Our navnet3D black box has been acting up crashing or not starting uo at all. Sometimes it works fine for a week, sometimes it crashes throwing various errors including the infamous windoze blue acreen of death. Local furuno dealer says at 9 years old it s not worth fixing... hard to argue with that as we already had it fixed a year ago... We have three options.. -Get a new MFDBB, about $7500. Not crazy about spending that much money on 10 year old tech which will soon be discontinued by furuno -Install new 15" Navnet touch MFDs, about $10k for two but that s a big downsize from the current 20" monitors we have now... -Get a new Navnet touch black box which means getting new large touch acreen monitors... $15k or so. I dont care much for the touch screen tech... Switching to another brand makes no sense as the radar, ais and sounder module would also have to be replaced... I m leaning towards just getting a new MFDBB black box and hope we get a few years out of it... Any sugestion / experience welcome
Another option is to get 1 15" Navnet touch and run your AIS and radar off of it. Then get a Garmin to replace the other display and use that for chartplotter. Generally I use chartplotter always and radar when running or fishfinder when navigating at slow speeds in shallow water. Furuno's work ok, but I'm not a fan of the Navnet 3D, the menu's are overly complicated and the chartplotter displays are hard to read/differentiate. But they work when they work. Make sure you don't have a battery or charger issue that is causing your current MFDBB issues.
I really didn’t like the original Navnet but the the 3D, even though it is 10 year old, is pretty user friendly at least the Black Box version which can be used with a mouse and key board. And downsizing from 20” to 15” is a big drop
Why not install Furuno TimeZero Professional software, on a dedicated hardened NavPC, and with touch or non-touch monitors of your choice? Depending on the model, you could likely network the Furuno radar, ais and sounder modules without much problems.
Thanks for the heads up on the TZ software unfortunately you need to have at least one MFD on the network to be able to use the existing radar... I found a used MFDBB on eBay sold by Max Marine electronics in pompano. $999 not much to loose and it about 3 years newer. Picked it up this morning and just finished installing it and reconfiguring everything. So far so good. Had to buy new Cmap Explorer Bahamas charts but that s all set up too Hopefully that will get us a few years
I have been dealing with Max for a while now. Good shop. Just received a pac from them yesterday that saved my bacon. For some MAN display issues, they have some answers also.
Just had a Furuno touch screen installed. Nice unit and easy to use. Probably will have another unit installed with their new radar. Also they will work on your older 10 pin transducer if you have one.
I used to be a Furuno guy, now my preference is Garmin. While the Furuno's are good machines, it takes 8 menu's to change something that should take 2 menus. Also the color shading on the chart of the chartplotter isn't as easy to read or as detailed. The Furuno radars are better than Garmin.
Furuno is coming out with a new BB that will drive 2 screens like your MFDBB and uses a keyboard the same size as yours. I saw it on the website from Japan, but it isn't on the US site yet.
I liked the Furuno over Raymarine in the past for that very reason, quicker to do what you wanted. I have Garmin now, and it’s a bit of a love/hate thing. I like some things but really hate others. My experience with the Garmin autopilot has been exceptionally poor. I’m likely going to replace it with a Raymarine over the winter and it’s only a year old. We had a bad lightning storm this week, the two boats with Garmin equipment both had issues with their Garmin network after. I had to shutdown and reboot everything and then disconnect depth and autopilot to get them back. The other guy had to do much of the same, but no Raymarine, simrad, or furuno boats had any issue. I know this isn’t conclusive, but just another in a line of unreliability from Garmin on my boat.
For what you have done, bite the bullet and look at a used black box. Then just tell yourself in 2-3 years you will do a new clean install. I have 2 14" tztouch units, and they are good, not great. I had a simrad nse setup before that, and much preferred it. Except for service issues. Furuno still is the top dog there. The new raymarine stuff is nice too. Worth a look. Flir is doing good things for the brand .
No MFD is necessary. I replaced the three failing NN3DBBs on my system with PCs running Nobeltec TZT2Pro. I have no MFD's but the network can control both Furuno radars (6kw and 25kw), the furuno sounder (DFF3), Furuno AIS (FA150), and receives data from several other sensors.
Since the thread was revived.... the used BB I got from Max electronics is still working great. I was able to get the old one repaired so now I have a back up ready to go in if needed.
Pascal, timely renewal of this thread. I am considering an up grade to the latest Furuno NavNet system with a 19 inch screen, wireless doppler radar open array, auto pilot and AIS, I have an independent commercial grade Furuno made sonar unit for my fishing and related needs and analog gauges which would remain independent. Based on your experience with the earlier models, am I a go? Work would be done in Beaufort NC
The new Furuno stuff works. The problem I have with them, is you have to go through 6 different menu's to change anything on them. Whoever designed the interface thought they were designing it for a computer engineer.