E-tec & Lowrance

Linking e-tec to Lowrance.

The toys are starting to arrive now, going to collect the e-tec on Monday and the Lowrance GPS/sonar is on its way from Marine Whoesales.

I know that the 2008 e-tecs come kitted out with 2 of the 3" Lowrance manufactured NMEA 2000 guages and that you even get a GPS aerial with the engine that is used to measure speed. However I am uncertain how the plotter is linked into the NMEA backbone.

Do I need an extra loom? Anyone got any experience of this set up?


Chris

Which lowrance?
My LCX-27 comes with the basic network included, in fact it won't work without it as the GPS aerial is on the suplied network as a "device"
I assume yours will be much the same setup.

Bruce, I am getting the LCX-27C so the same as you I guess.

So are you saying the GPS aerial I get with the engine will also be used for the Plotter?

Does the plotter not come with its own aerial?

Chris

Hello,

One of my friends have a 2008 etec engine.

As yours, 2 guages (lowrance), and a aerial.

This aerial is a LGC 3000 Lowrance, so now you have 2 aerial, but you need only one...:@

You can have a LCX 27 with or without aerial, if you want.

But if you don't say anything, your lcx 27 will come with an aerial.

You just have to find a friend wich will buy a lowrance without aerial, and you can sell your to him...:D

Antoine

If you buy the LCX-27 complete you get the network power cable, t piece and a 15ft extension as well as the LGC 3000 aerial.
Your gauges and engine will plug straight into the existing network. I imagine it will get confused if it is getting two GPS signals a few feet apart so one will have to go! :)
I would either keep it as a spare or sell it or see if the GPS less version of the plotter includes the other network parts supplied.
As long as you get the network power cable with the plotter the rest should just plug in and be the GPS and gauge network including the outboard, as I understand it..................

Thinking about it if it was me.......
I would install two networks with one having the gauges on it and an aerial and the other the plotter with an aerial. Split the engine and other sensors between the two networks as you intend to use them on each display.
then you get a main GPS and a backup one on your gauges!

Keep the spare in a lead lined box at home just in case the other suffers from the known but not communicated in detail, type of failures the LGC200 has suffered from.

Ours LGC2000 failed and we assumed we'd be having to pay full price for the part, the repair from Lowrance plus check of unit etc was less than half the RRP delivered back to the door. I thanked them from this and asked if there was anything we could do to prevent further occurence and the chap almost read word for word from the manual as regards grounding (one end only)

They would not be drawn on the numbers of failures or any other supplier sensitive data.

It is very important to ground the shield wire in NMEA2000 power cable otherwise it can capacitate and discharge through the GPS module itself. The simplest method is just to solder the shield and negative wire together. There is also a free software update (1.9.0) available on the lowrance website for the LGC2000 which can installed via the plotter.

Improvements were also made in the most recent software released for the head units themselves but you must update the module first.

TT