NMEA, Maxsea and Radar

[demonboy]

Finally got my Furuno 1623 installed. Now I would like to hook it up to my laptop running Maxsea 10.

There is a 7-pin NMEA output socket on the 1623 unit. Does anyone know if it's simply a case of buying a Furuno-specific cable with a USB plug on the other end that I slap into my laptop, or similar?

Any help gratefully received.

 

[Talbot]

IIRC, the nmea cable on the 1623 is a NMEA in from the GPS to allow a waypoint to be shown on the radar display. (very useful for harbour entrances)

 

[earlybird]

The 1623 will output the TLL marker sentence, but I am not aware of a Furuno cable terminated with a USB plug. Mine came with bare ends, so a serial plug is a possibility, with a USB/serial converter. BTW, the cable costs ~£50. You also need position and heading input, ie GPS and compass, COG might be an alternative for heading, in which case you won't need compass input.

 

[demonboy]

[ QUOTE ]
the nmea cable on the 1623 is a NMEA in from the GPS to allow a waypoint to be shown on the radar display

[/ QUOTE ]. NMEA in only? Is it not out too?

I'm a little confused - perhaps I need to know the difference between TLL and other sentences but my understanding is Maxsea will read radar data and overlay it. Are you saying that it needs certain sentences in order to do this? Do I have to find this £50 cable to stick in the back of the unit and then wire up a serial cable to feed the laptop/maxsea with the radar overlay?

I'm new to radar data on NMEA so any clarifaction appreciated.

 

[roly_voya]

NMEA was designed to work with serial ports on the computer (also known as comm ports). Since then the computer world has brough in a new type of port (USB) but NMEA has not been changed to this standard. So if you want feed NMEA through a computer which only has USB ports as most now do the you need a serial/USB converter, hense the £50.

When you have done this you will get some extras on the radar like waypionts showing and you may get the radar curser to show up on the plotter, you would need to check the manual to find out what. But you definatly will not get any sort of radar chart overlay, to get the radar picture onto the computer you need something like the nobletech scanner at a couple of grand and the connection tends to be ethernet as USB is not fast enough. The comparison is thet MNEA transmits at a few hundred bits of informtion each second, USB is arount 10million and ethernet 100million.

 

[earlybird]

The 1623 has 2 NMEA ports, one can be configured as input/output, the other as input. With GPS position data input, the radar screen will show a "lollipop" at the waypoint position. If the radar NMEA output is connected to a plotter, eg your laptop, pressing the "mark" key will output the radar cursor position, as set by the operator, to the plotter. This is explained in the manual. BTW, the £50 I quoted refers to the cost of the Furuno cable and plug.

 

[demonboy]

Thanks for the clarification. When I said I'm new to NMEA and radar what I meant was I'm new to the combination of the two. I've successfully installed two GPS inputs to my laptop, repeated plotter positions etc etc, and used both rs232 and usb cables. I was just unsure what I can do with the radar and Maxsea.

Earlybird - what is at the other end of the Furuno cable - USB or serial?

Thanks for your time, chaps.

 

[earlybird]

[quote what is at the other end of the Furuno cable - USB or serial?

[/ QUOTE ]
Plain wires, if you want a serial connector for your laptop, you will need to solder one on, IIRC pins 2 in,3 out and 5 ground for a 9 pin "D" connector. The Furuno connectios are shown in the interconnection schematic in the manual, TD means transmit data, RD means receive data. H (hot ) is +ve, C (cold ) is negative or ground. The 2 NMEA ports are therefore pins 1 to 4 on the Furuno connector. Note that as an earlier post said, you are not going to get radar overlay on you Maxsea, only a cursor position marker. I don't bother with using the "mark" output. Interfacing to a Yeoman plotter does it much better.
Fixing all this up should keep you well occupied for some time!