Can Any Of These Old Eletronics Be Part Of New Suite?

MonacoMike

Well-Known Member
Sep 15, 2009
14,721
Indiana lakes and Lake Michigan
Boat Info
2000 Cruisers 3870
8.2 Mercs
Engines
85 Sea Ray Monaco 197
260hp Alpha 1
My new boat has what was likely a very nice setup in 2000. A large screen Simrad plotter, a separate Simrad 10 inch radar screen with 4 foot open array, and a Simrad/Robertson auto-pilot. There also is a Raymarine Tri-data as well.

The auto-pilot works well alone, however, will it connect to a new plotter?

Will the open array connect to newer plotters or just a new screen?

MM
 
I started looking into this with my original Raymarine gear. The manufacturers should all be able to tell you, generally by serial #/mfg date/model, whether or not they are compatible with the newer stuff.

With a few minutes of google searching I learned that my radar array is not compatible with any of the recent MFDs available. My desires for a quick and dirty (used gear) upgrade ended there.

Grab your serial #'s and model info and start searching. The info you seek is out there.
 
Simrad makes high end electronics so dependability-wise you should be happy with th e plotter and radar. You may be missing some newer featured like HD color displays and you may find the manuals and operator interface to be lacking compared to newer electronics that are almost completely intuitive.

Robertson made what was considered the industry standard go-to autopilot for years and years. Simrad bought Roberston and initially did not change the AP's. Eventually they were updated and the "Robertson" name was dropped. As long as your plotter outputs a NEMA signal and the AP receives the same language, you should be able to interface the plotter to the AP.

NMEA 0183 is a single talker system and is kind of the lowest common demonimator here. Even the newest MFD's usually come with NMEA 0183 capability, but yours may also be NMEA 2000 compatible. Understanding the connections and programming the input and output sentences can get a bit confusing so if all you older electronics is Simrad, it is likely owner installed and the NMEA interface was just not connected.

Time for some heavy duty manual reading!
 
IMO, your equipment is 20 years old, VERY out of date, and not worth much as far as resale. I'd personally start this project assuming everything was going to get taken-out and would start fresh with a NMEA 2000 network as the base. Garmin and Raymarine would be the brands I would look at as they seem to be very well supported and readily available. To save $$, I would NOT buy the most recent generation of their hardware across the board. The prior gen (3 years old or so) is still very good and less than 1/2 the cost of the new high-tech (eg glass bridge) stuff they are selling. All that said, it comes down to your needs and budget.
 
IMO, your equipment is 20 years old, VERY out of date, and not worth much as far as resale. I'd personally start this project assuming everything was going to get taken-out and would start fresh with a NMEA 2000 network as the base. Garmin and Raymarine would be the brands I would look at as they seem to be very well supported and readily available. To save $$, I would NOT buy the most recent generation of their hardware across the board. The prior gen (3 years old or so) is still very good and less than 1/2 the cost of the new high-tech (eg glass bridge) stuff they are selling. All that said, it comes down to your needs and budget.

That would be the best option if we used them more often. In our area we are rarely in the navigational situations many of you are every time you go out. I would love a brand new state of the art system but until we travel more it is overkill. Hence trying to get a very modern functional plotter to play along with a radar and pilot that work great is the goal.

MM
 
Simrad makes high end electronics so dependability-wise you should be happy with th e plotter and radar. You may be missing some newer featured like HD color displays and you may find the manuals and operator interface to be lacking compared to newer electronics that are almost completely intuitive.

Robertson made what was considered the industry standard go-to autopilot for years and years. Simrad bought Roberston and initially did not change the AP's. Eventually they were updated and the "Robertson" name was dropped. As long as your plotter outputs a NEMA signal and the AP receives the same language, you should be able to interface the plotter to the AP.

NMEA 0183 is a single talker system and is kind of the lowest common demonimator here. Even the newest MFD's usually come with NMEA 0183 capability, but yours may also be NMEA 2000 compatible. Understanding the connections and programming the input and output sentences can get a bit confusing so if all you older electronics is Simrad, it is likely owner installed and the NMEA interface was just not connected.

Time for some heavy duty manual reading!

Thanks, I really am at ground zero here in knowledge about what is even possible. I do have the manuals and need to read more in-depth, but finding anything about forward compatibility is hard to come by. The so called electronics "experts" just want to sell a new system and either do not have or want to share any compatibility options.

MM
 
My boat had all late 2000 Raytheon stuff. The open array scanner died and new scanners are not compatible with my old RL80c, which was slower than a one legged dog anyway.

So the scanner and RL80c were mothballed and a new Garmin 8208 display and 24xHD dome went in. The AP is able to communicate with the Garmin via NMEA 0183, so I am able to navigate to a waypoint and follow a route.

My old VHF220 (Raytheon) also communicates with the new display (for DSC purposes) via NMEA0183. The only thing that's now stand-alone is the TriData. It communicates only via SeaTalk, which is a language Garmin does not speak. So I can't display depth on the new Garmin.
 
Simrad makes high end electronics so dependability-wise you should be happy with th e plotter and radar. You may be missing some newer featured like HD color displays and you may find the manuals and operator interface to be lacking compared to newer electronics that are almost completely intuitive.

Robertson made what was considered the industry standard go-to autopilot for years and years. Simrad bought Roberston and initially did not change the AP's. Eventually they were updated and the "Robertson" name was dropped. As long as your plotter outputs a NEMA signal and the AP receives the same language, you should be able to interface the plotter to the AP.

NMEA 0183 is a single talker system and is kind of the lowest common demonimator here. Even the newest MFD's usually come with NMEA 0183 capability, but yours may also be NMEA 2000 compatible. Understanding the connections and programming the input and output sentences can get a bit confusing so if all you older electronics is Simrad, it is likely owner installed and the NMEA interface was just not connected.

Time for some heavy duty manual reading!

Frank is spot on. But I would add that there are different versions of the NMEA 0183 standard. With the versions come different (additional) commands and data sets. It is possible to connect two NMEA 0183 devices and them NOT be able to communicate. I had a Raymarine 435c plotter with 0183 on it. I added a new VHF Radio (w/o internal GPS) with 0183. I wanted to get GPS from the plotter to my radio. But after hours of debugging I found that the vhf required “words”(commands) that only existed in a later 0183 version. My 435 was too old to support that spec and they wouldn’t talk. Argh. Btw, this doesn’t happen with NMEA 2000. So I agree with Frank, lots of detailed manual reading is needed.
 
The problem the OP has is his old equipment is analog and modern equipment is digital. The two do not mix.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,942
Messages
1,422,696
Members
60,926
Latest member
dander88
Back
Top