This year I added the Raymarine C120 to my boat. I actually bought one of the remanufactured ones but it showed up as new. I am very impressed with how easy the installation and setup has been. I am still in the process of hooking up other components to it such as my Standard Horizon Matrix VHF, but the basic Raymarine system is in the boat and operating flawlessly.
Installation: The instructions were very easy to follow and Ray provides a cutout template, the hardest part was cutting such a big hole in my dash! :shock:, one the hole was cut the unit dropped right in. I found the supplied mounting bolts to be too short as my dash is cored, and I still haven't found adequate bolts, but I cut my hole in the dash very tightly so the unit is staying there on its own at the moment, but proper bolts are at the top of my priority list, I certainly will not go out in any rough seas until I get the bolts in place but the unit is fine for the orientation cruises i am doing right now.
The C120 uses the raystar 120 (now called the 125) GPS antenna for GPS reception. The antenna is Seatalk compatible but has exposed wires on one end instead of a seatalk plug. I used the Raymarine part # R55006 junction box to connect the GPS antenna to the seatalk cable that plugs into the back of the C120. Raymarine provides 3M Scotlok connectors to accomplish this but i found the R55006 to be a much cleaner setup. I flush mounted my antenna on my t-top which is also a very clean look and easy to do. GPS antenna installation and hookup was straight forward and easy to do.
Next was hooking up the radar. I have the 2kW dome which is the easiest of the Ray radars to hook up. It basically plugs right into the back of the C120 with no further wiring necessary. I will do a review on my radar installation later.
Finally I hooked up the DSM 300 (formerly called the DSM 250). This too was plug and play and easy to install. the DSM 300 requires it's own power supply so i wired it to a fused switch on my dash. There is really not much to describe about installing this component as it simply bolts to flat surface, gets plugged into the boats power supply, and gets plugged into the C120.
Operation: When I finally got around to firing everything up I was pleasantly surprised to see it all working perfectly. The radar required no adjustments, it was literally working perfectly. The FF was also putting out a perfect picture of the bottom of my 3' deep slip! Many FF have a difficult time reading this shallow but the DSM is working great for me. The GPS acquired a fix in record time too. I did not need to tell it what state I was in like many GPS's so they can acquire that first fix. It knew where I was right away with absolutely no user input or setup required.
Raymarines interface is very intuitive and they make great use of the soft keys (the buttons at the bottom of the screen that have changing labels depending on what screen you are on). There are plenty of screen layouts available too, although i have already created a set of my own. I have played with the chart/radar overlay feature and find it to be very useful at planing speed going in a straight line, but at slower speeds or when turning it would be greatly enhanced by having a heading sensor. I currently don't have one, and will probably not use that feature until i do. I am adding an autopilot and hope the included heading sensor will help.
The FF holds bottom well at all speeds too which is impressive.
Cartography: the C120 has decent cartography but I still prefer the Garmin Blue charts. If this unit can stand to improve anywhere it is in this area. It looks like Ray has already improved upon it in the new E-Series with navionics Platinum cartography. With that said the chart detail is still awesome. I have also only used it in an area (where I live) where most of the water is shallow and there are no marinas and not too many buoys so there is not much to look at on the chart. I'm sure when I get some cruises in to Annapolis, or once I get out to do some fishing I will have a whole different perspective of their quality.
Summary: I wish there was more to talk about but ther really ins't. Installation is a breeze, and is all plug and play except for connecting a few wires on the GPS antenna. I will follow up in the next few days with some pics of the installation.
Installation: The instructions were very easy to follow and Ray provides a cutout template, the hardest part was cutting such a big hole in my dash! :shock:, one the hole was cut the unit dropped right in. I found the supplied mounting bolts to be too short as my dash is cored, and I still haven't found adequate bolts, but I cut my hole in the dash very tightly so the unit is staying there on its own at the moment, but proper bolts are at the top of my priority list, I certainly will not go out in any rough seas until I get the bolts in place but the unit is fine for the orientation cruises i am doing right now.
The C120 uses the raystar 120 (now called the 125) GPS antenna for GPS reception. The antenna is Seatalk compatible but has exposed wires on one end instead of a seatalk plug. I used the Raymarine part # R55006 junction box to connect the GPS antenna to the seatalk cable that plugs into the back of the C120. Raymarine provides 3M Scotlok connectors to accomplish this but i found the R55006 to be a much cleaner setup. I flush mounted my antenna on my t-top which is also a very clean look and easy to do. GPS antenna installation and hookup was straight forward and easy to do.
Next was hooking up the radar. I have the 2kW dome which is the easiest of the Ray radars to hook up. It basically plugs right into the back of the C120 with no further wiring necessary. I will do a review on my radar installation later.
Finally I hooked up the DSM 300 (formerly called the DSM 250). This too was plug and play and easy to install. the DSM 300 requires it's own power supply so i wired it to a fused switch on my dash. There is really not much to describe about installing this component as it simply bolts to flat surface, gets plugged into the boats power supply, and gets plugged into the C120.
Operation: When I finally got around to firing everything up I was pleasantly surprised to see it all working perfectly. The radar required no adjustments, it was literally working perfectly. The FF was also putting out a perfect picture of the bottom of my 3' deep slip! Many FF have a difficult time reading this shallow but the DSM is working great for me. The GPS acquired a fix in record time too. I did not need to tell it what state I was in like many GPS's so they can acquire that first fix. It knew where I was right away with absolutely no user input or setup required.
Raymarines interface is very intuitive and they make great use of the soft keys (the buttons at the bottom of the screen that have changing labels depending on what screen you are on). There are plenty of screen layouts available too, although i have already created a set of my own. I have played with the chart/radar overlay feature and find it to be very useful at planing speed going in a straight line, but at slower speeds or when turning it would be greatly enhanced by having a heading sensor. I currently don't have one, and will probably not use that feature until i do. I am adding an autopilot and hope the included heading sensor will help.
The FF holds bottom well at all speeds too which is impressive.
Cartography: the C120 has decent cartography but I still prefer the Garmin Blue charts. If this unit can stand to improve anywhere it is in this area. It looks like Ray has already improved upon it in the new E-Series with navionics Platinum cartography. With that said the chart detail is still awesome. I have also only used it in an area (where I live) where most of the water is shallow and there are no marinas and not too many buoys so there is not much to look at on the chart. I'm sure when I get some cruises in to Annapolis, or once I get out to do some fishing I will have a whole different perspective of their quality.
Summary: I wish there was more to talk about but ther really ins't. Installation is a breeze, and is all plug and play except for connecting a few wires on the GPS antenna. I will follow up in the next few days with some pics of the installation.
