Data Marine Weather Instruments

[Arthurc]

My KK54 has one legacy system left and that’s the weather info, I actually don’t have any gauges left for them but do have what looks like a totally functional unit in the mizzen mast. I then have a DataMarine DART in my helm area that looks mostly defunct.

Does anyone have any experience or docs on the DataMarine equipment? If it’s working I would much rather convert the current top of mast stuff to 0183 or 2K than fun another cable and deal with install.

If you don’t have experience with this stuff I’m still curious on what weather sensor you went with, my understanding is in N2K I have a few choices in ultrasonic.
-Maretron (good but very short drop cable means I’d need to run the backbone up the mast?) $700
-Furuno (Will wire into my DRS radar but $1300
-Garmin (No short drop cable requirement and about the same price as Maretron?)

AC

 

[O C Diver]

The Garmin wireless wind speed and direction unit has been a nightmare. Will probably replace it this spring with one of the Airmar ultrasonic units (nema 2K).

Ted

 

[Arthurc]

Yeah the Airmar is the same as the Furuno.

I did some research and it looks like I got bad info, the Maretron has a drop cable limit of 6m, my mast is 19ft so I’m thinking about trying it .

 

[twistedtree]

Run away from the Maretron WSO100. Everyone I know who has one has had multiple failures. One guy at Shilshole has replaced 4 under warranty in less than a year. Get an Airmar.

 

[Conrad]

We have a Furuno/Airmar 200 on Blue Sky. It was installed on our earlier boat in 2011. We transferred it over to Blue Sky in 2013 and it has worked almost flawlessly ever since. The only failure was the outside temperature but everything else has been great. I'd get another one in a heartbeat.

 

[Arthurc]

Good to know! That makes install easy as I believe it networks directly into my DRS Radar.

 

[O C Diver]

Yeah the Airmar is the same as the Furuno.

I did some research and it looks like I got bad info, the Maretron has a drop cable limit of 6m, my mast is 19ft so I’m thinking about trying it .

Airmar is the manufacturer. Furuno has it private labeled for them. Airmar makes most everybody's through hull transducers also. As it's a standard nema 0183 or 2000 unit, it should be plug and play with most any MFD. Try imarineusa.com for pricing.

Ted

 

[Hwhit44886]

if you go here, they refurbish data marine parts..
DMI Marine, Inc.

 

[twistedtree]

Good to know! That makes install easy as I believe it networks directly into my DRS Radar.

The Airmar, or at least one flavor of it, it standard N2K. As such, it can plug into your radar which is convenient, but then requires some amount of your nav system to be on to access the weather data. Mor you can bring the cable down and connect to the backbone and run independently from the nav system

I really prefer the later, especially for weather since I want to monitor it while at anchor and am otherwise reducing power i.e. Navnet turned off.