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***Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator***

Welcome back to the Raymarine Forum Kevin,

Q1. hanging from the trunnion mount and an overhead 5/8~" thick teak-veneered plywood panel - are there any case studies of this mounting method being a problem for the e165?
A1. Unfortunately, no such case studies are available. The bracket produced by Raymarine for the e165 is designed to be sufficiently strong enough to permit the MFD to be mounted above a horizontal surface or from an overhead surface. Rather than using wood screws, it would certainly recommend through-bolting the bracket to the overhead surface and use fender washers on to disperse the weight over the plywood.

Q2. To the extent that it is possible to integrate the older RAYSTAR 120, ST60, RC520 & SL70 system with the newer e165 & RD424HD
A2. Communications between the e165 and the generation of Raymarine equipment which is presently installed onboard the vessel would be quite limited, as these products are separated by four generations of Raymarine MFDs. It would be recommended the hsb/hsb2/SL Pathfinder Series Displays, ST60 instrument (model not specified), and Raystar 120 GPS Sensor (SeaTalk variant assumed, although a NMEA 0183 variant was also produced ... you should verify). The hsb/hsb2/SL Pathfinder Series displays, ST60 instrument, and Raystar 120 GPS Sensor, should each be interfaced to one another via a powered SeaTalk bus. Examples of SeaTalk interfacing may be found within the owners manuals of the hsb/hsb2/SL Pathfinder Series Displays. The SeaTalk bus will not support communications of data requiring high communications bandwidth. Accordingly, communications between these products will be limited to alphanumeric data such as GPS, instrument, navigational, and system state data. No radar or cartography sharing will be possible between the hsb/hsb2/SL Pathfinder Series Displays, nor will it be possible between these displays and the e165 MFD or RD424HD radome.

To interface the e165 MFD to the currently installed equipment, it would typically be recommended that the NMEA 0183 output of one of the hsb/hsb2/SL Pathfinder Series Displays be interfaced to one of the sets of NMEA 0183 input leads found on the e165 MFD's Power/NMEA 0183/Video Input Cable. It would further be recommended that the NMEA 0183 Output settings of the corresponding hsb/hsb2/SL Pathfinder Series Display be configured to only transmit NMEA 0183 sentences featuring GPS (not navigational data) and instrument data. Failure to head this recommendation may create a situation where the navigation which has been commanded on the old system may not be cancelled automatically on the new system (and vice versa). Commonly available marine grade twisted pair signal cable would be used for extending NMEA 0183 leads. When interfaced in this manner, and should a chart card for the waters to be navigated be present within the e165 MFD's memory card reader, and should the MFD be properly interfaced to the RD424HD radome, the e165 MFD may then function as a radar/chartplotter and additionally be capable of displaying GPS and instrument data.

Should the currently installed radome be operational an interfaced to the SL70, then it would be able to function as a radar display.

Q3. While the e165 will be mounted overhead at the lower helm (and offer display expandability to the f/b via monitor [hard-wired] and display/control via tablet/smartphone [Wi-Fi, Bluetooth]) ... what do you all think?
A3. See my response to Q2 regarding what one may expect from the system you have described. As you have suggested, a tablet running the RayControl app may be able to remotely monitor and remotely control the e165 MFD.