Raymarine E / C 120 on a 2000 400 Sundancer

[steve mac]

I was hoping to get some expert advice...

I want to replace the old (1999 -2000) Raytheon electronics with a new Raymarine E or C 120 MFD. Has anyone installed one of these on a 400 DA, in place of the old Raytheon 41XX radar display? I ask because the area where the display is mounted is only about 15 inches wide and the dimensions of the C120 display is 14 inches wide. I am assuming that the wood (or fiberglass) inside the mounting surface must be at least 1/2 inch thick. I can always go with the C80, which I know will fit, but I would prefer the larger screen of the 120.

Any advice would be helpful

 

[Warren]

Sorry I can't advise which way to go on this project. Please post your decision as I want to do the same thing myself at some point.. Did you check out Furuno for size?
Thanks,
Warren

 

[WFYB]

I don't exactly understand your question. Are you asking about fabricating a new dash insert? We just replaced the SeaRay Navigator with an E120 on our 420DA. The E120 would not fit in between the existing gages. I had a black 3/8" starboard insert fabricated with the cutouts for the E120 and 4 gages. $90. Looks great, in my opinion better then the fake wood insert original.

 

[Warren]

Jon, perhaps you could post a photo for Steve and I to see..
Many thanks,
Warren

 

[CSR_Admin]

I just did a installation on a 50' Dancer about that age, if i'm not mistaken the dash's should be similar. I was able to pull the old Raymarine display out, make the hole a little wider and drop the E120 in. It actually fit quite well. No fabrication required. Send me a pic of your dash and I'll let you know if its the same or not.

 

[WFYB]

Attached is a shot of the helm. Note how I needed to move the two top engine gages toward the corner. The color is black. To me and others that have seen the installation the black seems to make the gages pop off the back a bit more then the original wood grain.

 

[Warren]

Thanks Jon - great looking installation! I like the black board backboard.
Warren

 

[WFYB]

Do be aware that your current radome probably will not work with the new series chartplotters (sorry to be the bearer of bad news, 'specially on Christmas). I wanted to upgrade the SL70 on my 2003 320 DA to the C80 and was told by raymarine techs that the raydomes of old (pre C and E series) won't work with the newer equipment.)

Scott

Actually some work, some do not and some will work with a factory install refit. The Raymarine website lists the radome serial numbers

http://raymarine.custhelp.com/cgi-b...mNoX3RleHQ9cGF0aGZpbmRlcg**&p_li=&p_topview=1

My 03 vintage scanner would work with a factory install refit but I choose to leave the radome on the RLC80CRC as is. My prime goal was to get rid of the SeaRay Navigator which was sloooow, incompatible and unreliable. I purchased one of Jim's remanufactured units and am quite pleased.

 

[Gervie]

I recently changed out the SeaRay Navigator and installed dual E120s. The radar is completely different so yes you need to change it out. I ordered a new instrument panel from SeaRay that is cut for the E120 and it looks OEM. I also swapped out the sounder and GPS. I am not sure if you have to but I wanted the network to be all Raymarine.

 

[steve mac]

Thanks for the replies.

Jon, your install looks great. I like the black starboard. Unfortunatley, on my 2000 the dash has a small area to the left on the helm that is made for a radar / chartplotter screen. I have the old Raytheon radar XX41 and the screen fits fine, but I don't think the C120 will fit. I will try to post a pic of the area.

Scott, you are correct in that the open array antenna that I have will not work with the new MFD from Raymarine. I asked on the RayMarine website. (the boat was actually made in 1999 and so the radar / antenna are circa 1999). I do, however find it hard to believe that Raymarine could not come up with some sort of adaptor to allow the older open arrays or radomes work with the new units. After all, most of the components are the same.

 

[Steve36]

Just a question, what are you guys doing with the old Navigators? Are you selling them or just throwing them out.
Also you said they were slow and unreliable. Can you elaborate and what series were they (i or ii).
Final question. Did you have a Maptech radar or Raymarine ?
Thanks for the info.

 

[RollerCoastr]

Here's a pic of a 400DA dash. Note how this guy went to a dash-top setup for his upgrades.

 

[WFYB]

I had a series I navigator. It had a Garmin GPS antenna. Series I did not have radar capability. Redraw was very slow, it was dangerously slow transferring way points from a rout to the autopilot over the nema bus. There was no way to upload or download waypoints. The unit crashed when placing waypoints. It frequently needed to run check-disk to clean up loose sectors. It would fail to release control of the autopilot. etc. etc.

Series I is old technology. It is a win/dos machine, (maybe windows ME), has a slow processor and slow hard drive. I understand series II and newer are much better. They are based on WinXP and have better hardware. They are also expensive.

Personally I prefer hardware that is not based on a PC but is designed from the ground up for a marine environment. It is also best to keep the hardware all the same if possible. Raymarine likes to talk to Raymarine over seatalk. It is fast and efficient. Any nema device will always take a back seat to a seatalk device on the same network.

I sold my unit on Ebay