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Hi Epic, depends how conservative the sailors are where you are, Aussies have quite a lot of rotating mast on their multihullsmany end up with a home build carbon cheaper than a factory supplied Alu spar.
I know of B&G (a converted rudder sensor, to be mounted exactly inline and protected!!! sounds a little bit odd on that place)
nke, good but far beyond my financial capabilities, but maybe our importer wants to become very rich very fast, my quote was twice as high as any else
technautic, just places a simple potentiometer, protected and mounted to your own choice. hm, but the instruments look like developed in the late fifties
Silva, my favourite, has a standard windsensor plus a second compass mounted on the mast, both are connected to what i suggested, a small blackbox, but the output is the corrected analog signal for their server.
Ticktack: this little device looks very much like a small fluxgate as it sticks on the mast only with no mechanics connected. I do not like them as I do not want to change LiIon Batteries all the time, I consider this very unnessesary pollution and wasting of my money. That I do not like their design is another point.
In any of these product line, you got to bu the whole system same brand.
Designs I like: Smart sensors for wind, log and depth and whatever, might be extended to a NMEA200 system once including engine controls etc., and a few Multi instruments, style well look at Simrad or similar ;-))
why I suggest and want this system:
The new intelligent wind sensors of Airmar and Maretron are calling for it. their output is already NMEA, Maretron even simultanly delivers NMeA2000 and NMeA 0183. If this NMEA wind-output is corrected, then you are free to use what ever instrument system of whatever brand as all permit NMEA input. Or you might go without any instruments and use a PC, or some other multi purpose plotters know. Have a look at again SIMRAD Glassbridge (beyond my finances :-( or Northstar etc)
I can do it with my PC and a small basic program, it is easy, NMEA specifications are public, but I am not familiar and do not want to start studying single board micro processors in for me unknown languages. Second, it might be a little confusing for my PC having one programm crunching 2 NMEA listeners and sending out the wind data to the NMEA bus, then same time accepting NMEA in for the navigation system and putting out the data for the autopilot. Might be confusing for everybody else when looking for a fault and at last - not least - if the PC is off, you still want a correct signal from the wind instruments, saves a lot power when the PC is off ;-))
There might not be such a huge market, but someone who likes for instance Raymarine could go with one and no one ever sees there is a different wind sensor.
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