Actisense NGW-1 ISO and Axiom to Older Simrad a/p

[Caladh]

I had a Raymarine es97 plotter which I had interfaced using the NMEA0183 ports to get Heading data from my older Simrad autopilot AP3000x. This displayed on the plotter fine. I have now bought and got into operation a Raymarine Axiom 9+ to replace the es97. The Axiom does not have an NMEA port so I have purchased an Actisense NGW ISO second hand. I’ve cabled it all up to the StNG network, lights indicating it is receiving data from the a/p but I do not see the Heading display on the Axiom. It’s almost as if something in the L/H software or Navionics needs to be turned on. As an aside I see lots of diagnostics data for NMEA on the Axiom but nothing display specifically for NMEA0183. I’m guessing that maybe the Actisense is at fault. Any ideas as to what to do next ? I do have a cable to attach the Actisense to a laptop but would really know what I was looking for on their diagnostics.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

You could connect your NMEA0183 cable to a serial to USB converter plugged into your computer, download a terminal app like PuTTY for Windows or Linux and get a grab of the messages that are coming in on that connection. You could post them here for analysis if you are not familiar with them. Doing this you can see if you actually have heading data on NMEA0183 and if so if it's a message format supported by the Actisense converter.

You won't see anything NMEA0183 related in the Axiom+ diagnostics because it has no port of that type and knows nothing about it.

I still have an Actisense converter for sale on the For Sale forum which you could try. If it works, buy it, if not, send it back.

 

[Caladh]

Pm sent Angus

 

[neilf39]

If you have the Actisense software on your laptop you can configure it with the toolkit or read NMEA using the EBL reader. I am guessing you should be getting a heading sentence from the Autopilot.

e.g.

HDG - Heading - Deviation & Variation
1 2 3 4 5 6
| | | | | |
$--HDG,x.x,x.x,a,x.x,a*hh<CR><LF>
Field Number:
1) Magnetic Sensor heading in degrees
2) Magnetic Deviation, degrees
3) Magnetic Deviation direction, E = Easterly, W = Westerly
4) Magnetic Variation degrees
5) Magnetic Variation direction, E = Easterly, W = Westerly
6) Checksum

Of maybe HDM or HDT.

and this would probably translate to :

127250 - Vessel heading, in STNG/NMEA2000. Or 127258. Format is

[th]

Field #​

[/th][th]

Field Description​

[/th][th]

Length (Bytes)​

[/th][th]

Resolution​

[/th][th]

Offset​

[/th]​

[td]1[/td][td]SID (Sequence Identifier)[/td][td]1[/td][td][/td]
[td][/td] [td]2[/td][td]Heading[/td][td]2[/td][td]0.0001 radians[/td][td]0[/td] [td]3[/td][td]Deviation[/td][td]2[/td][td]0.0001 radians[/td][td]0[/td] [td]4[/td][td]Variation[/td][td]2[/td][td]0.0001 radians[/td][td]0[/td] [td]5[/td][td]Reference[/td][td]1[/td][td][/td]
[td][/td]

I used an actisense USG-2 to connect to my NGW-1 to see what was going and configure it. Worked well.