Instruments upgrade - a few questions

[BCRyan]

Hello - I'm planning to do an electronics upgrade, hopefully ready to go for this summer. (I'm also thinking that I need to get parts ordered ASAP, given supply constraints.)

This is going into a 2001 Horizon 76 MY, replacing an original analog radar, a 7-series Garmin chartplotter, etc.
https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=125413&stc=1&d=1643316396

My goal is to add doppler radar up top, sonar with 3D capabilities below, plus bidirectional AIS, none of which I have today. I'm also looking at TimeZero for my nav SW (I know it's not everyone's choice), with its radar overlay capabilities.

What I'm currently trying figure out is what hardware is needed between the radar and the PC for this to work (gray box with "???" in this diagram).
https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=125412&stc=1&d=1643316112

I know that I could buy a Furuno MFD and interface that to TimeZero, but I don't think I necessarily need/want a 3rd display. Is it possible to stick some type of "black box" in there that performs that interface function? I see that Furuno sells a "Black Box" unit but also calls it a multi-color display, so I'm obviously confused at this point as to what they mean by "Black Box".

Sorry, probably a stupid question to start out with, but hopefully you guys and gals can straighten me out. Thanks!

 

[twistedtree]

The gray box I think will be some sort to of power supply, but otherwise you just plug the radar ethernet cable into your network and Time Zero will be able to display radar and the DFF sounder. Just check what version of Timezero you need. The lesser license levels have restrictions of why they can display.

 

[BCRyan]

The gray box I think will be some sort to of power supply, but otherwise you just plug the radar ethernet cable into your network and Time Zero will be able to display radar and the DFF sounder. Just check what version of Timezero you need. The lesser license levels have restrictions of why they can display.

This is great news, thank you! I guess I was over-complicating it in my mind.

(I do expect to pay a lot more than the basic $500 for TZ to get all the required modules activated.)

 

[Airstream345]

BCRyan I just did this. Twisted is correct, the new DRS NXT requires 12v and then you just plug the Ethernet cable into a dedicated off the shelf hub shared by the TZ PC. Same for the DFF. I got a 12v powered one off Amazon.

AIS will be over NMEA 2000 so something like an Actisense NGT-1 (or similar) will connect your TZ PC to the backbone via USB.

Licensing TZ is different between Navigator and Pro.

Navigator allows installation on two PCs but each will only support one monitor.l and requires add on licenses for radar and sonar ($500 each)

Pro is licensed for one PC but support two monitors and includes one of the add-on modules (radar I think).

For me I chose Navigator as I wanted complete redundancy. TZ sells a second computer license for Pro for a lot less than a second full copy.

I highly recommend the FURUNO sat compasses (I installed the SCX-20) as it greatly improved heading, COG and radar accuracy. Spendy but worth it. You don’t need a TZT or FI70 to program the SCX as FURUNO has a utility for this that runs on a PC and uses the Actisense to communicate with the compass for initial setup.

 

[BCRyan]

BCRyan I just did this.

Excellent - great knowing that this has been done and thus I'm on a reasonable track.

I highly recommend the FURUNO sat compasses (I installed the SCX-20) as it greatly improved heading, COG and radar accuracy.

Thanks - this is very helpful. I currently have an older sat compass that I *think* can output NMEA0183. I will see if that can be used, otherwise I'll spend the extra $$$ for the SCX-20.

 

[BCRyan]

For me I chose Navigator as I wanted complete redundancy.

Very interesting. So your setup is two side-by-side PCs, each with their own monitor, keyboard, and mouse, correct?

Are they both on the same networks (Ethernet and N2K)?

I was thinking about having a 2nd PC on standby, ready to replace the first (upon failure), but there are obviously some downsides to that approach.

 

[twistedtree]

This is great news, thank you! I guess I was over-complicating it in my mind.

(I do expect to pay a lot more than the basic $500 for TZ to get all the required modules activated.)

As I understand it, which isn't necessarily very well so please confirm, TZ Professional supports radar. But I think there is an optional module you have to buy for the DFF fish finder.

 

[BCRyan]

As I understand it, which isn't necessarily very well so please confirm, TZ Professional supports radar. But I think there is an optional module you have to buy for the DFF fish finder.

I'm not sure. That's one of the things I'm hoping to figure out at the upcoming Seattle Boat Show...

 

[Jayhawk Navy]

The radar module is included in professional….and a $500 add on for navigator.

Looking forward to watching your progress. I am running TZ navigator on my lower helm. Picking up a new Furuno MFD and DRS4D NXT radar tomorrow.

I’ll be working to integrate the systems over the coming month or two.

 

[Airstream345]

Very interesting. So your setup is two side-by-side PCs, each with their own monitor, keyboard, and mouse, correct?

Are they both on the same networks (Ethernet and N2K)?

I was thinking about having a 2nd PC on standby, ready to replace the first (upon failure), but there are obviously some downsides to that approach.

Yes, two completely seperate systems (Intel NUC, Samsung curved gaming monitors (to get the bright performance and the dark performance at night). Each is wired to a dedicated 12V hub that also connects the NXT and DFF. Nothing else is on that network. I then run two ActiSence NGT-1s so each NUC can talk to the NMEA 2000 network.

There is a trick to eliminating one NGT-1 which is to make one NUC an accessible IP address on the network for the other one to "read". You do this in the TZ Connection Wizard. Works a charm but I wanted high availability hardware failover and also wanted to eliminate the need to move a license when I'm out of cellular range.

I share the mouse and keyboard using "mouse without borders" which is a Windows utility that allows you to setup two independant computers on the same network as if they are one for the a single mouse and keyboard. I do plan to change that to a hardware solution in the future as it's not perfect.

 

[BCRyan]

Yes, two completely seperate systems (Intel NUC, Samsung curved gaming monitors (to get the bright performance and the dark performance at night).

WOW!!!! What an awesome setup. I like the flexibility and redundancy...

Seeing this, I think I'll also go with the dual NUCs, each with their own display. If one goes down at the exact wrong time, I don't want to be futzing around with getting the spare/backup system up-and-running under pressure.

Nice, thanks!

 

[JDCAVE]

Have you thought about Coastal Explorer? If in Canada and the US that might be sufficient and considerably cheaper. TT could advise.

 

[MYTraveler]

As I understand it, which isn't necessarily very well so please confirm, TZ Professional supports radar. But I think there is an optional module you have to buy for the DFF fish finder.

As I recall, both radar and basic sonar are supported by the professional version without extra charge, but the PBG (personal bathymetric generator) is about $500 extra.

 

[Arthurc]

The only module included in TZ Pro is Radar, all others are optional including routing and a variety of sounder options. One big advantage of TZ Pro is you can add those modules on, I believe that Navigator only supports a few basic modules, so you couldn't ever use the more advanced sounders like DFF3D.

Ive been really happy with TZ Pro, if you have a TZT on the network you don't need the actisense as it gets all its info from the NavNet network. That said I have an actisense anyways just in case.

And big +1 to a good sat compass, I first had radar overlay with just a heading sensor and it was pretty much worthless, created more confusion than clarity because the radar and chart never matched.

AC

 

[Pau Hana]

Yes, two completely seperate systems (Intel NUC, Samsung curved gaming monitors (to get the bright performance and the dark performance at night). Each is wired to a dedicated 12V hub that also connects the NXT and DFF. Nothing else is on that network. I then run two ActiSence NGT-1s so each NUC can talk to the NMEA 2000 network.

There is a trick to eliminating one NGT-1 which is to make one NUC an accessible IP address on the network for the other one to "read". You do this in the TZ Connection Wizard. Works a charm but I wanted high availability hardware failover and also wanted to eliminate the need to move a license when I'm out of cellular range.

I share the mouse and keyboard using "mouse without borders" which is a Windows utility that allows you to setup two independant computers on the same network as if they are one for the a single mouse and keyboard. I do plan to change that to a hardware solution in the future as it's not perfect.

Seeing that setup make me feel...inadequate.

 

[BCRyan]

One big advantage of TZ Pro is you can add those modules on, I believe that Navigator only supports a few basic modules, so you couldn't ever use the more advanced sounders like DFF3D.

Thank you for confirming this, as I had been slowly coming to the same conclusion as I dug through the TZ website.

Looks like around $3300 for the configuration I'm thinking about:

TZPro download $1,500
DFF3D module $500
PBG module $500
Routing module $300
Charts (USWest, BC) $500

 

[Arthurc]

That sounds like a sweet package, dff3d is in my list of upgrades at some point. If you are planning this before summer I heard they don’t have any dff3d hardware so I’d confirm your installer/yard can get it first.

 

[BCRyan]

That sounds like a sweet package, dff3d is in my list of upgrades at some point. If you are planning this before summer I heard they don’t have any dff3d hardware so I’d confirm your installer/yard can get it first.

Totally agree. I've had an order into Gil for the dff3d package for a couple months now, and he assures me that I'm on the top of his list, once Furuno finally ships him some 165T sensors.

I'm scheduled to haul later this month, and hoping that Furuno ships him something soon!

 

[Airstream345]

Curious about the routing module. I couldn't quite find enough value in it (as a trawler and not a sailboat) to justify it's cost. Did I miss something?

 

[BCRyan]

Curious about the routing module. I couldn't quite find enough value in it (as a trawler and not a sailboat) to justify it's cost. Did I miss something?

Most likely it's me that's missing something. At this point I was just assuming that it's an add-on that I wanted...

What I want is to simply pick a destination, have it suggest a route from here to there, and, if acceptable, present that series of waypoints to the AP. If the basic TZ has that functionality, I'd be fine without the routing module.

 

[Arthurc]

I think you will find you don’t use it, the Navionics app is great for auto routing and since most times it comes up is over dinner or drinks super handy to have in your pocket when you want to know how long it will take.

If you are doing a trip offshore to say Hawaii I think it would be helpful and would want to have the advanced weather routing included, inland it feels like extra complexity, maybe if I had a sailboat but even then I don’t think the wind forecasts are accurate enough inland to really drive route decisions.

 

[BCRyan]

I think you will find you don’t use it, the Navionics app is great for auto routing and since most times it comes up is over dinner or drinks super handy to have in your pocket when you want to know how long it will take.

Got it, thank you. Dumb question, though: Let's say I do the auto-route on Navionics (on my iPad) and then want to run that same route. Is there a way to get it over to TZ on my PC, or do you just manually recreate the route that Navionics recommended? I'm thinking about a rather complex route with numerous waypoints, etc...

 

[Arthurc]

I usually don’t run routes in TZ, I instead just have a mental note of where I want to go, what channels, etc. I started doing complex routes but found them useless as they assume no other boat traffic so I was constantly adjusting anyways (different story offshore).
To my knowledge there is no way to import from navionics.

 

[bowball]

I’m just having my install now. The Furuno 19” tz3s have arrived but the 16”s not till March, and we ordered everything late fall.

Here is the mock up.

 

[Arthurc]

That’s gunna be awesome!

 

[bowball]

Thank you for confirming this, as I had been slowly coming to the same conclusion as I dug through the TZ website.

Looks like around $3300 for the configuration I'm thinking about:

TZPro download $1,500
DFF3D module $500
PBG module $500
Routing module $300
Charts (USWest, BC) $500

If you are going with the dff3d and pbg, I would definitely use the scx-20.

I decided not to go dff3d, even though I really wanted to, as I couldn’t determine a real utility - not just coolness factor which is high - outside fishing which wasn’t a priority for me.

 

[BCRyan]

Here is the mock up.

What a helm station that's going to be! Are you blogging this build somewhere that we can follow??

 

[bowball]

That sounds like a sweet package, dff3d is in my list of upgrades at some point. If you are planning this before summer I heard they don’t have any dff3d hardware so I’d confirm your installer/yard can get it first.

Why do you want the dff3d? I’ve been trying to convince myself of a reason for a long time but couldn’t. If I was a series fisherman then sure. Or I want to generate my own pbg maps then sort of. Or if it faced front so I could ease into thin water.

I just like the technology, crowd sourcing and frankly the displays! And I’m curious about the bottom.

But since I have these professionally installed, it gets expensive beyond the msrp. And my installer discourages me from doing it.

What’s your reason as I’m jealous!

 

[bowball]

What a helm station that's going to be! Are you blogging this build somewhere that we can follow??

Thanks! I’m not blogging as it’s being professionally installed and I’m quite a distance away.

 

[BCRyan]

Why do you want the dff3d? I’ve been trying to convince myself of a reason for a long time but couldn’t. If I was a series fisherman then sure. Or I want to generate my own pbg maps then sort of. Or if it faced front so I could ease into thin water.

Well, it's based on my *perception* that it might help me out when anchoring, from time to time. We're planning to cruise some of the waters of BC this summer, which means a lot of new anchorages for me. I'm hoping that the more information I have about the bottom before deciding where to drop the hook may be of benefit occasionally.

I've never had this feature or even seen it used, so time will tell whether this will be worth it or not.