter, select the internal and external alarm on the plotter, turn on the switch and I will get an alarm and a flashing red light if the alarm is activated. The red light is nice if the engine is running and the switch is nice because there may be other crew asleep when you want to activate an arrival alarm at a waypoint but do not want to wake the entire boat!

[Dulcesuenos]

We use our back up handheld GPS think its a garmin colorado 400c, as our anchor alarm. Its loud enough and easily programmable adn I can put it right over my head,. Found a like new one for 125 on ebay. Even has all the G2 blue charts. sweet!!!

[Palarran]

I probably won't use a phone and if the route to go is the handheld gps I'd need a power supply for it and wonder about how well it will get a signal inside the cabin. Also, it would be nice to be able to set the alarm on one of my plotters when I anchor and be done with it. So Ansleys suggestion is most appealing right now. I'm going to try to get a manual for my plotter to check out the alarm output options.

Ansley, do you know if you can select BOTH internal and external or is it one or the other?

[Bill Burgette]

For about a hundred dollars you can get a baby monitor that has sight and sound. Put the camera that monitors your baby in front of your plotter and you'll get a cell phone sized pic and loud audio on your receiver that you can hang right by your head. Could that work??

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by ActiveCaptain

Turn off the Furuno. Use a mobile device/phone as your anchor alarm. That'll allow you to keep it right next to you in the stateroom or wherever you are in the boat. You'll save power and have better warning capabilities. Make sure you have a backup battery to keep the phone powered all night.

Jeff:

Do you know if there is an app for this on a Blackberry? Sounds like a great solution.

[ActiveCaptain]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Do you know if there is an app for this on a Blackberry? Sounds like a great solution.

Check this out:

http://www.myanchorwatch.com/Features/Overview.aspx

I haven't used that one because I don't have a BB, but it's been out for over a year.

Regarding a baby monitor - we tried that a few years ago before the phone thing. It kinda, sorta worked. The major problem is that there is more noise due to wind, rocking, halliards, and especially birds than you'd imagine. We kept getting woken up by birds and finally had to turn the thing off. They also typically need AC power and aren't very efficient with power use.

[mario f]

As stated above- My Furuno has wiring for an external alarm through the data wiring cable which sends 12 volts down the cable when the alarm is activated. I went to Radio Shack and got a 12 volt piezo buzzer and a 12 volt red LED which I mounted below with a switch to allow selective usage--

Just make sure you find out ma(miliamp) limit on your unit and get a buzzer or bell that draws no more than your unit puts out.
Very cheap and no need to add other bs systems.

[PamlicoTraveler]

There are apps for it for droid, but then again you can have a handheld GPS by the bed as others have mentioned. We have our Garmin 76Csx there. And you could buy one real cheap on eBay. It's the simplest solution.

[noelex 77]

A chartplotter like Furuno in the OP is going to consume a lot of power. A good solution is a second low power GPS near the bed. It will serve as a back up if the main GPS fails (Tie it in to NMEA and with the flick of switch you can change the GPS source).
A simple B&W GPS like the Furuno GP-32 will only consume 0.2A and the graphical display will show if your dragging backed up by an audible alarm.

BTW beware of additional Piezo alarms they generate a lot of electronic noise which can upset some circuits.

[Greg S]

I use a VERY old Garmin GPSmap76. It's loud enough that I can mount it at the nav station and still hear it in our cabin. It can even be heard up in the v-berth. It runs for a very long time on a couple of AA batteries, and plugged into the house bank it will last as long as they do. It only has the old green-screen but it clearly shows your position and track. Very easy to tell at a glance where you are at in reference to where you should be!

I also use the 76 for input to the VHF for MMSI & AIS location requirements as well as the pactor modem. It uses way less power than the chart-plotter and it has been left on almost continuously over the last four or five years without a problem. I suspect this would be true for just about any small hand held GPS.

[Palarran]

Noelex, power for me isn't a really big issue. Do you know if you can make a small plotter like that a slave of the main unit? Where if you change the main one it is reflected on the small one and vise versa? I can turn the brilliance down on my main unit to conserve some power.