Raymarine Chartplotter Users, Please Comment

timjet

timjet

Member
Jan 14, 2010
236
Tampa, FL
Boat Info
'98 355 ACMY
Engines
Cummins 6BT 330 M3's
I purchased a Raymarine E90W plotter and 18" HD Radar at the Miami boat show.

After a little use, I'm going to keep my Garmin 740 and use the E90W for radar and ER video display. I'm somewhat disappointed in the Raymaine unit and depending on what interest I get from this post and others I am considering contacting Raymarine’s software manager and suggesting several software upgrades.

Here’s by beef:

The unit at full brightness is not as bright as I would like nor as bright as the Garmin.
The redraw rate for charts is slightly lower than the Garmin, but not really a problem.
The font size for almost everything is too small requiring reading glasses.

But the following 2 issues to me are something Raymarine needs to fix now:

When navigating a route, it is not possible to display time to destination or distance to destination when viewing the chart application or radar application. It is possible to view this information but the route information page must be brought up requiring 7 button presses to get there. And then to return to the radar or chart-plotter page several buttons must be pressed again. According to a Raymarine tech, this is common to all their current MFD chart-plotters.
This seems to me to be basic information that most folks would want always displayed. Ever hear “when are we gong to get there” or “how much farther”, or “are we going to get there in daylight”. Imagine trying to determine if you’re going to get to your anchorage or marine before dark and pressing several buttons over a period of probably 30 seconds while trying to keep the boat in the center of the channel. My Garmin unit displays this important information on the chart view page and for this reason will continue to be my primary chart-plotter.

Secondly, each route on my Raymarine unit will only hold up to 50 waypoints. I guess the good folks at Raymarine have never created a route on their chart-plotters when navigating the AICW as the 50 waypt limitation will get you only a few miles. For you folks with Ray equipment do you also enjoy this 50 waypt limitation?

These issues, except the brightness, could easily be fixed by a simple software fix. Hasn’t anyone mentioned this to Raymarine or are they just not listening?

For you folks that are familiar with Garmins PC interface software (Homeport) for creating routes on your PC and uploading them to your plotter, I think you will be sadly disappointed in Raymaines version of their PC software interface, Voyage Planner. This software comparatively priced to Garmins is not really made by Raymarine but by North Port Systems, a separate company.

I found it difficult to install Voyage Planner on my computer and especially difficult to install the Navionics Silver charts the E90W plotter uses. You are using products from 3 different companies, North Port Systems, Raymarine, and Navionics, each with their own software licenses. So you can image there are going to be difficulties. Once up and running I found the route editing features limiting and the overall use of the software amateurish compared to Garmin.
For example: After creating a route of 18 miles in Voyage Planner consisting of 75+ waypoints I saved it to my hard drive but when I tried to upload the routes to my E90W, I learned of the 50 waypt limitation mentioned above. This is a chart-plotter limitation, Voyage Planner will save more waypts. I figured I would divide the route into 2 smaller routes consisting of less than 50 waypts but unlike Garmins Homeport, you can’t divide or join routes in Voyage Planner.

Raymarine uses Navionics as their chart vendor while Garmin uses their own Blue charts. Both chart systems seem to be very accurate and I’ve found no advantage to one over the other, but the preloaded charts on many Raymarine units are Navionics Silver which don’t include Tide or Current data. You must upgrade to Navionics Gold charts at $180 to get this important feature.

I got a great price on my E90W and would remove my Garmin unit if the above features were present on the Raymarine unit. The Raymarine 18” HD Radar seems very capable from my very limited use of it. I can’t compare it with other units because I’ve never used other units and hope the software limitations of the plotter don’t include the Radar.

If you’ve read this far you probably are considering the purchase of a chartplotter or have a Raymarine unit. If you have experience with Raymarines chart plotters or radar and have any software upgrade suggestions, please post them here and I will include them in my contact with Raymarine.
 
I have GPS data ported to smartcraft and see the time to next waypoint, distance to next wp, compass rose vector etc. on the SC 5000 display as that also provides engine and fuel consumption data.

I have not run into the 50 wp limit on the C80. I just looked in the c80 manual and the display can store 1000 waypoints, and 100 routes, those are limited to 50 WPs. That is in the machine, and can also store routes and wps to data chips. I am able to create and frequently use mini-routes, e.g. mooring to Ipswich Bay, Ipswich Bay to Boston, or Ipswich Bay to Newburyport, followed by Newburyport to Portland etc. I manually go from route to route, although I believe that by creating and using a route list it will automatically follow on from one to the other.

SInce RM does not provide a Mac compatible software, I have not bothered to try the voyage planner. I do make up routes on my MacBook and just print out the coordinates and manually load using the cursor to get to the location where the wp should be and locking it in.

I suspect this is more of an issue of new stuff than fundamental flaws in the RM equipment. As an FYI, three weeks ago I moved a friend's boat from Boston to Portland that was equipped with all Garmin hardware. My opinion of Garmin upon arriving in Portland after six hours based on my experience is that it was convoluted and non intuitive. Not that it really is, it was just that it does not match any of my points of reference.

My suggestion is that if this really bugs you, you might as well post the RM stuff on eBay and get yourself replacement Garmin gear.

Henry
 
Thanks Henry.
I don't have a smartcraft system, but can you display time and dist to destination on your C80?
You use your chart plotter in a different way than I do. I find the 50 wp limitation a problem as I don't really want to create a bunch of mini routes and then have to load a new route every time I come to the end of the current route. In my case that may be several times in a day.
I use the PC chart planning software for most of my routing. I use Garmins Homeport for the reasons stated and convert the routes into the universally recognizable .GPX format that Raymarines Voyage Planner software can recognize.
I then convert the routes in Voyage Planner to Raymarines .FSH format which I then save to a CF card and upload to the plotter. It's a convoluted process but works. I'm still limited to the 50 wp limitation.
 
How many waypoints would you like to store within a route? And, for such a route, how many miles would it typically be? I'm trying to get a feel for how you would use it. My average route is 50 miles, and have about 6-7 WPs.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
On the west coast of FL where we stick pretty much to the channels especially when navigating the ICW, it's not uncommon to have 100 wp or more.

Below is a screen shot of a portion of a route we typically navigate that consists of 98 wp and is 72 miles. The screen shot shows a span of 5 miles with 9 wp.

9k=
 
I don't recall what I saw when looking at E90W, but I can say that there's a huge difference when looking at E120 vs. C120 (both classic series). Both day and night modes are pretty good. In regards to the font I believe there's an option to change it.

I came across the 50 WPTs limitation several times and the only workaround I used was breaking the route in to 2 + more legs.
 
Alex, did you find not being able to display in a data box the destination ETA and miles in the chart application window a problem?
 
Tim, I don't have any experience with the new RM stuff. But I am disappointed to hear that they limit your waypoint in a route to such a low number, my old RL is the same way. I used to break up routes when traveling and use the RM as my backup to another chartplotter that could handle many more route-waypoints.
 
If you have a beef with the software, let Raymarine know about it. They have a moderated forum where you can get assistance and feedback from a Raymarine employee. I am told their "Lighhouse" software is updated 4x per year. 2 major upgrades and 2 minor upgrades. Does it have all the features I am looking for? No. Did I ask for more features? Yes.

I spent $9k on new Raymarine stuff last year and am tickled pink with it. I will say that I have navigated from FL to NY and points in between and have never seen the need for so many waypoints. Methinks you are over complicating the navigation thing. But, to each his own. If you require 12 waypoints to get from the slip to the fuel dock, then I can see the need for more than 50 waypoints in a route. But, since you can daisy chain the routes, as Henry has suggested, I am failing to see that as a major issue.

The e series MFD has about 50 gazillion windows that you can scroll through and if you put an i70 on your dash,

i70.jpg

you can get a boatload of screens set up on it that may display the data you are looking for. I'll write myself a note to see if that is possible to get the destination ETA/miles.
 
I have not heard a lot of good about the RM stuff lately from a lot of boaters (some professional captains on 100-150= footers) on a several sites. Most of it has to do with display brightness and clarity and user friendliness.
 
mistercomputerman said:
If you have a beef with the software, let Raymarine know about it. They have a moderated forum where you can get assistance and feedback from a Raymarine employee. I am told their "Lighhouse" software is updated 4x per year. 2 major upgrades and 2 minor upgrades. Does it have all the features I am looking for? No. Did I ask for more features? Yes.

I spent $9k on new Raymarine stuff last year and am tickled pink with it. I will say that I have navigated from FL to NY and points in between and have never seen the need for so many waypoints. Methinks you are over complicating the navigation thing. But, to each his own. If you require 12 waypoints to get from the slip to the fuel dock, then I can see the need for more than 50 waypoints in a route. But, since you can daisy chain the routes, as Henry has suggested, I am failing to see that as a major issue.

The e series MFD has about 50 gazillion windows that you can scroll through and if you put an i70 on your dash,

View attachment 30461

you can get a boatload of screens set up on it that may display the data you are looking for. I'll write myself a note to see if that is possible to get the destination ETA/miles.
Click to expand...
I think he did already. Looks like the response is that they have higher priority stuff to work on. http://raymarine.ning.com/forum/topics/e90w-data-boxes
 
`Paul, I like the split screen too, but in your picture you show the course deviation screen which will not allow you to insert the time to destination or distance to destination data blocks.

My old Ray RL80C had destination miles & ETA to destination prominently displayed on the chart screen. I thought this was such a basic bit of information that certainly any chart plotter, ever the most inexpensive would have it. According to Raymarine there is no work around for this other than to go through 7 menus to obtain it. I'm finding though our discussions here that perhaps for some folks that information is not as important as I thought.

The 50 waypt limitation is simply a software issue and could easily be fixed, but again it appears that a lot of folks don't consider that important. Most of you that have indicated that this is not an issue seem to live in the New England area where there is no ICW.
 
I thought it was in the course deviation screen. I will have to see this weekend on my unit and get back to you. I was very disappointed on the greatlakes chip I bought. I was expecting much more detail that there is. Was not worth the extra $$ IMO.
 
Thanks Paul, I'm looking forward to your reply. I hope you can find that information but according to Ray tech support I doubt it. This from Ray tech support yesterday:
The following features support displaying Waypoint Info (Waypoint Name, Range, Bearing, Time To Go) for the waypoint currently being navigated:

  • CDI application
  • Databar - populate with the Waypoint Info data item
  • Data application data cell - populate with the Waypoint Info data item.
However, none of Raymarine's MFDs currently feature support for populating the Databar or a data cell within the Data application with ETA at Route Destination or Distance remaining to Route Destination.
 
On mine which is the c90w I have a data point on the deviation screen that says "waypoint TTG" this it the Time to Target waypoint. I also have closing speed display which accounts for the deviation. I remember having to select this for display. I have had this unit 3 years and can not recall the procedure but will look it up if you need me to.
 
Thanks Paul, what I'm looking for is a data block that will give time to destination when navigating a route consisting of many waypts. I know how to get ETA and miles to the next waypt.
 
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