Raymarine ST70, looks hot!
Do these new ST70 instrument and autopilot displays (bigger here) look beautiful or what? The problem is that the screens are probably faked, which is typical of this sort of product photography. But Raymarine assures me that they are gorgeous in reality, and may let me see for myself in a few weeks. The official U.S. unveiling isn’t until mid September but again, darn it, AskJackRabbit got the scoop, first finding some dope in England, then yesterday posting most of what went out to dealers…images, manuals, pricing, etc. Perhaps as noteworthy as rich color screens is the fact that ST70s can not only display NMEA 2000 info, engines included, but can also connect to existing SeaTalk instruments and sensors. Plus they mark the birth of SeaTalkNG (new generation), a N2K-like backbone and T cabling system. More on all after I study up.
In appearance … this is a huge improvement over the ST60 Graphic I intensely desire to replace.
I can see myself eventually replacing all the displays.
When I see the documentation, I will first be looking to find out:
1. Power requirements
2. Will it be entirely compatible with the Maretron weather station and compass, or, do you still need to by a Maretron N2k display to get full functionality.
3. Is the software field upgradable, say from a small memory chip as the E-series is.
4. And … can you map new sentances from N2K to display in subwindows on the ST70, information that is published from your PC. Wouldn’t that be a bonus, if you can for example compute the target VMG on your PC and have that appear on the ST70 based on true wind.
Looks like they have been eying Navman’s interface for a while, particularly with their autohelm unit. Definitely an improvement over what it replaces. B393capt…I know you can forward unique sentences to an ST60, so I would hope that this functionality will be continued. I worked this out a couple of years ago for doing exactly what you are interested in (target VMG). As you are probably well aware, receiving polar based data from your laptop is quite a bit cheaper than purchasing an Ockam or B&G system.
Ben … Can you check out the ST70 autopilot -10 -1 +1 +10 buttons ? It almost appears that -1, -10, and “cancel” share the same physical button movement / contact underneath, e.g. the difference between -1 and -10 isn’t where you press, but maybe that you hold it down to differentiate between -1 and -10 ? Or, maybe you have to push the dodge button first to get -10, If so, I see this as a big negative, just as I commented on for Garmin.
Your thoughts ?
@b393capt:
I learned from someone at the Raymarine booth at METS that the ST70 is field-upgradeable if it has a connection to an new Raymarine chartplotter (like the E-series); it basically works the same way as the update for the E-series itself.