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I am in the process of upgrading the fish finder and GPS that are currently on my boat. I plan on keeping a Furuno Mark III, 48 mile radar and would prefer staying with Furuno (FF and GPS) for interface and compatability reasons but can't in my mind find a Furuno GPS that I like as well as the Garmin 2010C at a same or similar price. I have seen the Garmin 2010C in action and while I never thought I would ever say it........................I was very impressed with the features, user friendly system, detail of the blue charts, etc, etc.
So what I may end up with is the Furuno Mark III radar, either a Furuno FCV582L or FCV1100 color fishfinder and the Garmin 2010C. My question is can I still interface the Garmin with the Furuno Radar using standard NEMA connectors and will I lose anything along the way that I would have if I purchased say a Furuno 1850D?
I am not into Dual function systems (both GPS and Fish Finder) on a single unit so that is also not an option.
I'm sure you'll be able to do that just fine.
I recently interfaced my Garmin 180 GPSMAP with Furuno LS6100 FF and Raytheon RL9 radar. Works flawlessly. It seems to be a matter of mapping the NMEA messages for each manufacturer to the color codes of the cables. Do it on paper first, kinda helps to visualize the whole setup.
I also contacted Furuno's tech support and they were great help.
Thanks for the info and I feel better about it already.
Assuming you are a charter captain (may be wrong), do you know anyone who could steer me towards a good charter out of Bar Harbor Maine or surrounding area? I will be vacationing there this summer and have not been in that area since I lived in Winter Harbor Maine for two years back in the early 70's.
It is true that units of one manufacturer will talk NMEA to units from another manufacturer (or the same manufacturer) and will work correctly. However, NMEA is a common base standard for all manufacturers...Manufacturers can and do add proprietary messages that only work between their units. I don't know if Furuno uses any of the proprietary messages...but if they do, then that's what you'll lose if you go to a Garmin chartplotter rather than a furuno
The question for Furuno technical support is "do you use proprietary NMEA messages between your units (tell them the units)....and what function do those proprietary messages enable.
I interfaced a Garmin GPS, Furuno 582L, ICom VHF and JRC radar together without a flaw. All will exchange data with the others, just do as stated above and map out your connections ahead of time. With the Furuno unit, you will need to purchase their data cable which runs about $35. To simplify my hookups, I ran all the wires to a central location and made all the connections on a buse bar. Made it real easy to organize and hookup.
Instigator II, sorry, i'm not a charter captain.
So i honestly have no idea about good charters in the area. On the other subject, as Reel Obsession has stated, use a central buss bar to interface the NMEA units. It makes it easy and very organized. The previuos owner of my boat did it and it made it almost too easy for me to do the same. Put a request to tech supports of Furuno and Garmin and just straight up ask them what colors to use. I had a number of a Furuno guy that was very helpful. I'll see if i can dig it up at home and post it here.
As Cpt. Kompot stated, I did the the same thing. I e-mailed all the manufacturers the setup I was using and every one e-mailed back detailed wiring instructions. Garmin was probably the best, they not only gave instructions for wiring their unit but also explained how to hook up to the other units as well.
Instigator II, here's a number of John from FURUNO who's been very helpful to me figuring out the NMEA connections :
360-833-5048
P.S. Here are the two wires he told me to use on the Furuno side:
Yellow (Receive +) goes to Blue (NMEA out) on the Garmin side.
Green (Receive -) goes to Black (Receive -) on the Garmin side.
You don't have to use the blue wire on the garmin. The 882,2006.2014 all have multiple channels..and blue is channel 1. You can also use channel 2 or higher....does not matter which you pick. Just connect the channel out + wire of the Garmin (blue or otherwise) to the channel in + lead on the Furuno. Of course if you want the furuno to send any information to the Garmin, you also have to connect the garmin channel in + to the Furuno's channel out +. On the garmin all grounds go to black which is the power ground as well.
Note: You should not connect more than two units to any single channel..that is the Garmin plus two more units. That's why they give you different channels.
Note 2: If you are permanently mounting your Garmin, I strongly recommend that you wire one of the channels (by itself) to a computer serial cable...and leave that channel set for garmin in/out mode. By doing this you can easily take a laptop to your boat and upgrade the sofware...or save waypoints/routes etc. I did this....and it makes interfacing with your computer incredibly easy.
Interfacing Garmin with Furuno Products
