Who knew Garmin MFD displays could do this?

[pcg]

I’ve learned a lot about Garmin displays recently and thought I would share the fruits of my research. I’m dividing this into two posts – “Consider buying an outdated Garmin MFD display” and “Who knew Garmin MFD displays could do this?” This is the second of the two posts.

Because I’m starting with a bare hull I have the opportunity to design my helm station from scratch. I wanted to have the option to display battery charging information from the Victron Cerbo GX on the same display, so I didn’t have to purchase a separate Cerbo G50 for that. And, in my dreams I imagined a 16” display that would fit above the steering wheel, but not block the view out the window. In principle, this is possible if you can find a 16” MFD with a thin border. Garmin didn’t have one (the 8616xsv has quite a large border, making the overall device take up too much area) and if they did, it would be out of my price range. Here’s what I learned about my two “wants”:

1) Re. the display of external information… the manual for the GPSMAP 84xx/86xx/87xx states that “You can connect the chartplotter to a computer to see the computer screen on the chartplotter touchscreen and control the computer using the chartplotter touchscreen”. This is accomplished by inputting the computer display information to the HDMI IN port and outputting the touch information on the USB port. In my case, the “computer” is a Victron Energy Cerbo GX and the Garmin chartplotter touch display serves as a proxy for the Victron Energy GX Touch 50, which is a touchscreen display that controls the VE Cerbo GX and displays the information it provides. That information includes detailing how current is flowing among various chargers, the battery, and DC loads. Thus, I can use the chartplotter touch screen to access every function of the Cerbo GX outputs, as well as scroll through pages that detail other info.
In this instance, touch information is sent out from the Garmin display on the bidirectional USB port, while display information is received from the external device on the HDMI IN port.

2) My second goal was to somehow get a 16” MFD with thin borders. With so many beautiful inexpensive aftermarket displays available, Garmin displays seem to be disproportionately expensive as display size goes up. I was initially intrigued by a solution that integrated an external display with the Garmin 8700 black box, but abandoned that route because that device lacks adequate sonar support and Garmin charges top dollar for that device. Somewhere during my research I came across a Youtube video (which now I can’t find) that detailed how to get a third party touch screen to serve as a proxy for a Garmin 8xxx touch screen. It apparently works on only the 10”,12”, and 16” GPSMAP chartplotters. This feature implements the complement of the feature outlined above. In that case, the display from another computer is input on HDMI IN, and the touch information is output on the bidirectional USB port. In this case, the display information is output on HDMI OUT, and the touch information from another device is input on the bidirectional USB port. The consequences of this feature are huge, except there is one caveat, which I’ll save for last.

This means you can basically have almost all the features of an 8616xsv for half price, and yes, it will not overwhelm the C-Dory helm as an 8616xsv certainly would. You can do this by buying an 8610xsv for a street price of $2150 and a 15.6” 1920x1080 IPS touchscreen from Amazon for $200. The 15.6” display actually takes up LESS ROOM at the helm than the Garmin 12” chartplotter, meaning it could be incorporated into a custom helm on a C-Dory without obscuring the view out the window. This is because the touch screen display you get from Amazon has a very thin margin around the useable display, as opposed to the Garmin unit whose unusable margin is huge by comparison.

I was thrilled when I realized the implications of this and bought a touchscreen from Amazon to take to the Seattle Boat Show so I could confirm this. My plan was to ask the reps at the Garmin booth if I could connect the touchscreen to a GPSMAP unit and confirm that this actually worked. I was prepared for them to say no for obvious reasons. If they had said yes, and the configuration worked, then I would have purchased an 8610xsv, installed it in the berth area, and incorporated the Amazon display into the helm station. Yes, the inexpensive touchscreen would surely not have been as rugged or reliable as what Garmin delivers, but if it ever failed, I planned on just swapping in a spare one because they’re that cheap. Or simply moving the Garmin chartplotter from the berth area back onto the helm.

But alas, my bubble burst before I left for Seattle, when I took the display outside my house and realized the inexpensive touchscreen was barely visible in full sun. I was unable to learn what its brightness rating was, but I suspect it was around 400 nits (candela per square meter). 800 nits is considered the minimum for outdoor viewing and I have read somewhere that the GPSMAP units are around 1000 nits. You can buy brighter ruggedized touch screens from other vendors, but they big and bulky and are pricey enough that there is no incentive to do this to save money.

So I returned the 15.6” display to Amazon and have since purchased an 8612xsv. However, I was still curious if the above configuration would work, so I bought a 7” touch screen from Amazon for $50 to test it out, and yes, it works! The little proxy touch screen allows me to fully control the Garmin chartplotter, although its 1024x600 display doesn’t show all the detail that the full 1920x1080 $200 display would show.

Undoubtedly there will someday be much brighter inexpensive displays available, but by that time Garmin may have removed the feature, or otherwise done something else to make that configuration not as desirable as purchasing a do-it-all Garmin product.

[thataway]

WOW!! Most of us use the Victron 702 or 712 for a very small fraction of what a 8612xsv costs! (Less than the Victron Cerbo GX "brains" with out the display.
So to monitor your house battery status, you have to boot up the 12" display? In my last 25 I thought I was way overboard, with 2 monitoring systems, and one of the displays for the Victron Multiplus 2000/80/50 running of my 200 amp (usable) LiFePO4 bank. (I have a second "portable" pack with 100 amp hrs, and a copy of the Victron costing about $40, including shunt and all wiring.

I agree that there is no way to use a 16" Garmin display at the helm. You might be able to mount it above?? I don't think that even "Cat O Mine" has a 16" display. I used a 10" display and 2 of the 5" and one 7", with no loss of visibility, and probably has as much display visibility that the 16" Garmin single display-- on our last 22. (more than the 12" display)

I have edited this after reading the first article and that you did buy the 12" display, and not the 16",... but the comments I still believe are valid. I'll have to check and see, but I believe that I used the 10" Garmin display as I noted. The 12 is considerably larger, but you should be able to see over or around it.

The other comment is what does 5" 7" 12" or 16" mean. It depends on the dimensions of the sides of the screen, and not really the diagonal, which is where the "10" or "12" etc comes in. Especially of interest is what will the quadrants if you want to follow:: Radar, depth water column, bottom, 3 D rendering of the bottom historically, large scale map and small scale map, plus any other data, such as battery perimeters, speed, heading, engine diagnostics etc. That is why I have always used several smaller screens after I figured out what I wanted. For example my hast 25 had a 7" and 9" ray marine, I put the radar on WI Fi and the I pad, so that was not needed on the actual chart plotters. I also was watching the AIS on my radio smaller screen--where as in the prior 22 I place the AIS on a 5" older Garmin, mounted off to the side.

I am looking forward to photos of the set up you end up with. You are spot on that a helm display should be in the 1000 nit brightness area. My apple 14 Pro Max has a brightness level of 1590 Nits in HDR to max peak brightness of 2300 Nits.

Sounds like a pretty deluxe electrical and electronics set up! Documenting with photos will be appreciated by all!

congratulations on all that you are doing!!

[ssobol]