NMEA 2000 Network

[Bygracealone]

Hey guys,

As stated in the thread about Garmin Chartplotters, I'm planning to network a Garmin 250c FF, a Garmin 421 GPS CP, a DSC VHF radio, and a fuel sensor via a NMEA 2000 network.

First, seeing that NMEA 2000 is now an industry standard and not proprietary or specific to any particular brand, I'm guessing that it would be okay to buy a Lowrance NMEA 2000 starter kit over a Garmin one even if I'm joining together Garmin products, right? Is there any advantage at all to using the Garmin backbone over a Lowrance one? The Garmin one is about $30 more, not a huge deal, but if it doesn't make a difference, I'll use the $30 for additional parts that I'll need.

Second, I plan on using the Lowrance Fuel Sensor, the Lowrance EP-65R simply because it's less than half the price of the Garmin GFS 10 ($70 compared to $150).

Does this sound like a good plan or have I missed something? Is it foolish to be mixing Garmin and Lowrance products? I'm thinking it should be fine since NMEA 2000 is NMEA 2000 regardless of the brand name on the connectors, but I have zero experience with this sort of thing, so I'm appealing to y'all for advice. :-)