I've got a large NMEA 2000 network set up in the lab now, and it's giving me a good chance to try out the Actisense NGT-1. It's fully NMEA certified now, and selling for $200 at some outlets, but I gather that the Third Party Gateway system (formerly known as the Intelligent Gateway) of which it's a part is not yet fully detailed. In other words, we don't quite know yet how software that works with it will get NMEA approved and what, if any, restrictions there may be on how it's sold. For instance, bundling in an NGT-1, or a similar gateway, may required. But I can tell you this: Beta versions of TPG software are starting to look powerful...
Hey, maybe I can get the NMEA riled up too (though I doubt it has the posse gCaptain does). Here's the thing: Furuno's FI-50 line of instruments, including the neat new Multi XL above, are all about displaying NMEA 2000 data, right? Heck, we've known that since their 2007 introduction. I later tested them with all sorts of N2K data, saw how well that screen works in direct sunlight, and then used them this summer in a Cruising World article about N2K wind instruments. They display NMEA 2000 data from most any source, and they're darn good at it! But I defy you to find any reference to NMEA 2000 in the FI-50 brochure you can download from the Multi XL page. What the...?...
Never mind that Mercury promised a NMEA 2000 gateway to its SmartCraft engine monitoring system back in 2001, the one it's poised to actually ship in 2010 looks quite powerful and useful. If you check out the Gateway PDF above linked to this MercMonitor gauge page, you'll see that it can deliver a whole lot of engine messages to your N2K displays. Plus it turns out that a gent named Glen Ersly has installed a prototype system and written about it in some depth...
I just recently realized that Garmin has developed five analog-to-NMEA2000 adapters -- the GRA 10 Rudder Angle Adapter, the GST 10 Water Speed and Temperature Adapter, the GFL 10 Fluid Level Adapter, the GET 10 Engine Tilt Adapter, and the GBT 10 Bennett Trim Tab Adapter. They each cost $199, which seems a little stiff, but then again they seem quite able at getting sensor systems you may already have onto an N2K backbone for display, or use in calculations...
The screen shot above shows MaxSea TimeZero Explorer running on Gizmo this morning, much like I showed last week. In this case you can see how I'm cranking up the radar gain, a neat right click and mouse wheel maneuver, because I'm trying to see the ship coming down the Bay. Which was really asking too much of the superb DRS2D radome because there were so many large obstructions between Gizmo's slip and the Kristen Knutsen. What's really different about this screen is that the FA50 AIS data is finally getting to MaxSea TZ, which should have just happened given that the transponder, like the radar, is plugged into the same Ethernet switch as the MFD and the PC...
Patrick Walters had two good ideas. First, he used Maretron's N2KBuilder to prototype a network for his Pearson 424 ketch Deep Playa (which he blogs about here). Then he sent the .n2b file (downloadable here) with the thought that he and other Panbo readers might benefit from our comments on it. I have a few...
I think I got this diagram right, and I think it's important to understand if your boat might end up with more than a few NMEA 2000 powered devices on its network. As discussed on Monday, the popular 'light' (or Micro) size NMEA cables only contain 22 AWG power (and data) wires. Its well insulated power wires are apparently perfectly safe (despite some internecine standards organization hubbub on that score) but they simply can not carry much DC juice very far. Electrical resistance is dependent on wire size -- DC especially so (hence the fascinating "War of Currents") -- and the few DC wire tables that even include 22 guage don't look good. Which is why some manuals, like Garmin's below, go to some trouble regarding powertap placement...
Rats! I took some interesting photos of an Albatross demo case similar to this in the lab yesterday, and but somehow they failed to make the trip to NYC with me last night. The company shots will do for now. Albatross Control Systems is a Spanish firm dedicated to all things NMEA 2000. It’s developed a PC server/client monitoring system that’s at least somewhat similar to Maretron’s N2KView, and it distributes all sorts of N2K hardware, much of it relabeled, but also some of its own design. In the latter category—and of much interest to installers and boaters trying to get traditional sensor info onto a 2000 network—are those blue Engine, Battery, and Tank Interface boxes seen above. Albatross makes many such interfaces, as seen in their catalog, and no other company is so ambitious about turning every sort of analog boat signal into an N2K message. But that’s challenging…
I used Actisense’s QNB-1 Quick Network Block, above and bigger here, to create Gizmo’s little NMEA 2000 network, and it pretty much lived up to expectations. While using regular tees and fixed cable lengths would have been messy in the small confines of my console, this junction box let me cut cables to length and still end up with a fairly waterproof system. The built-in fuses and LED status lights made the install easier, and those cable glands provide good strain relief on a variety of cable sizes (add Tommy Tape when they don’t). But I must say that fixing wires to the terminal strips can be tedious, and downright hard in tight quarters (I did most of the wiring on a bench).
Simrad’s AT10, mentioned a while back, is a small and inexpensive utility device that translates certain NMEA 0183 messages into NMEA 2000, and vice versa. If you go to Simrad’s manual download site and use the keyword “AT10”, you’ll find a list of 0183 sentences it purportedly understands (but you may have to add a “pdf” extension to open the file). I was hoping to use an AT10 along with good old Nema Talker to simulate basic data on my test network. And as you can see in the N2K Analyzer screen above, bigger here, it works.
