[sailingdog]

Originally Posted by sapster77

Hi,

I am considering how to refit the electronics setup in my sailboat. The boat is from 1997 and all electronics date back to then, so i want to renew it all, and i have som questions about how to network it all together. Hope you can help!
Its (probably) going to be:
1 garmin 4210 plotter.
Garmin GWS 10 wind sensor
Raymarine S1 autopilot
Raymarine 218E DSC VHF
Furuno AIS50 transponder

Possibly Garmin HD radar.

How is all this networked together? Will it just be a NMEA backbone cable with t-connectors going to each instrument and in that case, how is that cable terminated?
How do I integrate the Garmin marine network, which seems be based on standard RJ-45 LAN cables?

Basically, you'll connect the Garmin Radar and the 4210 plotter together via the Garmin networking RJ45 cables. THe GWS 10 will be connected to the GM10 display and the 4210 via NMEA 2000. The 4210 will need a GPS 17 or something similar for GPS information, which connects via NMEA 0183 or NMEA 2000, depending on which model it is.

I don't see the Furuno AIS50 listed... the closest thing listed is the Furuno AIS FA-50, which requires a PC connected via Ethernet.

The Raymarine autopilot and Raymarine VHF would be connected via NMEA 0183 off of the 4210 chartplotter.

Yes, you will need a splitter for the AIS, but you'd be better off having a separate antenna for the AIS.

I suppose i will need a VHF splitter for the AIS. Seperate GPS-antenna also?

That's it! Hope someone has a take on how this is supposed to be set up, so I can get going..:-) Thanks!
Opinions on my equipment selections are also very welcome - I haven't bought it yet, so I can still change my mind:-) But having as much as possible integrated into the chartplotter display is important to me...

As for equipment, I'm partial to Icom radios over the Raymarine ones... and a big fan of Garmin's chartplotters and radar. The one piece of gear, which is a luxury but a nice one to have, is the Raymarine Smart Controller autopilot remote.