Best options for replacing Chartplotter/Smartcraft sc5000

R

Rbmedic75

New Member
Jul 31, 2019
15
Boat Info
2005 Amberjack 290
Engines
5.0 MPI w/Bravo III
As the title states, what are the best options out there for replacing my c80 and sc500. Not to go cheap but don't want to spend all the fishing fund either. I've seen lots of people going Garmin and integrating (merc gateway) to view the engine parameters as well. Is the garmin able to then show you all the same features that the SC 5000 did? If not what's missing? are there better options.

Which model is the favored Garmin currently
 
Thank you sir. This is our first boat so I’m sure I’ll be sorting, searching, reading, learning and asking lots of questions.
 
Many options if you have smartcraft. With a smartcraft gateway to nema2000 most newer MFDs have the ability to show engine data. I know my Raymarine Axioms have several screens available and customizable for engine data.

-Kevin
 
If your sc5000 still works, there are several people on her who would buy it. +1 on using nmea2000 to send smartcraft data to your new MFD. The owner of this site has some great deals www.boemarine.com and can help with selecting equipment. Welcome aboard! Dan
 
Thank you.. Ill look into boemarine, always prefer to support those that support us in return..
 
Just did this on our 2003 360 Sundancer. We went with Lowrance displays because I had a Simrad 3G radar I was moving from another boat and it needed to work. Because of the radar I was limited to Simrad, B&G or Lowrance. For size I was limited to 9" display as that is all the room there is on the 360DA. My 1st choice would have been Simrad since that is what our old boat had, but the Simrad and B&G 9" have a slightly larger screen bezel and it would not fit. Also our c80 had been replaced by the previous owner with an older Lowrance so I could also reuse the installed transducer. We ended up with a Lowrance Carbon 9" in place of the c80, a Lowrance Carbon 7" in place of the SC5000 and added Vessel View Link to get all the SmartCraft data on NMEA2000. I also had the 3G radar installed on the arch at the same time. I decided not to tackle this and just had my marina do it. Total install including the two displays and vessel view link was right at $7K. The increase in usability now having dual modern non-glare MFDs with the radar was significant and we feel like this was a good investment. We have quick easy access to all engine data via the NMEA 2000.
 
Do you have all the vessel view data as well like tankage for fuel and water, rudder angle, etc?
 
Yes, I will take a photo next time I am at the boat. I don't even really look at the Vessel View screens since all the data is available for me to build custom screens. Any alarms with pop up as an overlay on both displays.

My standard driving screen is 3 rows of data.
Digital: Port RPM - Speed - STBD RPM
Analog: Compass - Rudder Angle - Fuel Remaining
Digital: Date/Time - Depth - Position

As our boat is still pretty new to us we also have a screen to look at fuel use at different speeds. It shows, RPM, Speed, Gal/hour, MPG, range at current gal/hour etc.
 
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Not great photos and the engines were not running but here is a shot of the install and a couple of screens on our 2003 360 Sundancer.
 
@Henry Boyd I am not sure about configuring each tank individually. I would have to look at that. Yes you can select your data source. For instance with the Lowrance 9 and 7, both output GPS to the NMEA bus. You select which one to use. Also you may have noticed in my display a third fuel tank reading empty. This was an issue with Vessel View Link that it was looking for 3 fuel tanks and the 360DA only has two. Vessel View throws an error that it can't read the third tank. There is a thread on CSR about adding a little jumper with a resister that fixes this problem.
 
That looks great.

I wonder if anyone has done the same with a Garmin setup?

I’m leaning towards Garmin for the my 340 upgrade since there is room for a 10” and an 8” screen but Simrad/Laurence/B&G make 7”, 9” or 12”

I’ve read that vessel view link works well with Simrad/Laurence/B&G but not with others.

I spoke to BOE marine who told me simply “it should work since it’s NEMA 2000 but we don’t sell vessel view”
 
If you install a VV Link the smarcraft app will
Appear on the home screen of Simrad Lowrance and B&G.
 
outobie said:
That looks great.

I wonder if anyone has done the same with a Garmin setup?

I’m leaning towards Garmin for the my 340 upgrade since there is room for a 10” and an 8” screen but Simrad/Laurence/B&G make 7”, 9” or 12”

I’ve read that vessel view link works well with Simrad/Laurence/B&G but not with others.

I spoke to BOE marine who told me simply “it should work since it’s NEMA 2000 but we don’t sell vessel view”
Click to expand...
I have Garmin and it can definitely display Smartcraft data coming in over NMEA 2000. My data comes from a VesselView 4 so I don't routinely use the Garmin for engine displays.
I think Garmin's capability is similar to RayMarine's. There is a set of three pre-defined screens that should populate using an auto-configure utility. Each screen can be customized and parameters can be shown as either digital or analog. Here's a picture of the first screen.
IMG_0274.jpg


I think it's true that only Navico (Simrad/Lowrance) plotters can provide the full set of Smartcraft data that a VesselView can display (they also make the current VesselView displays). Garmin/Raymarine can only show data that has a corresponding NMEA 2000 PGN and not all do. Garmin displays all operating parameters as well as alerts for high temps and such but I believe the underlying fault codes are J1939 and don't come in over NMEA.

There is another option for a Smartcraft Gateway other than Mercury. Yacht Devices (yachtd.com) offers an engine gateway capable of converting Smartcraft to NMEA 2000; it also can convert Volvo, Yanmar, Rotax and J1939. I am using it for my generator data and was very impressed with their customer service and documentation compared to Mercury. It's also less expensive than the Mercury counterpart.
 
Al,
You said you get warning messages on the Garmin display. Are those the result of data being manipulated through rule you establish in the display, or they the actual error codes as described by j1939?

I’m trying to replace the propriety display Volvo installed that is no longer serviceable or available. I’ve looked at the Volvo versions of 76 and 86 series as possibles, but Volvo keeps telling me these won’t work with my second generation EVC. And the generic Garmin won’t work, although I get engine data on my RM E120Ws.

H
 
Henry Boyd said:
Al,
You said you get warning messages on the Garmin display. Are those the result of data being manipulated through rule you establish in the display, or they the actual error codes as described by j1939?

I’m trying to replace the propriety display Volvo installed that is no longer serviceable or available. I’ve looked at the Volvo versions of 76 and 86 series as possibles, but Volvo keeps telling me these won’t work with my second generation EVC. And the generic Garmin won’t work, although I get engine data on my RM E120Ws.

H
Click to expand...
Henry, they are actually the engine status warnings specified in NMEA 2000. There are 24 discrete warnings defined; as you would expect, they're the biggies like low or high fuel/oil/coolant/voltage. General purpose MFD's are generally limited to displaying these as they can't read anything but standard NMEA 2000 data elements. The gateway makes the translation between J1939 and NMEA 2000; I believe any manipulation needs to be done there. There are hundreds of possible J1939 diagnostic codes, some proprietary to the manufacturer so total translation is difficult and most displays can't use the data anyway. I believe Volvo may be throwing a further wrench in the mix by using what they call the "Volcano" protocol which is a derivative of J1939, apparently similar to Mercury's Smartcraft, also a J1939 derivative.
It seems to me you need to explore the available J1939 gateways. I would look at the Yacht Devices gateway I described in my above post as well as the Maretron J1939 gateway. I think either will provide the basics for display on any NMEA 2000 MFD. The Yacht Devices manual has a lot of discussion about Volvo conversion and they seem to have translated a large number of Volvo parameters; I'll PM you a copy.
 
alnav said:
Henry, they are actually the engine status warnings specified in NMEA 2000. There are 24 discrete warnings defined; as you would expect, they're the biggies like low or high fuel/oil/coolant/voltage. General purpose MFD's are generally limited to displaying these as they can't read anything but standard NMEA 2000 data elements. The gateway makes the translation between J1939 and NMEA 2000; I believe any manipulation needs to be done there. There are hundreds of possible J1939 diagnostic codes, some proprietary to the manufacturer so total translation is difficult and most displays can't use the data anyway. I believe Volvo may be throwing a further wrench in the mix by using what they call the "Volcano" protocol which is a derivative of J1939, apparently similar to Mercury's Smartcraft, also a J1939 derivative.
It seems to me you need to explore the available J1939 gateways. I would look at the Yacht Devices gateway I described in my above post as well as the Maretron J1939 gateway. I think either will provide the basics for display on any NMEA 2000 MFD. The Yacht Devices manual has a lot of discussion about Volvo conversion and they seem to have translated a large number of Volvo parameters; I'll PM you a copy.
Click to expand...
Thanks I read the yacht devices stuff. Given the existing NMEA 2000 network supports the existing Volvo display it would surprise me to find these things already installed.

The volcano protocol is probably what’s built into the Volvo Garmin Glass Helm displays. But the Volvo dealer tells me that our version of EVC does not support Glass Helm.

H
 
What are most people doing with depth sensor when switching MFD? Are you adding depth sounders, or somehow integrating existing systems in?
 
pyro said:
What are most people doing with depth sensor when switching MFD? Are you adding depth sounders, or somehow integrating existing systems in?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you have and what you want. Depth transducers have become somewhat generic to the extent of depth and water temp. You add a display with super duper sideways bounce and fish ID, you ay need something else. I made up the super duper sideways bounce thing, don’t fish so I haven’t a clue if it’s possible or not.

If you can reuse stuff it does lower the bill and allow you to perhaps buy a better mfd than you could if you also buying a fish finder transducer.

H
 
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