Panbo

The Marine Technology Hub

Category: Navigation

Furuno NAVpilot 700 Series, w/ CANbus 7

Navigation / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Furuno NAVpilot 700 Series, w/ CANbus

Furuno_700_series_AP_cPanbo.jpg

Just as with the nifty-looking new RD- and GP-33 color 4.3-inch displays, Furuno Japan is ahead of FurunoUSA in announcing the new NAVpilot 700 series.  (Sorry, Klamath, but if it’s on the Web somewhere, some Panbot is apt to find it — thanks, Frank! — and I feel obliged to write about it ;-).  Aside from the brochure downloadable at that link, the most information I’ve found so far is a press release at the Australian Furuno distributor, which discusses a “unique Fish Hunter Mode” as well how highly sailboats figure on the feature list.  While I’m not sure such features are new relative to the existing NAVPilot 500 series, the use of CANbus (aka NMEA 2000, an unfortunate word game we discussed here) in the three control heads and the processor definitely is.  But the brochure diagram has me scratching my chin…

Furuno MaxSea TimeZero 2010, valuable dual Navionics/C-Map & more 58

Navigation

Furuno MaxSea TimeZero 2010, valuable dual Navionics/C-Map & more

MSTZ_Jeppesen_C-Map_Bahamas_1.JPG

Last February Furuno made a lot of promises about improved charting in NavNet3D and MaxSea TimeZero, and it seems to be making good on all of them.  At least the North American MapMedia versions of “C-Map by Jeppesen” vector charts (explained here) are now available, as are the NN3D 2.05 and MSTZ 1.9 software upgrades that can display them.  Those upgrades purportedly do a lot more than make TimeZero the only charting software that can support both Navionics and C-Map cartography (given that Geonav’s “DualFuel” is only available in Europe until Fall, and the fate of Raymarine’s ambitious dual cartography plan is apparently uncertain.)  But before I get into those other improvements, I have some good examples of why you might want to have both Navionics and C-Map at your helm.  First, click on that image above showing Jeppesen C-Map coverage of the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas…

Green Marine monitors, first look 1

Cabin & deck gear / Navigation

Green Marine monitors, first look

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Yes, the photo is largely under exposed, but the point was to illustrate the relative brightness of the new Green Marine LED-backlit AWM-1900 monitor I checked out in the lab last week.  I think it would be usable in sunny conditions, and it’s fast enough to show an action movie without noticeable blur, either in a PIP window as shown, or full screen.  It was also pleasantly surprising to find that even an inexpensive Asus netbook (dimly showing neat NavMonPC freeware) supports a dual monitor desktop these days, including the AWM’s 1280 x 1024 native resolution.  I did not test the monitor’s promised front side waterproofness, but it’s quite apparent that the back side has to be well protected…

Garmin 2010, GPSMap 740 and GMR 604 xHD first looks 21

Navigation

Garmin 2010, GPSMap 740 and GMR 604 xHD first looks

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Garmin may have lost its bid for Raymarine last week, but, as noted, there’s plenty of evidence that it’s building a daunting marine electronics line on its own.  Check out the little  GPSMap
740s and the big GMR 604 xHD (pedestal) above for examples of growth in both directions.  It’s hard to imagine getting much more MFD into a casing less than 9 x 6 inches and under 2.5 pounds.  Meanwhile, all that cast aluminum in the radar base contributes to a heft of 46 pounds, not including the 12 pound array.  Which is actually 4′ 3.5″ wide, but still fit on Gizmo’s antenna mast…just.  Yup, both are now installed on the boat, along with a Garmin 5212 and a skeleton N2K sensor network.  My dash board projects are not quite ready to show off, but the testing season has begun…

The damn iPad: iNavX, X-Traverse, Navimatics & AC 57

Navigation / Handheld

The damn iPad: iNavX, X-Traverse, Navimatics & AC

iNavX_iPad___iPhone.JPG

It’s so sad:  Nowadays when I contemplate my amazing portfolio of iPhone marine apps (discussed here, here, here, and elsewhere) in iTunes, featured right across the top of my PC screen are the ones now also optimized for the iPad.  But I don’t have an iPad (though I did touch one).  And behold the difference.  The size of what you see when you click on the image above will depend on your particular screen’s pixels-per-inch resolution, but the proportions are right regardless.  iNavX on a 9.7-inch, 1024 x 748 pixel iPad is obviously quite different from iNavX on a 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 pixel iPhone.  There’s room for more chart and bigger touch buttons, not to mention nav data and a compass ribbon across the top.  Damn…

eLoran deader, GPS wounded 14

Navigation

eLoran deader, GPS wounded

Port_Clarence_LORAN_tower_dies.JPG

How horribly ironic!  The screen above is grabbed from a USCG video showing the demolition of Alaska’s tallest structure, a Loran tower that might have hosted an eLoran backup to GPS, maybe already was.  Just three weeks earlier, Intelsat let it be known that it had
“lost control” of one of the two WAAS satellites, and that it would “drift out
of orbit over the next two to four weeks.”  And Alaska will be the place that suffers the most loss of WAAS, though all North American navigators should take note that WAAS redundancy just went away.

Coastal Explorer & ActiveCaptain, YES! 59

Navigation / PC & peripheral / AIS

Coastal Explorer & ActiveCaptain, YES!

Garmin just announced several new products which will be shown when the doors open at METS tomorrow morning. The 6000 and 7000 series are very much like the successful 4- and 5000 series except that apparently they’ve got enough processor speed to warrant a new expression for how fast and smoothly they pan and zoom charts — Garmin G Motion. They’ve also got …

A World Magnetic Model reminder, courtesy Maretron 22

Navigation

A World Magnetic Model reminder, courtesy Maretron

World_Magnetic_Model_2010.JPG

Is your boat’s World Magnetic Model up to date?  Does it matter?  It may be a sign of Miami new product overload (here and here) that I got intrigued with this subject yesterday, but it was actually a Maretron press release (pdf here) that led the way.  The company is proud that their latest GPS200 now outputs magnetic compass variation based on the latest WMM2010, and that a firmware update will bring the same precision to their existing GPS receivers.  Heck, I thought GPS units just got variation from the satellites, and was reminded how much we take compass technology for granted…

New from FLIR, more choices 1

Navigation / Safety & SAR

New from FLIR, more choices

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Among the new products to be shown at the Miami Boat Show next week, FLIR just announced both a lower cost fixed M-Series and two new higher-end hand held First Mate models.  The new M (no model # yet) packages a single 320×240 thermal cam with the same excellent bullet casing and Ethernet controller(s) that I tested as the M-626L last fall, with dual payload 640×480 thermal and low light cams. The purported retail of the new cam will be $12,000, which will likely mean an under 10g street price judging from some outlets for the existing models.  It’s great to get the price down on this valuable safety tool, but it reminds me of the occasional value I saw in also having the low light camera.  The shot above was taken in daylight, but the thermal camera would have seen out the harbor as well as it does at night if it weren’t for the downpour.  After the break, you’ll see what it missed…