Heave Compensation?

[Sharphooks]

I used to think that heave compensation was maybe having a Bloody Mary the next morning after a long night of swinging from the chandeliers with a lampshade on your head….

But yesterday, while testing out my new radar/sat compass installation, I found out what heave compensation is really all about.

After a long ordeal, I got the 24” Furuno and the SCX-20 sat compass firmly secured on the wheelhouse roof. The results (I got thick fog yesterday for the sea trial) were pretty stunnning










I decided to install the SCX-20 sat compass because at times, getting radar overlay on a chart is nice to have. An attribute I wasn’t expecting: What a handy tool heave compensation is when applied to sonar modules

I’ve had a DFF3D triple beam transducer that I’ve installed then taken off four boats over the years. It’s a huge transducer and can give good results though in my last three boats, the screen shots and targets were always a bit grainy (it hangs off the transom which it wasn’t designed for but that’s another story)

This was a screen-shot earlier this summer of the DFF3D triple-beam before adding the SCX-20. You can see how grainy the targets are




This was a screen shot of the triple beam I took yesterday using heave compensation from the SCX-20. It’s too bad there were no bait balls but you can see the clarity of the bottom returns. The wind was blowing, there were waves and side-ways rain, yet the SCX-20 kept the screen rock steady:



After that radar sat/compass installation that took a crazy amount of time to get things right, I celebrated with a Bloody Mary….. and then yesterday while out testing the Fish Gods rewarded me with a gift that I was absolutely not expecting :

 

[zurk]

radar picture is pretty bad compared to a halo series. sonar is decent though.

 

[Sharphooks]

That radar screen shot was the first power up, zero tweaking of settings. Once I got thick fog and boats around me I was able to dial it in… for my needs it’s as good as I could ask for, especially after the Garmin I had up there this summer that was missing some targets and almost caused a collision in Johnstone Strait

 

[Rayvon]

To get it up to "Zurks" standards you may have to add another $100K in gadgets.

 

[ship happens]

I used to think that heave compensation was maybe having a Bloody Mary the next morning after a long night of swinging from the chandeliers with a lampshade on your head….

But yesterday, while testing out my new radar/sat compass installation, I found out what heave compensation is really all about.

After a long ordeal, I got the 24” Furuno and the SCX-20 sat compass firmly secured on the wheelhouse roof. The results (I got thick fog yesterday for the sea trial) were pretty stunnning

View attachment 109766





View attachment 109767


I decided to install the SCX-20 sat compass because at times, getting radar overlay on a chart is nice to have. An attribute I wasn’t expecting: What a handy tool heave compensation is when applied to sonar modules

I’ve had a DFF3D triple beam transducer that I’ve installed then taken off four boats over the years. It’s a huge transducer and can give good results though in my last three boats, the screen shots and targets were always a bit grainy (it hangs off the transom which it wasn’t designed for but that’s another story)

This was a screen-shot earlier this summer of the DFF3D triple-beam before adding the SCX-20. You can see how grainy the targets are

View attachment 109769


This was a screen shot of the triple beam I took yesterday using heave compensation from the SCX-20. It’s too bad there were no bait balls but you can see the clarity of the bottom returns. The wind was blowing, there were waves and side-ways rain, yet the SCX-20 kept the screen rock steady:
View attachment 109770


After that radar sat/compass installation that took a crazy amount of time to get things right, I celebrated with a Bloody Mary….. and then yesterday while out testing the Fish Gods rewarded me with a gift that I was absolutely not expecting :



View attachment 109771

Do you have an AP300 yet?

 

[cpony]

Good timing. I'm just going to install my new SCX-20 this weekend with my TZ12. Any tips about setting it up?

 

[Sharphooks]

Hey Ship….I’ve got the Optimus 360 system on my boat….as far as auto pilots go, although very rudimentary, It gets the job done though when I do my trips north, there’s so much wood in the water I try to steer clear (yuk yuk) of using auto pilots to protect my propeller flukes….

Hey cpony…my SCX-20 install was a huge PITA because I have some stylish panels on the ceiling of my wheelhouse that only have 3/4” clearance behind them to run cables. The problem with the SCX-20 is once you make the NMEA cable attachment to the main body you have at least 3” of very stiff cable coming out of the housing. With a wheelhouse roof that’s 1” thick, that left me with almost 2” of problem if I wanted to hide the cable behind the ceiling panel

So I had to raise the antenna up off the wheelhouse roof. Sounds easy peasey but I found that the starboard I used to raise it is a biatch to work with once you start going at it with a saw….

I spent a huge amount of time shaping the starboard to match the foot print of the SCX-20 then making sure it was a 100% waterproof seal. I probably should have put the SCX-20 on a stainless pole mount but then I would have dealt with choosing a suitable location where it wouldn’t be in the radar beam and I also store a kayak up on the roof and didn’t want a “hooky” install up there

Here’’s the wheelhouse roof after removing the panel:





Here’s the NMEA cable so you can see where your bend would have to begin if you were going horizontal with it and eventually fish it down into your rigging tube to get to your canbus backbone




Here’s the starboard slabs I spent waaaay too much time sawing and sanding and fastening into place with stainless screws and 3M 4200 to make sure there was no water intrusion….so far so good…




That’s the trouble with buying a boat that had a lot of care and attention to detail in the build process. I’ve always done my own installs and if they were a bit messy and unprofessional I didn’t care—-I just wanted to plug and play. But with the current boat, I felt like it would be a disservice to the builders to do a crappy job

 

[ship happens]

They do have a pole mount kit for that compass. I didn't want to influence your install was really looking forward to seeing what you came up with. Nice job.

 

[Sharphooks]

Thanks for that, Ship. That cartoon you posted a few days ago on the Joke Forum about the shiat you hear from people working on boats rang like a bell for me when I saw it….ha ha

When attaching the ceiling panel back in place one of the stainless screws going north to hold the mahogany ribs in place (in a one in a million probability occurrence) hit dead-on one of the screws coming south that held the slabs of starboard together up on the wheelhouse roof. Not only did the screw head break off in the worst possible place where any casual eye would see it inside the wheelhouse, it split the two pieces of starboard apart under the SCX-20 and disrupted the seal of 4200 between the slabs that hadn’t properly cured yet

I had cold sweat drooling down my back because I knew there was zero chance of a do-over, not with that rubber grommet beneath the compass that I knew I’d only be able to seat and seal one time.

I took that tube of Furuno sealant that came with the kit and used it to glue the screw head back in place (professional, huh?) then slathered it all over the starboard to hide the gap….once it was finished I remember thinking….

oh, so this is why people call professional marine installers like you to get the job done properly…ha ha

 

[cpony]

I plan on using the same location as the current Point-1 since the hole is already there. I'll move the point-1 beside the VHF antenna.
I've got room for the the bend in the cable. Hope it works as planned. Not screwing anything down until it goes on the water for a test.

 

[Sharphooks]

A Furuno tech might comment on maintaining the proper distance away from your radome and your VFH though I’m guessing you already know that.

The beam is approx. 22 degrees emanating from the “NXT” lettering stenciled on the radome so you can eyeball whether your sensors are in or out of the beam…I did a cardboard mock-up of the beam just to make sure my SCX-20 was out of it



When you fire up the SCX-20 look for “sky view” on your TzT… that’ll show you your “HDOP” Value which should be “1” or less for optimum results….perhaps you already know that TzT option as well?

Here’s the infamous ceiling panel that was my Nighmare on Elm Street during the install, making it take three times longer then it should have




Last but not last, perhaps you already know there is a 90 degree NMEA “elbow” plug that would come in handy for this install depending on the interior wheelhouse configuration. Unfortunately I couldn’t use one (to bypass the starboard slab drill) because the size of the fitting wouldn’t have given me enough clearance to bridge the distance between the 1” thick wheelhouse roof then hide the NMEA cord behind the ceiling panels so I was stuck with the starboard platform

 

[cpony]

I talked to a technician and he said the location would be fine. Hooked it up, pulled it out from the shop, fired it up and everything is working as it should. Will still do an on the water test before screwing down and sealing it up. MIne was a simple install, didn't even have to snake the cable, Just hooked into the NMEA cable sitting there for the POint-1. Moved the Point-1 over incase it's ever needed. Just unplug and switch it over.
I'll probably make it a winter project to fish the cable down.
The guys who fixed this boat up made it all very simple and practical to do anything on it.

Interesting thing, the HDOP on the TZT reads .8 but on the lowrance and vesselview read .5

 

[ship happens]

You guys are making me super jealous. I can't wait to put one on the venture. Might be sooner than later now lol

 

[Sharphooks]

I’d been reading how good the SCX-20 technology was a year or so ago. What’s interesting: I already have a fairly sophisticated GPS antenna on the wheelhouse roof that is part of the Optimus 360 install (the Dometic EPSK1600 “Seastation” antenna) . It’s what controls the auto pilot function of the Optimus 360



Meanwhile, I have a Garmin 8616XSV in the wheelhouse as back-up to the Furuno and I use that Dometic EPSK1600 antenna for GPS/Tide/heading line functions for the Garmin. When tied up at the dock, the heading line on the Garmin generated by the Seastation antenna spins around like crazy because it needs relative motion to steady itself. Not the case with the SCX-20 heading line on the Furuno….absolutely rock solid, steady eddy all the time whether the boat is tied up or moving.

I wish I was a bit more tech savvy to understand why the SCX-20 is so much better.

 

[cpony]

I found this Furuno You Tube explaining why it's so much better. Explanation starts at 16 minutes.

With the SCX-20 have you looked at the PBG mapping?

 

[Sharphooks]

Interesting description of how it processes signals compared to other antennas on the market…thanks for sharing that.

Meanwhile, even though I have that DFF3D triple beam on my boat and could up-date the software of my TzT3-16 to utilize PBG, the PBG function would be lost on me. I’m a very boring (one-trick pony) fisherman….I spend all my time chasing mid-water bait balls. When I catch halibut and lingcod it’s usually by mistake though it would be cool to build up your own library of bottom profiles

 

[ship happens]

Interesting description of how it processes signals compared to other antennas on the market…thanks for sharing that.

Meanwhile, even though I have that DFF3D triple beam on my boat and could up-date the software of my TzT3-16 to utilize PBG, the PBG function would be lost on me. I’m a very boring (one-trick pony) fisherman….I spend all my time chasing mid-water bait balls. When I catch halibut and lingcod it’s usually by mistake though it would be cool to build up your own library of bottom profiles

Well the gear your using is pretty close to being the best gear in the world. That compass sure is. Ive had many discussions with the furuno techs and engineers about the SCX20. An engineer said to me once " the SCX20 is the best sat compass in the world". After testing one the first time I installed one, I was blown away. Its an autopilots dream come true. It really is. The only better option that I can think of off hand for bottom integration and chart data integration is to go full custom. With Nobletek and furuno separates such as the DFF3D, SCX20 etc etc. It gets real expensive at that point. I havent used the DFF3D with the TZ3 stuff yet but I would assume its on the same path by now. The Nobletek stuff right now is pretty darn impressive. Interesting stuff and way above my pay grade lol. Its like auto chart live on steroids

 

[Sharphooks]

That DFF3D purchase for me was a fluke…someone listed that B54 on eBay for 1/3 the normal cost when it first hit the market. I grabbed it just due to the cost though I already knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t do a through hull with a faring, not on a trailerable boat.

I called Airmar and Furuno and asked if I could transom mount the transducer—-they said absolutely not—-it would destroy the transducer as the cables were not designed to be immersed…I decided to take a chance and had a bracket built for it….that was 5 years ago and three boats ago and it’s still hanging in there

Of course I loose picture at speed but that’s the cost of entry for a lot of transom mounts.

Now that I have the SCX-20, yes, I should utilize all the precision of those 4 satellite receivers —- PBG sounds like an interesting way to get bathymetric charts that would probably be better then what’s currently available on the market —-I noticed the C-map bathymetric charts are pretty rudimentary for the areas I fish

 

[ship happens]

Yeah your definetly splitting hairs on what your not supposed to do lol. I'd say a huge upgrade on a 1kw transducer and mount that thing properly and you'll wakeup that DFF3D. I've got the DFF1 in one of mine with a standard 600watt non fairing block flush mount style and that thing is a monster. If you wake up that 3D your in for a real treat. Breakout 5 or 6 grand though. Ouch

 

[cpony]

Thinking about the spending the money, worked and saved 40 years and can't take it with me.
I'll need the techy son-in-law to help set it up. Then he can inherit it.

Biggest issue is where to mount the transducer? I don't want to drill or weld onto the pod so was thinking about making a bracket and bolting it onto the divers plate bolts. Not sure if that will be an issue at speed with cavitation on the bracket. Boats on a trailer so don't want a big fairing block under the boat.
The DFF3D can go in the beer cuddy so will need to bring less beer or find another spot.