WayneS
Well-Known Member
Having been through the process of integrating a NASA AIS Engine to my Raymarine C-Series plotter, thought it would be worth while sharing the trials and tribulations.
Note, the C-Series must be running software v3.18 or later. See Raymarine for upgrading instructions.
First off I connected everything up to my PC using the DB9m – DB9f cable supplied with the engine and using the “Software On Board” program that came with the NASA engine I was able to confirm that the engine was picking up data and displaying it.
To get the “Software on Board” program working you need to do the following
Install software using all defaults
Run the program c:\SOBvMAX\ SOB_Com.exe and configure your com port for 38400
Run the SOB program via the desktop icon or c:\SOBvMAX \SOBvMax.exe
Once passed all the Licence screens you will get a chart display showing your position as somewhere in Sydney Harbour (If only). If you hit the AIS button (7th from right) you should see a list if AIS targets that have been detected. If not, either the product is not working, configured incorrectly or there are no vessels transmitting data in the vicinity.
Once confirmed that everything was working I tried to connect up to the C-Series.
On the back of the C-Series there is a NEMA In/Out socket which is where you need to connect up to. In my case it was already in use for supplying Heading Information from my course computer. More on this later.
The connection is relatively straight forward. I cut the cable supplied by NASA in half and split out the black and ground (unshielded wire) coming from the NASA engine and connected as follows. NASA Black goes to C-Series White , NASA Ground to C-Series Green.
In the C-Series setup, open System Integration and set the NMEA port to “38400 AIS”.
AIS data should now be received and can be displayed on the C-Series
There are a few things that you need to be aware of.
If as in my case, you have a course computer, you have a problem. The Course computer supplies Heading Information to the C-Series via NMEA and not SeaTalk. This is apparently because updates via NMEA happen 5-10 times a second and via SeaTalk at only 2 times a second. The slower update rate of SeaTalk will have a negative effect on MARPA accuracy. The issue is that the Course Computer pushes NMEA data at 4800 baud but AIS runs at 38400. The ideal way around this is to install a Multiplexer to combine the data from the two devices and transmit as a single stream to the C-Series. In my case time constraints have made it not possible to source a suitable Multiplexer and so I have disconnected the NMEA feed from the Course Computer, in the knowledge that MARPA will be affected. How much it will be affected only time and miles will tell.
The other issue regarding the connection of AIS and the required reconfiguration of the NMEA port to 38400 is that if you use the NMEA output to feed data to any device, this speed is also going to have increased to 38400. Either you need to reset these external devices to 38400 or install a Raymarine SeaTalk-NMEA bridge to give you the 4800NMEA.
Please note that that this is my experience only and am not responsible if you follow them and something goes wrong!
Note, the C-Series must be running software v3.18 or later. See Raymarine for upgrading instructions.
First off I connected everything up to my PC using the DB9m – DB9f cable supplied with the engine and using the “Software On Board” program that came with the NASA engine I was able to confirm that the engine was picking up data and displaying it.
To get the “Software on Board” program working you need to do the following
Install software using all defaults
Run the program c:\SOBvMAX\ SOB_Com.exe and configure your com port for 38400
Run the SOB program via the desktop icon or c:\SOBvMAX \SOBvMax.exe
Once passed all the Licence screens you will get a chart display showing your position as somewhere in Sydney Harbour (If only). If you hit the AIS button (7th from right) you should see a list if AIS targets that have been detected. If not, either the product is not working, configured incorrectly or there are no vessels transmitting data in the vicinity.
Once confirmed that everything was working I tried to connect up to the C-Series.
On the back of the C-Series there is a NEMA In/Out socket which is where you need to connect up to. In my case it was already in use for supplying Heading Information from my course computer. More on this later.
The connection is relatively straight forward. I cut the cable supplied by NASA in half and split out the black and ground (unshielded wire) coming from the NASA engine and connected as follows. NASA Black goes to C-Series White , NASA Ground to C-Series Green.
In the C-Series setup, open System Integration and set the NMEA port to “38400 AIS”.
AIS data should now be received and can be displayed on the C-Series
There are a few things that you need to be aware of.
If as in my case, you have a course computer, you have a problem. The Course computer supplies Heading Information to the C-Series via NMEA and not SeaTalk. This is apparently because updates via NMEA happen 5-10 times a second and via SeaTalk at only 2 times a second. The slower update rate of SeaTalk will have a negative effect on MARPA accuracy. The issue is that the Course Computer pushes NMEA data at 4800 baud but AIS runs at 38400. The ideal way around this is to install a Multiplexer to combine the data from the two devices and transmit as a single stream to the C-Series. In my case time constraints have made it not possible to source a suitable Multiplexer and so I have disconnected the NMEA feed from the Course Computer, in the knowledge that MARPA will be affected. How much it will be affected only time and miles will tell.
The other issue regarding the connection of AIS and the required reconfiguration of the NMEA port to 38400 is that if you use the NMEA output to feed data to any device, this speed is also going to have increased to 38400. Either you need to reset these external devices to 38400 or install a Raymarine SeaTalk-NMEA bridge to give you the 4800NMEA.
Please note that that this is my experience only and am not responsible if you follow them and something goes wrong!