Connecting eSXXX to ship's ethernet network

[Istream]

Hi Chuck,

I've got my new eS128, eS78, and Quantum radar units installed and operating well. All are connected to the LAN ports of a dedicated belowdecks ethernet router using Seatalkhs to RJ45 cables. This instrument router is set up with a 10.x.x.x network for all the LAN ports plus a WAN port. The WAN port is connected to separate ship's wired+WiFi network for computers, phones, smart TV, etc, that also has access to the internet. With this architecture, the MFDs and radar have no dependence on the ship's network for their operation.

All the Raymarine components are happily communicating with each other on the LAN side of the router. Further, if I connect a computer to an open LAN port on the instrument router, give it a unique static IP address in the 10.x.x.x range, and configure it to use 10.1.1.1 for the gateway and DNS, it can get to my ship's network and onward to the internet just fine.

My onboard wireless access point is set up for 5 GHz only due to major marina interference issues at 2.4 GHz. Because the Raymarine equipment is 2.4 GHz only, I need some other way to get to the network to use the Raymarine app on my tablet belowdecks and, ideally, to the internet for software updates, weather, and the like. What I'd like to do is configure my master MFD (the eS128) to use 10.1.1.1 for gateway and DNS so it too can get to the ship's network and to the internet.

I know from perusing past threads that Raymarine recommends against connecting components to a ship's network for reasons of potential network unreliability, lack of bandwidth guarantees, potential network address conflicts and/or the need for DHCP, etc, but I believe my network architecture has addressed all these issues.

Please let me know if there's a way for me to set the MFD to use a specific gateway and DNS address. If not, could you enter this as a feature request for an upcoming software update?

Thank you very much.