Installing a Raymarine C80 chartplotter, GPS and 2kW Radar

When I bought Stops it hardly had any electronics.. not surprising since the boat was hardly used. The GPS had been removed and the radar, a 15yr old CRT system was not working. Since my other instruments were Raymarine I decide go down this path for a replacement Chartplotter/GPS/Radar. I actually bought all these items on ebay at a substantial discount. The only snag was I ordered a 4kW radar because there was a great deal on it, but when I received it I found it was way too big and weighed to much to fit on my radar post. The shipping costs to return it wiped out any savings I may have got from ordering from ebay. So I learnt my lesson, triple check sizing etc when ordering online 🙂

First job was figuring out where to put the chartplotter.. luckily I had plenty of space on the electronics panel, but to access it conveniently I need to put it on the right hand side where the radio and switches were currently located. Finally after looking at various options, I had a brainwave to turn the panel around 180 degrees and cut out a hole to the chartplotter. Wasn't that easy in the end. I had to extend the wiring for the switches since they were not long enough..

Next was figuring out the wiring.. My wiring harness (see below) was a jumbled mess with no instructions or diagrams.. had to painfully follow each wire to figure out how it worked. Then was able to wire the chartplotter power cables and connect to the other instruments using seatalk.

Next was dismantling the old radar below and trying to fit the new (bigger radar) on the mount. The radar mount was gimballed, but was stuck. So removed the damper, rebuilt and put new hydraulic liquid it in.

Nothing is every easy on a boat..the mount didn't fit the new radar radome it was too small. So after lot of research and looking at different solutions, I order an aluminium pole end mount for the radome. Since it was meant for installing at the end of a pole, I had cut off the flange.. luckily it was aluminium. I then bolted and glued the plate onto the original radar mount and installed the new radome. see below

The final result, the chartplotter installed and working. The best feature is the radar overlay which places the radar scan on top of the chart.. pretty damn cool..

All in all, it was not too difficult to install the chartplotter, radar and gps. The difficult bits were fitting the chartplotter and radome. The equipment has worked flawlessly so far. Highly recommended.