Time to update Electronics - B&G or Raymarine

[bedouin]

I thought Raymarine use SeaTalk and SeaTalkNG protocols & cabling for the transducers that they sell with the i50 and i60 range.

No - the i60 and i50 use standard transducers that connect directly to the instruments. The i70 style use NMEA2000 / seatalkng

Seatalkng is nmea2000 with a different connector (and I think an extra core to carry seatalk as well)

 

[PaulRainbow]

It's very easy to have a mix of SeatalkNG and N2K, string all of the STNG kit together, string all the N2K kit together, join the two "networks" with a cable that has STNG on one end and N2K on the other. Not forgetting the appropriate terminators.

 

[RobF]

No - the i60 and i50 use standard transducers that connect directly to the instruments. The i70 style use NMEA2000 / seatalkng

Seatalkng is nmea2000 with a different connector (and I think an extra core to carry seatalk as well)

It was my assumption that the i60 and i50 transducers used SeaTalk1 as their protocol - have I assumed incorrectly?

 

[Lon nan Gruagach]

I thought Raymarine use SeaTalk and SeaTalkNG protocols & cabling for the transducers that they sell with the i50 and i60 range.

For the data backbone maybe, but Raymarine have a "concentrator" that converts triducer(Log, Depth, Water temp) plus wind instruments and a few others to the backbone. That concentrator has proved to be excessively unreliable and the connections from the transducers are all bespoke. No test feasible without reference to unpublished info.
If the sensors all output NMEA 0183 or 2000 then cross plugging would assist fault finding.

 

[dolabriform]

For the data backbone maybe, but Raymarine have a "concentrator" that converts triducer(Log, Depth, Water temp) plus wind instruments and a few others to the backbone. That concentrator has proved to be excessively unreliable and the connections from the transducers are all bespoke. No test feasible without reference to unpublished info.
If the sensors all output NMEA 0183 or 2000 then cross plugging would assist fault finding.

Do you mean the "device net" stuff ?

I tried to understand that and seatalkng vs nmea 2000 and seatalk & nmea 0183 and seatalk network / HS? etc and just gave up.

As my learned friend from Force 4 said, the B&G is simply NMEA 2000, plug what you want into it that is NMEA 2000, and use converters for the old 0183 stuff where needed.

 

[RobF]

For the data backbone maybe, but Raymarine have a "concentrator" that converts triducer(Log, Depth, Water temp) plus wind instruments and a few others to the backbone. That concentrator has proved to be excessively unreliable and the connections from the transducers are all bespoke. No test feasible without reference to unpublished info.
If the sensors all output NMEA 0183 or 2000 then cross plugging would assist fault finding.

Thanks Sir Dougal,

Am doing my second viewing on Thursday of a boat which will require an instrument update - thus this is helpful info for me. I've always had a combination of Garmin and Raymarine stuff up until now, but happy to have informed opinions on alternatives.

 

[johnalison]

I'm looking forward to installing it all at the weekend, and getting my head around it, along with replacing the tiller that snapped as we were approaching the Deben last weekend... but that's another story!!!!

I look forward to hearing about that! Sailing without a helm is possible, but challenging. I once met a chap who claimed to have crossed the channel without touching the helm (or autopilot). Our only broken tiller happened when someone sailed his Squib into our boat in Maylandsea creek because our, unoccupied, boat 'swung round when the wind changed'. He left a note and delivered a (better) replacement the following week.

 

[dolabriform]

I look forward to hearing about that! Sailing without a helm is possible, but challenging. I once met a chap who claimed to have crossed the channel without touching the helm (or autopilot). Our only broken tiller happened when someone sailed his Squib into our boat in Maylandsea creek because our, unoccupied, boat 'swung round when the wind changed'. He left a note and delivered a (better) replacement the following week.

Hi John

Lucky you!

We were negotiating the pot markers on our way to west knoll when I turned the tiller and it broke off in my hand. The surveyor said it had been repaired in the past but looked ok so we thought nothing of it. When it broke I discovered that the repair wasn't very good and it had rotted from the inside.

We dropped the sails, got the dink on with just enough speed to give steerage and got the twins on either side to shout out if they saw a pot marker whilst Mika held the broken bits together and steered. I went below, radioed John White to ask for assistance coming in, and he despatched someone.

Next I grabbed some seizing wire and pliers and lashed it together as best I could, and Stephen Read in Ragamuffin came out to take us over the bar to a mooring. We possibly could have made it with the bodge job, but I didn't want to risk it.

Once we were on a buoy, and with Stephens suggestion I pulled all the rotten bits out and wrapped Jubilee clips around what was left to hold everything together, which saw us safely back to the Tidemill.

I'm just glad it happened on a calm day!

 

[PaulRainbow]

For the data backbone maybe, but Raymarine have a "concentrator" that converts triducer(Log, Depth, Water temp) plus wind instruments and a few others to the backbone. That concentrator has proved to be excessively unreliable and the connections from the transducers are all bespoke. No test feasible without reference to unpublished info.
If the sensors all output NMEA 0183 or 2000 then cross plugging would assist fault finding.

Not sure what you're talking about here. the i60 is a wind instrument, the i70 a multifunction display. The i70 has two STNG connectors, that's it. The Raymarine triducer is made by Airmar and outputs bog standard N2K data, i actually have one connected to an N2K network and it's displaying speed/water temp/STW on a pair of Garmin GMI10s.

What are these transducer of which you speak, that have bespoke connectors ?

 

[PaulRainbow]

Do you mean the "device net" stuff ?

I tried to understand that and seatalkng vs nmea 2000 and seatalk & nmea 0183 and seatalk network / HS? etc and just gave up.

As my learned friend from Force 4 said, the B&G is simply NMEA 2000, plug what you want into it that is NMEA 2000, and use converters for the old 0183 stuff where needed.

Very simply/basically :

Device net is just another name for N2K
SeatalkNG is just N2K with a different conenctor
SeatalkHS is Ethernet, same as Garmin marine network (won't interchange though)

NMEA 0183 is a bare wire system, Seatalk is basically the same (some differences). Whereas integrating N2K and STNG is simple, working with 0183 and Seatalk is a bit of a minefield. Majority of other manufacturers 0183 stuff will mix and match.

 

[dolabriform]

Very simply/basically :

Device net is just another name for N2K
SeatalkNG is just N2K with a different conenctor
SeatalkHS is Ethernet, same as Garmin marine network (won't interchange though)

NMEA 0183 is a bare wire system, Seatalk is basically the same (some differences). Whereas integrating N2K and STNG is simple, working with 0183 and Seatalk is a bit of a minefield. Majority of other manufacturers 0183 stuff will mix and match.

Thanks Paul, that's the most concise explanation I've ever seen.

I don't suppose you would know if I can get the ST1000 that uses seatalk to work with the B&G ( I very much doubt it but thought I'd ask )

 

[nrcoyle]

I work my ST1000 with NMEA0183 signals from my plotter.
So if you have a NMEA0183 output on the B&Q or get a 2000 to 0183 converter you should be able to get it to work

 

[PaulRainbow]

I work my ST1000 with NMEA0183 signals from my plotter.
So if you have a NMEA0183 output on the B&Q or get a 2000 to 0183 converter you should be able to get it to work

As above.

The B&G doesn't have 0183 connections, so a Seatalk to N2K converter is required. Take a look the the Actisense converters.

 

[savageseadog]

I work my ST1000 with NMEA0183 signals from my plotter.
So if you have a NMEA0183 output on the B&Q or get a 2000 to 0183 converter you should be able to get it to work

I think you've been visiting the DIY store more often than you should

 

[prv]

NMEA 0183 is a bare wire system, Seatalk is basically the same (some differences).

I have to disagree with this. NMEA 0183 and Seatalk have little in common apart from being popular over around the same time, and (as a result of their age) operating at the same low baud rate.

The biggest difference is that Seatalk is a shared bus network whereas NMEA0183 is a point-to-point unidirectional link - this is pretty fundamental to how they can be used, not just a minor difference.

Seatalk carries binary data which is unreadable to the non-specialist, and even if read can only be partially understood by reference to Thomas Knauf's incomplete list of reverse-engineered message types. NMEA0183 carries sentences in readable ASCII text viewable by built-in Windows tools, and while the standard is technically not freely available, in practice all commonly-used sentences are well-documented and easily accessible.

Whereas integrating N2K and STNG is simple, working with 0183 and Seatalk is a bit of a minefield. Majority of other manufacturers 0183 stuff will mix and match.

Working with Seatalk is simple, because it has the advantage of only one mainstream manufacturer (I'm discounting the assorted unlicensed hobbyist type kit). Just plug it in and it works.

Working with NMEA0183 regularly seems to trip up people who don't understand what the wires do and/or won't read manuals to find out which colour is what, so I guess objectively it's the "most difficult". For anyone with the most basic understanding of what a serial link is, though, it's easy to wire (at least, to know what should be connected where; of course you still have the gruntwork of running and splicing cables). Only a handful of sentences are commonly used on leisure vessels and they've been around for ever, so incompatibility at the software level is basically non-existent, at least for equipment made this century. Hardly "a minefield".

Connecting N2k is simple (though the DeviceNet connectors don't enforce the correct bus/dropline topology, so it's not totally idiot-proof) and standard PGNs are standard in the same way as standard NMEA0183 sentences so the basics like speed and depth will work fine across any devices. Manufacturers are allowed to have proprietary PGNs though, which only work with their own kit, and they've used this facility far, far more than they ever did with 0183. (0183 does also allow proprietary sentences, and they're fairly common on esoteric commercial kit, but it seems to have been little-used in the leisure world.) So it's perfectly normal and expected that a plotter connected to an autopilot via N2k will only be able to control that autopilot if they're by the same manufacturer, because they're speaking their own language over the N2k wires. Really, knowing in advance what N2k kit will and won't interact to what extent is the "minefield" if there is one.

(SeatalkNG I'm lumping in with N2k because they are, as you say, the same thing with different connectors. Buy Raymarine adaptors or just splice the cables, and ignore the difference. Raymarine's current range of plotters use DeviceNet plugs anyway, and need the adaptor to connect to any SeatalkNG kit.)

Pete

 

[bedouin]

It was my assumption that the i60 and i50 transducers used SeaTalk1 as their protocol - have I assumed incorrectly?

The i50/i60 (usually) have analogue transducers that connect directly to the instrument. They can then distribute that information via a "SeatalkNg" connector - that carries both NMEA2000 and Seatalk1 signals

They can also display data from the SeatalkNg bus if you have digital transducers, or an analogue-DIgital convertor for the analogue transducers.

 

[Mikedefieslife]

As above.

The B&G doesn't have 0183 connections, so a Seatalk to N2K converter is required. Take a look the the Actisense converters.

Or you can just buy the simrad/lowrance video cable for it for £30 and hook up 1 RX and 1 TX NEMA0183 device

 

[dolabriform]

Or you can just buy the simrad/lowrance video cable for it for £30 and hook up 1 RX and 1 TX NEMA0183 device

Do you have a link ?

 

[bedouin]

As above.

The B&G doesn't have 0183 connections, so a Seatalk to N2K converter is required. Take a look the the Actisense converters.

That was one reason I chose the Raymarine that still has NMEA0183 connections - saves a couple of hundred pounds in Actisense convertors and cables etc

 

[Mikedefieslife]

Do you have a link ?

It is this one.

https://www.waveinn.com/nautical-fishing/simrad-video-data/560568/p

I only have on TX and one RX pair of wires, and the send/receive baud rates must be the same.

For a transducer there is a separate cable. Plugged into the transducer port of the MFD if it has one. The cheaper Vulcan models don't