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Rex

Maxsea with NN3D

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I have a year old N2K system on my sailboat with a Furuno MFD12 at the core. For many years, I've been running The Capn software on the laptop at the nav station. With 15 years experience with the Capn and having invested a good bit in upgrades over the years, I've been reluctant to change.

But with NN3D on board, and knowing that it can communicate with Maxsea, I'm thinking about the change. The Furuno rebate is also an enticement this winter. But I'm not particularly strong technically on this stuff, so would like a sanity check on how this all works.

As I understand it, I can connect the laptop running Maxsea via Cat 5 cable to a Furuno hub. Then the MFD12 also connects to the hub. With that done, I can see all the N2K data from the network on the laptop?? And also my radar data (Furuno also). And a big deal to me - can I upload routes and points from the laptop to the MFD12?

Other features like the weather capability are important in Maxsea and an enticement to switch.

Finally, I have an older AIS receive only, the only NMEA0183 on the boat. This goes to the Capn through a serial to USB connection. The Capn recognizes this just fine. And I parallel the AIS receiver output to the MFD12, one of the 0183 inputs, and this also works. Will the same wiring continue to work with the Maxsea software?

Thanks for any advice.

Rex

11 Replies

  • Rex, everything you are hoping for can be done with MSTZ, as long as you get the more expensive "Explorer" version. MSTZ may have a limit to what kind of N2K data it can show (I don't know, for example, if tank level data is supported).

  • Rex:
    I'm about to embark upon a similar path with MSTZ, as I have an MFD8, Hub, DRS2D. But I thought the ethernet connection to the PC was really for radar overlay and that any N2K data traversed via N2K port on the back of the MFD and an N2K/USB gateway to your PC (like Maretron's or Actisense's).

  • Ted: No, you don't need an N2K/USB gateway. Any N2K data visible to the MFD8 will be transmitted via Ethernet to the PC running MSTZ.

  • Thanks Adam. I happened to be at Chicago "Strictly Sail" boat show today and asked the Furuno rep the same and he confirmed w/the same answer as you.

    Rex: Have you picked out a suitable laptop with separate GPU etc?

  • Rex and Ted, I have been running the NN3D and MSTZ Explorer on my laptop for about a year now. Everything works great and all the data is communicated over ethernet cable between them. As Adam said above anything that comes into NN3D will be transported to MSTZ via the ethernet cable.

    I strongly advise you check out the GPU on your laptop. What I have found is that MSTZ doesn't like to play with laptops that have the Intel integrated chipset.

  • Thanks Jeff. Can I ask what laptop / config you are using? I have considered Dell Precision, Lenovo W series and the new Lenovo T410...

  • Ted, I'm using a Lenovo W510 with an NVIDIA Quadro FXM graphics processor and a 1.73 quad core intel processor. Runs great very fast and excellent graphics.

    A much cheaper alternative and one that I know works very well ( a friend is using this setup) is the Mac Mini w/bootcamp and Windows 7. You can get the Mac Mini starting at $700 and the version I would purchase would sell for $999. Even after buying Windows 7 your still way ahead of what I paid for a Lenovo with an NVIDIA processor. I wish I had it to do over again as I would do the mini.

  • Thanks Jeff, sounds like a sweet setup. I'm no hardware jockey, but looking at the specs, it looks like your Lenovo setup will have better performance than the mac mini due to discrete graphics card memory.


    Mac Mini NVIDIA GeForce320M - http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-320M.28701.0.html (no dedicated graphics RAM, Class 3)

    IBM W510 NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB DDR3 memory for Dual Core Processors http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-FX-880M.24735.0.html

    Maybe the advantage is purely academic for the MaxSea NN3D application.

  • You know Ted I've watched my buddies on the mini and I really don't see any difference in performance. But the cost difference is $2,000.

    The one thing I've found is MaxSea doesn't seem to like the Intel chipsets. Seems to play well with all NVIDIA.

    I'm sure my Lenovo is a little faster. I'm just saying it's not noticeable when using MaxSea. The other thing about the mini is the small footprint. My Lenovo takes up a huge chunk of space in the boat and needs to be mounted out in the open as I have no cabinet large enough for it. So then everytime I leave the boat I have to take it off. Gets to be a pain at times.

    One thing I do know though is that you don't need to pay the extra money for a rugged laptop as long as it's mounted in a cabin where it's dry. They do just fine and I've had no problems with hard drives not working. With the advent of SSD's this really becomes a moot point about jarring.

    Good luck with your choice just stay away from Intel chipsets.

  • Ted and Jeff, I hadn't looked at the laptop requirements. I have a year old Lenovo SL510. The graphics appear to be "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M". I guessing from your comments, this won't work, or work well, with MaxSea.

    Also, if Explorer is required, then I'm out of luck anyway, because the price for Explorer is way out of my budget range. I was thinking of the Navigator version only.

    I love the idea, but the cost of laptop and software make this a no go for me.

  • Ted and Jeff, I hadn't looked at the laptop requirements. I have a year old Lenovo SL510. The graphics appear to be "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M". I guessing from your comments, this won't work, or work well, with MaxSea.

    Also, if Explorer is required, then I'm out of luck anyway, because the price for Explorer is way out of my budget range. I was thinking of the Navigator version only.

    I love the idea, but the cost of laptop and software make this a no go for me.