Anyone done a recent Chart Plotter upgrade

[Cliffm]

Hello all,

Anyone done a recent chart plotter upgrade? if so, from what to what?

The Caption and I are considering upgrading our 2006 Carver 36MY Raymarine 120C chart plotter, but wonder what the most user friendly/cost effective choice would be? We have the "factory" Raymarine suite, 120C chart plotter, TRI data display, radome radar Raymarine, GPS.

Would a newer Raymarine chart plotter utilize our existing radome radar Raymarine, our would we have to upgrade that as well? The new Doppler model looks intriguing.

We would also like the idea of AIS displayed on the chart plotter, and potentially adding it to our boat? via chart plotter or VHF radio? pro's and con's

Would like to hear what the "frugal" users out there have done?

As always, appreciate the insightful feedback and opinions.

cliff

[ColRon]

Cliffm,

It all depends upon which Raymarine accessories you have. The easiest upgrade from the 120 C classic series would be to the E-series classic and you can still find used equipment out there to add things like AIS. The E Classic series is also NMEA 0183 and 2000 compatible, So some of the newer equipment may also integrate, but do your homework first! it all depends upon how each peripheral connects with each other. for example, some of the older radars connect to the Chart plotter directly for power and communication, while others have a separate power source and connect via NMEA or Ethernet. Start with the Chart Plotter first and find what will it will work with. The plotter will be the heart and soul of the entire system. Sometimes you can start with just the plotter as it may be backward compatible to your older equipment while other times not as the peripheral is just too old. You can find all of Raymarine's equipment manuals on their website and have a lot of questions answered in their forums. I would love to upgrade mine E Series classic to the Raymarine Axiom, it has a lot of gee golly wiz bang to it, but I can still run current updated charts on my E-Series Classic and it works with my VHF, AIS and radar, so it fine for now.

[Carpediem]

On my last boat, a 2006 SeaRay 44DB , I had the e120 suite and had the display fail. I upgraded to Raymarine gs165 with a quantum radome radar. The install was pretty straight forward and I added NEMA 2000 backbone at the same time. The only issue I had is that the Quantum radar was wifi connected to the gs165 but was very intermittent and I eventually had to run a data cable and abandon the wifi capability.

[Cliffm]

Source of the post On my last boat, a 2006 SeaRay 44DB , I had the e120 suite and had the display fail. I upgraded to Raymarine gs165 with a quantum radome radar. The install was pretty straight forward and I added NEMA 2000 backbone at the same time. The only issue I had is that the Quantum radar was wifi connected to the gs165 but was very intermittent and I eventually had to run a data cable and abandon the wifi capability.

Thanks for the feedback, as I had heard the "speal" about Wi-Fi connection, but questioned the stability.
I have always preferred a hard wired connection. Just wondered if my existing cabling would support newer radar.

[Helmsman]

Source of the post

Source of the post On my last boat, a 2006 SeaRay 44DB , I had the e120 suite and had the display fail. I upgraded to Raymarine gs165 with a quantum radome radar. The install was pretty straight forward and I added NEMA 2000 backbone at the same time. The only issue I had is that the Quantum radar was wifi connected to the gs165 but was very intermittent and I eventually had to run a data cable and abandon the wifi capability.

Thanks for the feedback, as I had heard the "speal" about Wi-Fi connection, but questioned the stability.
I have always preferred a hard wired connection. Just wondered if my existing cabling would support newer radar.

Cliff, I had a 2006 Carver 33 SS. I updated the factory RM equipment in 2017. I put in an eS127 plotter with new radar, a new Evolution autopilot, a new IP70 instrument display, new vhf, and two Fox Marine engine analyzers.

I worked with a moderator of the RayMarine factory forum in putting together the flowchart (blueprint) of the system together. At the time, they would critique your flow chart, which helped immensely in putting it together. They had a couple of important tweaks that needed changing, which I would have had to figure out on the fly if they hadn’t caught them.

Since I had never fooled with hydraulics, and the autopilot was new and not a replacement, I had a friend who is a boat mechanic help me with that as well as installation of the equipment, cutting the fiberglass, etc. The whole system worked great from the start, after moving the autopilot compass away from interference. The Fox Marine engine analyzers also were great additions because they allowed me to see a lot of the statistics from the engine through Bluetooth as well as RPM’s and fuel usage on the IP70. I spent about $8.5k for the pieces, $1k for wiring and accessories and paid my buddy $2k for his help.

[Tireless]

I considered an upgrade from my current e series MFD. If I replaced it to the Axiom series I would have to do a full upgrade with most of my equipment, $$$$.

All of my equipment is still working. I have been using my iPad as my primary navigation device for years running the Navionic’s software. Instead of replacing all of my equipment, $$$, I purchased a new iPad Pro, 12.9” display. I have it mounted to my dash with a product distributed by Sea Sucker so I didn’t have to drill any holes. (Very strong)

You do not require wifi to use the iPad once the desired charts are downloaded. However, you must purchase the more expensive iPad to get the GPS internal chip, but you do not have to sign up to a carrier for it to work.

I love using the iPad and prefer it to the MFD.

Greg

[Wsullivan71]

I too, use the iPad with Navionics. You can get the cheap iPad and simply purchase a Garmin GLO 2 Bluetooth GPS receiver on Amazon for $99. It's a very cheap alternative, allows route planning and is very accurate worldwide.