AIS Engine 2

I have taken the trouble to follow this thread from the start thanks, and the OP keeps asking about the wires and connections which have been answered several times but were still not connected correctly. I'll bow out now and leave you experts to resolve it.
 
I have tried every combination of wires and nothing has worked including what you said on your site (which I found before posting on here). The problem is- Lowrance is very confusing. The simple 'Connect black, to TX+ and Ground to negative and it all works fine- simply does not work on the Lowrance unit. I posted to see what other people thought and clearly others have been confused by these units as well.
 
BigStu said:
I have tried every combination of wires and nothing has worked including what you said on your site (which I found before posting on here). The problem is- Lowrance is very confusing. The simple 'Connect black, to TX+ and Ground to negative and it all works fine- simply does not work on the Lowrance unit. I posted to see what other people thought and clearly others have been confused by these units as well.
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Even if you could get it working with the Lowrance, I think you would need to make positive and negative connections, or connect the NMEA negative wires from both units to a common ground. Salar's advice is for wiring up a Garmin and these usually have a common (single) negative for all their NMEA inputs and outputs. This is usually best connected directly to ground and as a result you'd usually do the same for things talking to a Garmin. Navico products like the Lowrance can be a bit different although the end result is of course the same.
 
In the meantime I have been looking at the Lowrance manual and I can't see any evidence of NMEA Input, only Output so I can't see how it can receive NMEA data. My bad, sorry, I was assuming you were connecting to a plotter that could actually receive data - unfortunately it appears that is not the case.
 
The really interesting question is how can Lowrance say the plotter is AIS compatible if it doesn't have NMEA input? Sale of Goods Act, anyone?
 
pvb said:
The really interesting question is how can Lowrance say the plotter is AIS compatible if it doesn't have NMEA input? Sale of Goods Act, anyone?
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Not mentioned on the manufacturers web site and it also clearly states NMEA Output. With a compatible plotter, I still think the NASA AIS engine is a bargain compared to the better but far pricier alternatives. It has served me well. I have now upgraded my boat and gone NMEA2000. My new AIS is a Garmin unit, six times the price (OK its a transponder!) but the Receive data displayed is pretty much the same as I had before for £100.

BigStu - you need a plotter with an RX+ connection not a TX+
 
pvb said:
Wasn't the AIS2's idea of NMEA a bit suspect? Hence the AIS3 and the opportunity to upgrade the AIS2 with a new chip. .
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The AIS3 is still a bit suspect

Mine will talk happily to our Raymarine chart plotter but not to our Shipmodul multiplexer and we eventually, after putting a scope on the output of the NASA device, found that the output logic 1 voltage is low (can't now remember what it was but it was out of spec for RS232)

Whether that's a specific fault or a generic one I can't say for certain but I suspect the latter
 
prv said:
While vociferously asserting that you had read the posts where people had already identified that that's not the case...

Pete
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And your point is....? Or do you just like rubbing people's noses in it after they have apologised? I recommend you try a Transactional Analysis exercise, you might learn something quite interesting.
 
Erbas said:
Indeed. The Amstrad of the marine equipment world (but with, it must be said, infinitely better customer support that Alan Sugar ever delivered)
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Buyers of Nasa kit always say "oh, but the customer service is very good", rather than wondering why the stuff broke in the first place.
 
pvb said:
Just think what they might achieve if they put a fraction of that effort into design, development and quality control.
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Much the same as Amstrad would have achieved, significantly higher manufacturing costs and a product that was no longer priced well below anything else on the market. That's their USP and they've been very successful by sticking to it
 
Erbas said:
Much the same as Amstrad would have achieved, significantly higher manufacturing costs and a product that was no longer priced well below anything else on the market. That's their USP and they've been very successful by sticking to it
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I'm not rich enough to buy cheap stuff.
 
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