I'm embarrassed about how shabby Gizmo's fly bridge electronics panel has gotten, but isn't it great that with the arrival of the Garmin GMI 20 all four of the major manufacturers now have similarly large, bright NMEA 2000 all-in-one instrument displays? Oh, there are subtle differences on view -- like how the Raymarine i70 seems to have a little less black/white contrast but also seems to have a slightly larger active screen, and how it and the B&G Triton nicely de-emphasize decimal depth -- but the main thing is that many boaters can have a highly versatile display that matches your other Big Four brand gear. Or, since most of the data displayed arrives in a standard protocol, we have four quite competitive all-in-ones to choose from (plus N2K displays from Maretron and others). Of course there are many, many more subtleties and that's what I looked for on the test GMI 20. I discovered some mysteries too...
Today is an excellent time to look in more depth at the Lowrance HDS Gen2 Touch, a slightly awkward name for six products that form the "top end" of the Lowrance multifunction display range. The reason is the recent release of the 2.0 software version that brings GoFree functionality -- as seen above -- and much more to both the Lowrance Gen2 and Gen2 Touch range. Last year I upgraded my HDS Gen1 to a HDS2T and in this entry I will compare the HDS2T to other Navico options, give you the reasons why I like it and of course discuss the new features in the 2.0 software.
That screen above makes me so happy! I had been reluctant to give up on Gizmo's standalone tank monitoring system but circumstances forced a change. Had I realized how easy and relatively inexpensive it was to switch the tank senders over to BEP CZone NMEA 2000 monitoring -- and how accurate and flexible the output would be, even to the point of custom (and juvenile) tank labels -- I would have made the leap a long time ago...
In my opinion it was the Garmin GMI 10 that trail blazed the wonderful world of color NMEA 2000 all-in-one displays, but it's gotten major competition from the Raymarine i70 (comparison here), the B&G Triton (first look here), and the Furuno RD-33 (hand's on here). And when Garmin demoed its new 800 Glass Bridge Series in Miami, the GMI 10 also installed on the dash looked decidedly out of place. So it was really no surprise when they announced the new GMI 20 and its GHC 20 sibling last Tuesday. It will be interesting to see if they've outdone the competition but that's hard to judge as these all-in-ones can potentially do so much, though not necessarily exactly what you want...
There's lots more to report on from the Miami show, but partially installing a Maretron DCR100 Direct Current Relay on Gizmo just got me so excited I want to share. This boat has never had switches for running and flood lights on the fly bridge -- especially annoying when I wanted to light myself up when crossing paths with a possibly unaware stranger -- and it didn't have a switch for the new bow LED spot at all (to be explained). Now for relatively little effort and expense, I'll not only have switching at both helms but also be able to monitor and even alarm on real-time circuit currents. The installation isn't complete but I'm fairly confident that Gizmo will trek north with that often-cited feature of digital switching, an immediate warning if any one of the four incandescent running light bulbs blows. Plus I got to experience the beauty of NMEA 2000 Labeling, a feature that Maretron has trail blazed but which will hopefully become common across brands...
Raymarine was a little slow getting their Miami press releases out, but then again they have a LOT to talk about. And even with the six releases you'll find at that link, they left out what I think is a significant move: the "coming soon" Lighthouse 6 software release for all a-, c-, e-Series multifunction displays -- as well as the new gS glass bridge MFDs -- will include support for Empirebus NXT digital switching and distributed power technology. With Ray's endorsement, the fully integrated bridge just got a little more real...
Whether it's called a Simrad GS25 or a B&G ZG100 or a Lowrance Point-1, it is not just another NMEA 2000 high-precision, high-refresh-rate GPS/Glonass sensor. Also integrated in is an "e-Compass/Gyro...heading sensor...that ensures access to stable and smooth vessel orientation" and "when used with a compatible" Navico display "greatly enhances navigational information by providing accurate course over ground (COG) data at any speed and enabling radar overlay on charts." I've quoted the press releases heavily because I'm not yet sure that the sensor actually outputs Heading data, but the releases do say that whichever brand you buy, this souped-up overlay-enabling GPS is just $199 retail, and that sounds good. {Correction: it IS a compass, read on...}
Regular Panbo readers may recall that Jeremy Anwyl wrote a 2011 guest entry about his efforts to bring some stability to his admittedly complex NMEA 2000 network. Back then, he was focused on the backbone, minimizing voltage drops, managing reflections and so forth. Anwyl continues to enjoy using his lovely Beneteau 57 Tranquilidad as an electronics lab, but he's also finding bugs in new places...
In part 2 I'd like to talk about the items related to NMEA 2000 in some form or fashion. Actually it's becoming hard to find a new marine electronics product that does not have an N2K interface! From batteries to sensors, they all seem to grow a NMEA 2000 interface. Lets start off with the better known specialists first. Maretron had a lot of gear that I hadn't seen before like a very new 3.5" color display, unnamed as of yet, that is essentially a smaller version of the DSM 250. Not only does this fit in better with the 110 mm displays from other manufacturers, I thought the screen actually looked better as well because it has the same amount of pixels at higher DPI. Thus it gets rid of the slightly grainy display that I felt let the DSM 250 down. It probably also uses less power too...
