raymarine e80 and ais

[derekh]

I have just added ais to my e80 display. there is a red X over the ais logo on the display. I am 40 miles from the nearest ship at present. Does anyone know if the X is only present when there is no signal from an ais transmitter or should it dissapear when it is correctly connected to the ais receiver even when transmissions are absent.

Thanks,
Derek

 

[Foxy]

cant remember but pretty sure cross only disappears when it receives something....... at least I hope so as that is what mine is doing...... and it worked a couple of years ago when I last turned it on!

 

[JerryHawkins]

Sorry - no, you have a problem. I have an E120 and a NASA AIS engine. The moment I put power on the AIS engine, the red cross disappears from the AIS icon on the display.

Have you configured the NMEA in-port for 38,400 BAUD in the E80 set-up? Which AIS do you have? Does it have any indicators built in to show it is working?

 

[steve6367]

That means it is not connected / setup properly. Even with no targets the red X should not be there.

Have you get the display setup on 38000 baud for AIS? Are you using the NMEA input for anything else? If you are then you need a multiplexor to all the signals are being input to the display at 38000 baud.

Steve

 

[derekh]

Thanks for the information, it is a comer ais receiver. I have the nmea input paralleled with the input from the fluxgate compass. the receiver only has one led illuminated which is power. the others only light with a signal. I will check e80 setup and connectivity tonight.
Derek

 

[WayneS]

How have you paralleled with the Fluxgate. With a multiplexer or have you just twisted wires together. If the latter, you will have a problem. I think that the Fluxgate runs at 4800 and you will prob find that the AIS transmits at 38400 so they will not work together.

As I do not have a Mux, I have to remove the Fluxgate/Gyro from the NEMA bus and only use the Seatalk signals. While this does make the MARPA less useful, I find it OK. The gyro sends heading updates at 10hz on NMEA but only 2hz on Seatalk, hence the problem.

Having disconnected the Gyro wires on the NMEA plug (I had to remove both wires cos only removing the ground did not seem to do the trick) I changed the port speed on the plotter (C80 in my case) to 38400 and bingo.

 

[PembrokeshirePromise]

Wayne has it right - unless your AIS has the option to output at 9600 baud (a few do) - you either need a multiplexer - or you can only use the fluxgate or AIS as the E80 only has one NMEA input. Test by removing the fluxgate - set the baud rate to 38400 and the red cross should go away.

You can go to one of the diagnostic screens on the E80 and should see the NMEA sentences from the AIS coming in.

HTH

 

[pvb]

[ QUOTE ]
Wayne has it right - unless your AIS has the option to output at 9600 baud (a few do) - you either need a multiplexer - or you can only use the fluxgate or AIS as the E80 only has one NMEA input. Test by removing the fluxgate - set the baud rate to 34000 and the red cross should go away.

[/ QUOTE ]The E-series won't receive AIS data at 9600 baud, only at 38400 baud.


[ QUOTE ]
You can go to one of the diagnostic screens on the E80 and should see the NMEA sentences from the AIS coming in.

[/ QUOTE ]Didn't know about this, can you explain how to get into the diagnostic screen?

 

[PembrokeshirePromise]

[ QUOTE ]
The E-series won't receive AIS data at 9600 baud, only at 38400 baud.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you absolutely sure about this ? I confess to not having done it - but all the settings on the E80 plotter made it look as if it would - and I'm pretty sure than my C80 will (but I have multiplexer - and can't remember whether I set the output 9600 or 38400)

Maybe its a software version difference ?

As for the diagnostics - again I think this has moved around / maybe only available on more recent software. From memory its under the system diagnostics menu, than either external or internal interfaces and you can select (via buttons along bottom) whether you see Rx / Tx / Both

Lat E80 I looked at someone had done just what OP has done - joined fluxgate and AIS output. Even if plotter was set to 38400 AIS was extremely unreliable - and I think what was happeing was without a multiplexer there were just so many data collisions that very few of the AIS sentances made it through. Disconnecting the fluxgate sorted it.

 

[DipperToo]

Not sure if the Comar is the same, but I installed an EasyAIS and the so called 'GPS' input actually takes any NMEA input and does the multiplexing within the EASYAIS box - very simple to install and no expensive multiplexor required! In my case I took the fast heading data from the course computer to the EasyAIS input.

 

[Elessar]

NASA is the same - and you are absolutely right saving £160 for a multiplexor. As an extension of the same logic, you can save a multiplexor for your DSC radio.
If your chartplotter is feeding the DSC it won't work when you set up the chartplotter input speed for the AIS.
If your GPS is NMEA you can can feed the DSC radio and the AIS input, and still get the GPS to the E80 or E120 at the correct speed.

 

[derekh]

Thanks everyone for the input. I reprogrammed the e80 for 38400 and the X has gone. everything else seems to be working fine. I won't know for sure before the Launch in March. Its been a long winter I can't wait.