Redundancy and Redundance
29 March 2015 | Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
Lynn
(another overdue post)
Our venerable old Garmin chartplotter that was bought before we left decided to finally let us down on our way up from Dehaies, Guadeloupe. The display died, but the rest of it was working fine (we could still see our lat and long on the VHF radio that was fed by that plotter). We have two chartplotters at the helm, but the other one we bought to work with our AIS unit, and frankly, we don't like navigating with it unless we are forced to because there are numerous things about it we don't like.
So, as Ken does, when he has the chance, he took apart the Garmin to see if there was something he could do (remember, kids, he is a trained professional, so don't try this at home). Well, after peeling away the bits of the display, he discovered a miniscule fluorescent bulb that provided the backlight to the display; it was toast.
In English Harbour, there is an electronics dealer who also happens to have a plethora of old bits and pieces around from different units of various vintages. We went to him to see if he happened to have an older unit with the same size display... and lo and behold, he did! For $40 USD, we bought the stuff, as is, and took our new treasure back to the boat.
Ken spent a couple of careful hours with his magnifying glasses on, soldering gun in hand, and the scent of flux wafting around him. He successfully transplanted the fluorescent from the one display to ours. It works, but the display is a little too light to see in full daylight.
So now we realise that we have a decision to make. New plotter, make do with what we have, or something else? We are both opposed to using a tablet or computer for navigating... they aren't made for being in the cockpit where they might be splashed, and they don't hook up to a VHF radio for DSC capabilities (I know, some of you won't get what that means). So, that wasn't an acceptable option for us.... And I did download the Navionics charts for the tablet, and we quickly noted that at least one island was MISSING, at every level or resolution. No thank you to that one.
We decided to buy a new chartplotter, and found one that would do what we wanted without totally blowing the budget. We like having a fishfinder for another depth gauge, (notice we like some redundancy?) and this would work with our current ultrasonic unit with a change of plugs. But... it uses a new language and won't talk to our current radio without an expensive "translator box". Or to any of our other instruments, really. So for now, when we finally get it, it will work in isolaton until we get around to networking it. At least the charts will be good... we have the same ones on our computer and are happy with them.
The chartplotter Ken fixed will still be hooked up to the radios for now, in another location.