J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Shopping Instruments, GPS Data on ST60 Speed display

I had an issue with my TackTick display getting knocked off the dovetail mount on the aft cabin top in this thread. I ended up drilling holes in the bulkhead immediately above the display and epoxied in a stainless steel sleeve with 1/4" ID that is about 3/4" deep. I set it up so the displays are mounted in the dovetail bracket, then insert a 1/4" diameter x 1.25" quick pin in the stainless sleeve to lock in the display. I've never had a problem since. I don't have to do that on the mast mounted displays, just the aft exterior cabin displays because they are subjected to people banging into them when trimming and launching the spinnaker.

I saw one get knocked off (and lost) from a mast mount. Someone hit it with a knee while jumping a halyard. Not hard, just right. We tape ours now.

Kills me there is nowhere to attach a lanyard. We joke about how much revenue that omission has brought in...

I have them and have not had them get knocked off. Your setup sounds like what I have exactly. Works great!

My Navman 3100 series wind, depth, speed and repeater displays are shot. I'm at the point now where I need to do something about it and I don't want to replace them with new Navman units. So I'm wondering if it's possible to keep my speed, depth and wind sending units and Navman Tracker 5600 chart plotter (which I will keep no matter what) but replace the displays with some NMEA compatible units. Tacktick comes immediately to mind. Trying to figure out what I'd need to make this happen. Pouring through the manuals it seems that the NMEA output from my Navman system is from the displays and not the sending units. Anyone have a clearer understanding of this problem than I do?

The NMEA output is from the displays. If the displays are shot, but the NMEA data outputs are still good, you could remount the displays as "NMEA brains" below decks to keep them dry, and get any display that accepts NMEA data to mount where you have the NAVMAN displays. The NAVMAN hull transducers are made by Airmar. The series used for the NAVMAN do not output NMEA data directly. Go to this link, then type in NAVMAN and search. You can cross reference the transducers to a number that other vendors use.

I had a NAVMAN wind instrument before I had TackTick. The displays lasted 2 years and fogged up. The wind sending unit died. David Bows had the exact same problem on Mallorca. This is a known issue with their 3100 series products.

Unfotunately it appears that Electronic manufacturers have us by the balls. Even Airmar won't make something that will talk to more than one or two units. I just bought a Raymarine ST40 with airmar triducer but that is it... won't even send to the Raymarine ST60 as far as I can tell.

C/N: Marine electronics would probably do better to standardize instead of trying to bend us over the rail.

I raced on a boat with a full NKE suite today. Nice set-up, but the same numbers still show up.

The ST40 is ancient in the marine electronics world. Raymarine didn't break out NMEA data for a long time and required everyone to interface with their propriety Seatalk bus. The ST60 series got a little better with some units having NMEA built in, but not all of them. A friend with a Catalina has ST60 series stuff and has a multi-display with a NMEA interface he connects to a Furono radar.

That's what I thought. Thanks Bill for the clarification. Well for me it's now a decision to go either Raymarine ST60+ bundle, Tacktick T104 bundle or Nexus NX Start Pack 3. The ST60+ is clearly the value choice and is the recommendation from the local installer (did I mention it rains a lot here and the integrity of the display units is a big deal). The Tacktick would be very nice but costs more money than I'm comfortable spending. The idea of bringing the units home with me out of the rain sounds very appealing as does the ability to bring them below when cruising so that I can check depth from the v-berth. Finally the NX system is a bit of an unknown but looks very interesting. Not sure how it holds up against moisture though. Anyone with any Nexus experience?

If you go TackTick, you don't have to get it all at once. Start with the T122 NMEA interface and a single T111 dual digital display. Use your existing sensors and NAVMAN displays as the "NMEA brains" to drive it. You can get speed and depth on the single dual digital display that way. Upgrade the other stuff later when you win the lottery.

It's an idea Bill but I don't know if the NMEA output is still good on the current gear or not. I found a better price on the T104 package (it's now an extra $600 over the ST60 plus instead of $1,000) so I'm considering it strongly. With the aim of adding further displays over the next few years. To be honest though I like the analogue ST60 wind instrument but I appreciate that the TackTick instrument is changeable to close hauled as well... decisions decisions.