Should I Go with Garmin for Electronics ?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by inSanity

GPS Store, very nice. Could of saved another $15.

Which will just about cover the shipping lol. But they're ok. I bought my Garmin 545 there and got a good deal.

[goboatingnow]

I would defend Raymarine, at this stage it has by far the largest interoperable set of marine electronics. The Chartplotters are good,as are the autopilots and everything is reasonably priced. Garmin IMHO is their closest competitor. Furuno makes good stiff , but nothing I see or hear justifies the price difference. ( Their autopilot are way too expensive), equally this applies to SIMRAD.

In the US Raymarine gets a bad wrap, but its by far the most common brand installed elsewhere.

[SaltyMonkey]

Goboatingnow - thanks for your advice. I guess the whole bankruptcy thing and the support complaints I hear has me on edge about a full RayMarine setup.

[inSanity]

would defend Raymarine, at this stage it has by far the largest interoperable set of marine electronics. The Chartplotters are good,as are the autopilots and everything is reasonably priced. Garmin IMHO is their closest competitor.

I was really looking hard at Raymarine, but heard some bad things about customer service, then the takeover by Flir. Bankruptcy is moot issue at this point.

Perhaps our local company FLIR will really pull out all the stops and make Raymarine shine again.

[goboatingnow]

I know their have been bad reports of Raymarines support, but this does seem to be related to the US operation only. I personally have talked to their support people in the UK and found them helpfull and prompt.

As to FLIR and Raymarine, the main problem at the moment is that Ray went into administration and halted production for a while before the takeover and now their products are hard to get. Still my personal experience is they make good stuff at a reasonable price. Their C and E series are good plotters etc

[windswepttom]

I have a Garmin chart-plotter 4208 that is about 4-5 years old and it is not waterproof as advertised. I was in a thunder storm going down wind and the rain blew in under my bimini and the unit shorted out. I took the back off and dried it out. It worked one time and will not turn back on. I called Garmin and they said it should be waterproof but it was out of warranty and it would cost $480 to fix and no guarantee that it would be waterproof.

For that price I'm thinking maybe I should get a new smaller unit because I don't use most of the functions for the 4208, Anybody have any recommendation on a chart-plotter that is WATERPROOF?

[Freedom45]

I have a 4212 chartplotter, GMR 41 radar, 6+ years, no issue, a GHC 10 autopilot running a Ratheon type one drive, 2+ years, no issues, a AIS 600 1+ years, no issues.
I am very happy with the equipment, will be getting Garmin wind instruments soon.

Chuck

[sy_gilana]

One huge plus on the Garmin radar, is that you can display the radar picture on your PC/Laptop without buying a radar screen (i think)
You can use OpenCPN and then you could dispense with a dedicated chartplotter...

[Patrick_DeepPlaya]

I really liked our setup of a 12Vdc PC running Coastal Explorer down below and an iPad at the helm using Splashtop to remote the desktop screen to the iPad. We were doing passages down the west coast and into Mexico and this setup was great.

[windswepttom]

I should say I was very happy with the Garmin 4208 except for the waterproof issue. Also I have 4 Raymarine instruments that are 20+ years old mounted below the 4208 and a Horizon VHS radio that had no waterproof issues in the storm.

I's just that I was in a restricted waterway with no visibility in the storm and that's when I needed the GPS the most. So I anchored at the edge of the channel.