The Marine Electronics Hub
Paneltronics new load shedding system is somewhat related to my battery/monitor/charger travails. Boaters of all sorts are struggling to management their electrical appetites and the line between electrical and electronic is getting fuzzy indeed. And there are all sorts of us; I have no need for AC load shedding personally, though this device is unique in that it’s aimed at boats like Gizmo…
There’s no such thing as a stupid question, right? Please? Above is the only label on each of Gizmo’s main bank 8D batteries, and though it says AGM in big letters upper right, I’m...
It’s just a draft — artist I’m not — but maybe someone out there in Panbo land can craft this into something fun for a hat and business card? The graphic idea is an electronic wave turning into an ocean wave, but I’m open to another design…as long as it floats some boats. Seriously, the first hat (a nice long billed khaki cap) will be yours, plus my undying gratitude. (If it would help to start with my draft creation in vector form, you can download it as an .ai file.) Homework is completely optional, of course, and you, like me, may have a holiday to celebrate…
There’s a lot to say about this screen and how the values got there, or didn’t, but what I like the most is how Maretron’s DSM250 is displaying the outputs of two NMEA 2000 depth transducers at once, and that I was even able to name their data windows in an informative way. I think the screen will be useful in some tight gunkholing situations, and would be even more so on a larger vessel or a multihull. Unfortunately this level of N2K data management is not yet available elsewhere, unless I’ve missed something…
My search for Gizmo’s navigation PC has taken a strange turn — as you can see above, posed around a Furuno MFD12 — and I’m blaming a Panbo commenter who recently crowed about scoring a 12v, fanless all-in-one Datalux iPix on eBay. I’m close to crowing myself — and maybe a few of you will join me, as there are three left — but I could use some geek help to better understand what’s under the hood of this particular Datalux Tracer police car computer…
Pardon me if I use an entry on the improving state of marine iPhone apps to illustrate my concerns about NOAA’s local chart screw ups, but it works. Navimatics Charts&Tides 3.6.2 was the first charting program of any sort I’ve seen that includes NOAA’s first 1:20,000 ENC for Camden Harbor, but it will be confusing fog bound visitors soon! Those semi-invented channel buoys that I first saw on the raster chart are worse here, given equal graphic weight with real navigation aids, more precise looking wrong locations, and all without the “Priv aids” label that might help a navigator sort things out…
Today I added a new Panbo category for gear I try which is not electronics related, but which is good enough that you might want to know about it. Like the Moonlite Marine rail cleat above. I’d never seen one in the aluminum and stainless flesh before taking a $20 chance online, but now I think they’re well-designed and built, and darn handy…
I don’t like what some Japanese companies, supported by their government, are doing to whales, but I’m smart enough to know that a reasonable alternative to Sea Shepherd’s nasty headline above might be: “Furuno won’t give (or sell) Sea Shepherd a new radar because its government asked it not to.” Or: “Furuno won’t support protesters who ram Japanese ships.” Or maybe: “Furuno wants nothing to do with an arrogant jerk like Captain Paul Watson!”…
DBE! is my new shorthand for “Don’t Blame Electronics!” And the collision of Ella’s Pink Lady with the Silver Yang off Queensland, Australia, last September is a terrific example (especially as no one got hurt). I first heard about it in a Panbo comment focused on the “limits in detectability of Class B AIS” that the Australian Safety Board uncovered, which I’ll discuss after the break. But I sure hope that the Class B naysayers who may jump on this news actually download and read the full report first. Then they’ll know that the AIS data collected by a shore station and shown on the above chartlets (click for full size) was available on both vessels, and could have easily been used to prevent the accident…
We had a false start in December when we first saw the PC charting program Expedition interfaced to a Navico BR24 radar, but as of last night this interesting possibility, and many like it, seem to be official. Read the full press release here. I think this means that Expedition and some other charting programs may soon be able to run a Broadband Radar, with or without a Simrad (or Lowrance?) mulitfunction display involved, but there are a few details of the plan and implementation that I’d like to know more about…
