GPS and Transducer Wiring Issues

F

Frank_280DA

New Member
Jul 9, 2014
7
Grosse Pointe, MI
Boat Info
2005 280 DA
Engines
Twin 4.3's EFI
Hi all,
I have two questions. I tried searching for the answers everywhere and no one can really tell me the correct answer. The boat is a 2005 280 Sundancer with SmartCraft gauges and twin 4.3's.

1. I bought a Lowrance Elite 5 chartplotter that has an NMEA 0183 output. I want to connect it to my VHF and my smartcraft to get fuel economy and distance info. I connect it to the VHF and it shows the correct info for lat and long etc. I then connected the blue and white wires (located behind the dash board) to the same wires from the chartplotter and neither the VHF or the smartcraft gets info, I connect the two wires from the chartplotter to smartcraft with no info, lastly I hooked the wires from the chartplotter to the VHF and the VHF showed lat and long etc. Am I doing something wrong? The people at Lowrance say it should work, the two people I talked to from the dealer say two different things, one says yes it should work and the other says no it won't???? There are only two wires at the back of the dash a blue and white wire.

2. The next issue is for a transducer. My transducer was not showing water temp, so I bought an Airmar DST-800 (depth/speed/temp), and it is NMEA-0183. I have it in the hull, but the wires coming from the DST are red, black, blue and white. The original transducer is wired into the diagnostic plug on the starboard engine and the wire colors are purple, black, blue and white. I can only assume that the purple wire connects to the red wire but wanted to make sure I connect it correctly, can't find anything online to answer my question. Hopefully this will display the speed on the gauge on the dash but who knows??

Thanks in advance for your help.

Frank
 
Call airmar and ask them. then call Lowrance and ask them. They should know. Try their websites they may have that info on them.
 
Mike,
I have already done those things and I have received several different answers from all of them and their websites don't say much as far as the Sea Ray side of things. Thats why I came here to get some expert advice.
 
Last edited:
Frank,

It sounds like you have a mercruiser SmartCraft depth transducer. It is actually a hybrid device containing not only a depth transducer, but also the sonar electronics. I don't know about Lowrance, but many electronics companies separate the sonar electronics from the transducer. This allows them to use sonar systems that are more sophisticated fish finders. Thus anything but the Merc transducer will not work with the SmartCraft harness. Whether your transducer will work with your Lowrance will depend on if it has built in sonar or not. If not you will need to add a sonar module.

Nmea0183 is a clunky set up. It separates the data traffic to two circuits, transmission, or talker and reception, or listener. Each of these circuits are two wires, one positive, or data and one negative, or ground. A two way nmea0183 device will have four wires: talker data, talker ground, listener data, listener ground. Although some electronics makers only provide three by making the ground common.

SmartCraft is a listener only device, your VHF may be either a listener only, or two way depending on the features it has.

Wired this set up would look like a Y where the leg is the Lowrance talker data and the arms are the SmartCraft listener data and VHF listener data. The grounds would look the same. If the VHF also talks, then it's talker data wire would be connected to the lowrance's listener data wire and ditto on the grounds.

This is the best I can do based on what you have told us.

Henry




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