Time to upgrade
instruments:
Have these 3 round holes on
cockpit that hold...
Wind, Speed and
Depth Standard Horizon bezels that do not
work well anymore.
Bought new, unused Datamarine instrument faces and tried to find new transducers to make them
work, (although they would not be the up to date
NMEA 2000) but cannot figure out what model transducers to buy to match these new but obsolete displays which are:
Datamarine Windspeed display face model LX 360Q (shows a 7 pin receptacle for masthead unit which I don't have).
Datamarine Speed display face Corinthian II B (has an RCA receptacle looking hole for future transducer).
Datamarine
Depth display face model 3030 (has 3 pins to connect to future transducer).
Yes, I can do without all of these
instruments and the effort of trying to find transducers, by using ....telltales, hand held anemometer,
GPS and a nice wide angle
fishfinder with color contours but.....what do I do with those 3 holes??.
Behind those 3 holes in a perfect line up, there is a beautiful
teak box made to cover the wires for these, and
wiring for the also old
Furuno Radar and
Chartplotter and Humingbird
fish finder
wiring on the
cabin side of things. All these
electronics were Furuno's best at the time, old technology by now but... let's just concentrate on what to do with the three round holes and the new Datamarine Display faces.
This is what I'm debating in my
head:
A company shop named DMI; will probably be able to find transducers, at a
price that could be best used towards newer
equipment?. But I don't have to have the latest Wireless,
WiFi, Bluetooth or color displays in 3 dimensional format or surround sound voice activated gizmos that talk with a computer and I don't understand the complications and are afraid of losing all electronic data at once. I am not too versed on new technology.
Need Speed Over the
Water to calculate
current, (have the thruhull filled with the old
transducer now). Have Speed Over the Ground via
GPS, Depth via
fishfinder,
Wind direction via
mast windex and telltales on
sails for fine adjustments. ( For wind speed, birds destroy the masthead units).
Also need a better and simple way to navigate with electronic
charts at the
cockpit in full sun and rain using a simple
chartplotter or
screen that is not smaller than 5 inches since I already have a handheld GPS that is hard to see.
Also some way to have
Email, and search the Web for
Weather and looking up sites. Have android smart phones with data and text to do some of this but may need
WiFi or Hotspot?
Cruising grounds would be the
Florida Coasts, Keys,
Bahamas and some other
Caribbean Islands mostly
singlehanding a
full keel 33' cruiser.
What are your suggestions? Use one of those cockpit bulkead holes with a newer speed/temp display and use the existing thruhull fitting for the future
transducer? What to do with the other 2 holes next to this?
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas !.