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Contemplating buying a used boat? Older electronics installed professionally or newer electronics installed [music] do-it-yourself? Which one is a smarter buy? Whether you need a remote consultation design or perhaps inviting us aboard your boat, Pacific Yacht Systems is here to help. Check out the links in the description below. Hey everyone, Jeff Cote here from Pacific Yacht Systems with another installment of Tech Talk. We've got a question from a fellow boater, Gary. Gary is considering to buy a boat and he's asking a sort of age-old question. He's got two boats to consider. One is an older set of electronics that is professionally installed or the other one a newer electronics that is DIY installed. Is there any pros and cons on either and which one would be a smarter buy? So, I I don't want to make it sound like there's a clear-cut difference between do-it-yourself and pro because again, the lines get blurry. But, there's always exceptions to every rule. So, let's just keep that in mind and again, I've said it before, but I have seen do-it-yourself uh work that is absolutely phenomenal and could have been done by our outfit. So, there are some of you out there that are doing a great work. Honestly, I applaud you for it um because it's hard to do something not often or rarely and to do it to great levels. But, some of you can pull it off and I've seen it and it's always amazes me how people can educate and do amazing work without even being a pro. So, take that into consideration and you researching and being on this channel helps you become a better installer even if you do it yourself, for sure. The really the debate is and the question is and it's not maybe so much as do-it-yourself or pro because again, pro is a label and do-it-yourself is a label and the world is it's almost like a spectrum, right? There there's way different types of professionals. There's good professionals, there's bad professionals, there's knowledgeable do-it-yourselfers, there's less knowledgeable do-it-yourself. You know, the easy answer would be, "Oh, choose a pro that's done it older electronics, and then don't do it yourself." But, I think it makes it a little bit blurry. But, here's where it's not blurry. If you've got a navigation system that is properly documented and where all the wires are labeled, and you have a schematic showing all of it, how it's wired together, that's a huge positive, pro or not. So, again, the the challenge is whenever people do large systems on their boat, and this could be electrical system, well, but in this case it's electronic system, because you don't even know where all the junctions are, where all the connections are, and it might take a really long time in your ownership of that vessel to figure out what's wrong. And the challenge is going to be one day something is going to go wrong. And if you don't have a diagram, you're going to spend a lot of time figuring out how it was put together. Now, if this was a gymnasium and all the equipment was on the floor and all the wires were seen and everything was acceptable there, it'd be easy. But, on a boat, everything gets put into place and all the wiring get hidden, and you have junction boxes in places you would never think. So, having a diagram of all of that is going to be hugely beneficial. And sadly, and this is where sadly, many do-it-yourselfers don't really think about the next owner when they tackle work, and they're just doing they know where it is, but over time they forget, and you mightn't even not be able to talk to them, um and so you end up with an electronic suite that is installed and you don't know how it's wired. And that in itself is a less than ideal. So, I would put a lot of value in having as-built as schematics, so that it would help you troubleshooting, either yourself or giving that schematic to a technician who can then hit the ground running. It's a good question. Unfortunately, the question is not as black and white as you would think, but there's definitely merits. And of course, if the reputation of the outfit and the boat is local, and you have the reputation of that outfit is really high, and in Vancouver, like or Pacific Northwest, there's a lot of great outfits, you're going to be able to get a sense based on their reputation if they've done good work, you know, the schematics, the as-built. And of course, then that's it's something you don't have to worry about. I'm not saying the do-it-yourself is not as good cuz it can be, but it should make it like something you worry less about. If it's a do-it-yourself, then yeah, schematic is definitely important. And talking to the owner and understanding because some electronic systems are quite pretty complicated, and they've got a lot of integration, and that integration can be tedious unless you have a diagram. So, great question, uh but not an easy answer. It's like with boats, everything's the shades of gray. Nothing is black and white. And so, you got to do your homework. If you made it this far in the video, I want to thank you for watching. Uh help us grow the channel by subscribing. And if you're thinking about tackling an electronics project on your boat or helping us design one, you can use our consultation and design services. We've done that where we help people create like actually a plan of how everything is going to go together, and they build it out. So, that would be sort of a hybrid. And the other owners will actually have us come on board and do the whole install for them. Of course, we're glad to do that. And others simply buy equipment from us. All permutations are possible. Check out the links in the description below, and remember we're here to help. Thanks, and take care. Hey, fellow boaters. We're going to be doing a lot more tech talk videos. If you've got any suggestions for future video, leave them in the comments below. Once again, thank you for [music] watching.