blue dragon wrote:
So I ended up picking up the 536 without the transducer, I will mount it in the lower space on the left side of the dasboard, using the garmin flush mount kit.
Before you start cutting, how do you intend to use it? When running? Do you sit or stand when running the boat? I ask because if you stand up when running the boat you're probably not going to be able to see the screen very well. For two reasons, one being it's down low and not pointing toward your face. The other being polarization. The screens are polarized, combine this with polarized sunglasses and the viewing angle gets cut down pretty severely. You can't go without polarization on either, so you have to choose your placement carefully.
You have the flat spot on the top, why not there? Perhaps with a tilted collar around it to make it point more toward your eyes?
As for engine data, it's my advice to not waste your time trying to get it onto the chartplotter. There's not enough screen real estate to make it worthwhile. I have an E-80 and even with that much more screen there's still not enough to display both charts and engine data. That and it's FAR better to have gauges. Gauges give you a nominal position for what they monitor. This way your eyes can scan needle gauges and see that the indicator is pointing in it's usual area. This is much easier to monitor when underway. No reading numbers and having to think about it. The needles are either in their usual place or something's wrong.
What's useful? Depth, speed and time of day. Water temp is nice and lat/long is helpful if you're in an emergency situation (and speaking to coast guard or others that understand it, as in, not local cops called on a cell phone).
For gauges it's crucial to have oil and water temp, rpm, oil pressure and fuel. They're values are something you have to have in front of your line-of-sight at ALL times when the boat is running. So having them squirrelled away on a chartplotter page keeps them from being where you can see them. And switching pages takes you away from running the boat.
It seems like a really cool idea to have everything integrated. But fact of the matter is most of it ends up being much too distracting to be worthwhile. I'm a huge gadget fan but have learned it's just not worth the effort and expense. This I learned after putting a lot of time and money into getting it all integrated. None of which gets used.