Boat Trip Meter

One thing I miss is my old Garmin GPS126 (pictured below). It was a simple monochrome display that showed Lat/Lon position and had a sort of "trip meter". It was pretty hands-off and stopped rolling with the boat stopped moving. I really liked the unit and provided a nice little backup to the large chartplotter. I have had no luck finding one on eBay without people running the price up too high for what I think such an old unit is worth... maybe it's just me, but these things should be $50 at a marine consignment store. Anyway, is there any other option for a simple unit like this? I mean, I will probably pay more for something new than I would if I just put in a high bid for a 126, but maybe if something new had even more features, it would be cool to have.




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I was looking at these:


https://www.thegpsstore.com/Furuno-GP39-GPSWAAS-Navigator-P5027.aspx



https://www.thegpsstore.com/Furuno-GP33-Color-GPS-Navigator-P2459.aspx


But I don't know if they have a trip meter function like the 126.

I don’t think you can wrong with either of those. We have the GP-32 and love it.

the boat we just purchased has a Garmin on the dash, I think the same model 126. If it is, I can send it to you when I redo the dash this winter. It seemed to work for the trip north, but I have no use for it.

Surely whatever you use for nav now has a trip meter in the settings?
Failing that your hour meter x boat speed for the day.

Tom.B said:

I was looking at these:

https://www.thegpsstore.com/Furuno-GP39-GPSWAAS-Navigator-P5027.aspx

https://www.thegpsstore.com/Furuno-GP33-Color-GPS-Navigator-P2459.aspx

But I don't know if they have a trip meter function like the 126.

Click to expand...

FWIW, our older circa 2002 unit is a monochrome GP-36 DGPS. It has four dispays, and one of those includes a trip log, voltages, etc. Ours is right at about 10K miles just now...

The screen is actually going toes up, unfortunately; works, but some of the pixels are disappearing.

But our MFD-12 also has both trip log and odometer, so at least we can continue keeping track of total NMs on the boat.

And I'm trying to think of something useful I could put in place of the GP-36, since we have two other fixed GPS sources on board anyway.

-Chris

See if you can find a used Furuno RD 30. Great little devices that do just want in your thread title among other things;they are a repeater, so don't act as a backup GPS. Are you sure your main plotter doesn't have an odometer and trip function buried in the menus somewhere? Pretty common feature.

You might consider one of the Garmin GPSMAP handhelds. Have one that I use when kayaking, one for when I flew ultralights, and one for cycling. They have mounts, are waterproof, can be powered by 12 VDC external or batteries, and have configurable displays with lots of trip options. Usually a bunch of used ones on Ebay.

Ted

I've got a Garmin 128 with the same display and love it. I take a photo at each return to the home slip for my running total time and distance.

I think the main difference is that the 128 has an external antenna.

I believe both of those Furuno devices have both a tipometer, and an odometer. But just download the operator's manual and check. I'm certain the 33 has it, and expect the 39 does too.

twistedtree said:

I believe both of those Furuno devices have both a tipometer, and an odometer. But just download the operator's manual and check. I'm certain the 33 has it, and expect the 39 does too.

Click to expand...

I looked at the manuals and didn’t see anything like what I am looking for.

I think every MFD I've used in the last 10+ years had some sort of trip odometer function. Generally there's a way to display it right on the screen. This should be a non-issue when it comes to choosing a display.

Tom.B said:

I looked at the manuals and didn’t see anything like what I am looking for.

Click to expand...

The manual for the GP-33 talks about the trip function starting at page 57.

https://www.furuno.com/files/Manual/96/upload/OME44580G3_GP33.pdf

Larry M said:

The manual for the GP-33 talks about the trip function starting at page 57.



https://www.furuno.com/files/Manual/96/upload/OME44580G3_GP33.pdf

Click to expand...

Ah haaaaa! That’s it. Thanks! But dang... that’s $600. I will consider it. Never hurts to have a backup I guess. I will check on the 39 and see if it does it too. I would guess it does, I just need look harder at the manual.

I think I found it... not sure if it has. A trip timer, but we are almost to the point of “close enough” and for $300... but it needs an external antenna. Sigh.

Digitaldisplay
The digital display shows digital navigation data. You can select what data to dis- play in one to four cells. The choices of data are odometer distance, trip distance, time, date, position, power source voltage, speed over ground, course over ground, range, bearing, cross-track-error, time-to-go to a destination, estimated time of ar- rival at destination, waypoint and none.

Tom.B said:

Digitaldisplay
The digital display shows digital navigation data. You can select what data to dis- play in one to four cells. The choices of data are odometer distance, trip distance, time, date, position, power source voltage, speed over ground, course over ground, range, bearing, cross-track-error, time-to-go to a destination, estimated time of ar- rival at destination, waypoint and none.

Click to expand...

On our MFD, the odometer is "since installed" and the trip log is "since the last time it was reset." I've only just started to work with those -- and added them to one of the on-screen data cells -- since our older unit display is beginning to have some "holes" in it...

Remembering to zero out the trip after each boat ride hasn't yet become second nature...

-Chris

What about simply using phone or tablet GPS and a trip meter app?

Tom: Maybe you can find a used Furuno GP-32 for a good price. They’ve discontinued but there must be thousands of them out there. External antenna though.

Larry M said:

Tom: Maybe you can find a used Furuno GP-32 for a good price. They’ve discontinued but there must be thousands of them out there. External antenna though.

Click to expand...

Is that time a trip time or just the time of day? Is there a trip timer on that?

Tom.B said:

Is that time a trip time or just the time of day? Is there a trip timer on that?

Click to expand...

The time is when I took the picture. I reset the Trip (NM) every day when I do the long entry. I’m not sure about a trip timer.

Here’s the link to the manual:

https://www.furuno.com/files/Manual/90/upload/OME44200J_GP32_37.pdf