Before we left on this cruise in May of 2012, we replaced just about all of our electronics with the very latest as well as a lot of Legacy’s other equipment. Some has worked, some has not. Here are our reviews of that gear.
In looking at the way this page has evolved, we’ve posted a lot more negatives than positives. I guess we feel more urgency in warning others about the problem equipment we’ve encountered. In the future, we’ll try to post more about some of the stuff that’s been great.
Balmar 100 Amp Alternator Review – Boo
Balmar Alternator Regulator Review – Boo. We’re on our third one in ten years. I don’t know what’s worse, the lack of reliability or the difficulty in programming them.
Maxxon MX 230 Air Floor Dinghy Review – Boo! It lasted only six months. In the video on this page, I cut the dinghy apart to see why it failed.
Sena Bluetooth Headsets – Boo for Sena’s poor quality and sloppy execution but Yay for Full-Duplex headsets in general.
Iridium and the Iridium 9575 Extreme – a big Boo to both!
Caframo Fans – BOO!!!
What junk. Please avoid. Click the link above to read more.
R&D Engine Mounts Review – Boo.
On our Yanmar 3YM30, we replaced the original mounts (old and shot) with new R&D mounts. They’re very smooth at cruising RPM but a total disaster at idle!
Quick-Connect Plumbing System (Boo or maybe Yea)
This system caused me quite a few problems that I didn’t foresee. I think I’d still use it but here’s a post that details the problems we had and suggestions to avoid them.
Simrad 4G radar showing return from kayak!
Simrad 4G Broadband Radar (Yay!!!)
We were early adopters and had a bit of a rocky start with this radar. Simrad gave us the support we needed and now, I’d never be without it! Here’s a little story about a kayak it spotted (and that we didn’t).
MARPA target shown on our Simrad NSE8 Chartplotter.
MARPA on our Simrad 4G Radar…
and bad math.
NASA BM-2 Battery Monitor (Yay)
This is very new to us, added in July 2014, but so far, it’s really helping us keep track of our battery state…
AGM Batteries (Lifeline) (Yay, Boo)
Not Lifeline’s fault but they’re really not working out all that well for us. Here’s something important we learned about AGM batteries.
Navionics Charts (Boo, mostly)
We use Navionics Charts on our Simrad chartplotter, on our android tablet and phones, and on our iPad. I am really disappointed with the lack of accuracy. We recently tried to get better detail by using their SonarCharts but they might be even worse because of the misleading representation of sounding detail.
More coming soon Including:
Furlboom In-Boom Roller Furling (Mostly Boo)
Anchor Buddy (Yay)
Sunpower E20 Solar Panels (Yay)
Victron Solar controller (Yay)
Everything ICOM (Boo!)
Suzuki 2.5 HP Outboard (Yay/Boo – mixed bag)
Danfoss Refrigeration (Yay)
Simrad NSE8 Chartplotter (Yay/Boo – bad LCDs)
B&G Sailing Instruments (Yay)
Simrad System in General (Yay/Boo – another mixed bag)