On Merrimac we carry a lot of NMEA 2000 equipment. The backbone runs the length of the boat and serves some two dozen physical devices — autopilot computer and controllers, two big chartplotters, instrument displays, the …
The Navico (B&G, Simrad and Lowrance) chart plotters running on NOS, so the Zeus, Vulcan, NSS, NSO, Carbon etc. devices have a little known feature that is an enormous help if you regularly need to transfer files …
For some reason our washing machine has a mind of its own and doesn’t listen to us anymore, it only runs a centrifugation cycle of one minute and then stops. We tried to arrange an AEG mechanic, but we didn’t …
Ricardo of KM did an excellent job in getting the troublesome thrust bearing into shape. It’s not perfect but good enough for us to go. Here is the bearing in action, if you watch carefully you can see there is a …
Better not fall ill in Harlingen for a while, we’ve cleaned out the pharmacy!
Last Thursday a final check-up was done by one of the yard mechanics and he found an issue with the thrust bearing (Dutch: stuwdruklager) which is supposed to transfer the thrust produced by the propellor into the hull. …
I just installed an Ecopilot device made by Lecomble et Schmitt from France. Let me tell you what this does and how much of a difference it makes to our power consumption. Our autopilot uses a reversible pump that sends …
My Navico NAIS-300, like most other commercial AIS class B products that have been available for a while, uses the SRT AIS class B OEM board. I know the same board is used in the Raymarine 500, True Heading AIS-CTRX, …
The server that CANBoat runs on was always designed to run 24 by 7. This means that it must be reliable and use little power. Power usage adds up over longer periods. Something that uses 3W will use 6 Ah @ 12 V per day. …
One of the first things that people ask me when I show them my app on the iPhone or iPad is where they can download it from in the App Store. My answer is simple: you can’t. Nor do you need to. It would be bad …
Today I’d like to tell you a little more about the hardware/software stack that I have developed to control and navigate a small to medium pleasure boat. The basic idea is to re-use the mobile devices that most …
The Navico ‘yellow’ ethernet connector used on new Lowrance devices such as the HDS series has the advantage of being watertight and easy to make a reliable twist-on connection: In case you want to use a …