Navman 7100 with Magellan 3000XL GPS

[Arida]

Hello,

I am tearing my hair out trying to get these two working together. Have looked at the Navman Manual and the information on the Plastimo website and 100% sure I have wired correctly*. But the Navman always displays "NO GPS INFORMATION".

Also tried all three NMEA setting on the Magellan, checked the data rate is 4800bps and also switched checksum both on and off on the Navman, but to no avail.

I am coming to the conclusion that the two must simply be incompatible, perhaps because the Magellan only supports an earlier version of NMEA0183.

Could this be the case, or is there something else I haven't tried?

*(I do not have Navman's cable, so am relying on the pin numbering visible on the mini-din plug which is hard wired into the Navman. Interestingly, this is different to the standard mini-din 8 numbering. If someone has Navman's cable sat around I would be very interested in knowing the actual physical location of the pins attached to the yellow and green wires within the connector housing.)

Many Thanks,

Rob

 

[pvb]

Some Navman 7100 manuals had the connection info incorrect. The correct connection is GPS+ (out) to the Navman yellow (pin 4), and GPS- (common) to the Navman green (pin 5).

 

[Arida]

Some Navman 7100 manuals had the connection info incorrect. The correct connection is GPS+ (out) to the Navman yellow (pin 4), and GPS- (common) to the Navman green (pin 5).

Many Thanks.

My manual is in line with what you have just said. I have been putting the NMEA in to pin 4 with pin 5 grounded. This is all assuming that the pin numbers embossed on the Navman plug attached to the radio are correct though - as I mentioned previosuly the pinout appears non-standard.

I don't actually have Navman's lead, only a plain 8 way mini-din socket, so cannot go by wire colour.

Regards,

Rob

 

[pvb]

So you have the Magellan yellow connected to the Navman yellow, and the Magellan black connected to the Navman green? Any of the 3 NMEA settings on the Magellan should work.

 

[Arida]

So you have the Magellan yellow connected to the Navman yellow, and the Magellan black connected to the Navman green? Any of the 3 NMEA settings on the Magellan should work.

I don't have the Navman cable, but am connecting Magellan yellow to what is labelled as pin 4 on the navman radio's connector and the Magellan black to what is labelled as pin 5 (and also to ground of course).

Regards, Rob

 

[Arida]

Sorted!

Just to avoid wasting anybody else's time, I should say this issue is now sorted.

In desperation I opened the radio to trace the connector wiring. Thankfully Navman use the same wire colour codes for the internal wiring as those referenced in the manual for the supplied lead (which as you will remember I don't have). This allowed me to identify the required connector pins, which are numbered on the connector itself completely differently from those in the manual., and differently again from the official mini din 8 numbering.

As they say, the great thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from!

I will post the numbers tomorrow in case anyone in the same position as me comes across this thread in the future.

In the mean time the radio now has the correct position. I have noticed however that SOG and COG are not displayed even though this feature is switched on. I think this is due to the absence of the required RMC sentences in the output from the Magellan - have never worked out what stops equipment doing the math to calculate these, but I think the Nasa GPS repeater suffers from this same limitation - no RMC means position only.

Many Thanks,

Rob

 

[pvb]

In the mean time the radio now has the correct position. I have noticed however that SOG and COG are not displayed even though this feature is switched on. I think this is due to the absence of the required RMC sentences in the output from the Magellan - have never worked out what stops equipment doing the math to calculate these, but I think the Nasa GPS repeater suffers from this same limitation - no RMC means position only.

If you select NMEA0183B as the Magellan's output, this will give the RMC sentence.

 

[Arida]

Naman Connector Pinout

If you select NMEA0183B as the Magellan's output, this will give the RMC sentence.

Yes, the B setting works. I now see COG and SOG too. Thank You.

As promised, in case anyone reads in future, the pinout relative to the pin numbering in the plug attached to the radio is as follows:

2 Orange NMEA OUT + (not used)
4 Yellow NMEA IN + from GPS
5 Black NMEA OUT - and GND
7 Green NMEA IN -, strapped to GND (pin 5) in my case

BTW, whilst messing about with this issue, I downloaded the demo version of GPSSimul from Sailsoft. This effectively simulates the NMEA output from a GPS receiver/plotter and can be configured to output various different sentences. Demo is limited to 100 messages, but nevertheless it is a very useful troubleshooting tool.

Regards,

Rob