Lowrance and NMEA 2000

[fc3]

It's nice that the network in NMEA 2000 works. It should work. It is still a negative that the protocol is proprietary because many small developers and non-NMEA members simply won't bother to build compatible devices because the sentence structure is not freely available.. Most of the most inventive ideas do not come from the companies of the established old guard. iPods and iPhones come to mind. Sony didn't invent the iPod and Motorola didn't invent the iPhone.

I would not base buying decisions primarily on NMEA 2000 compatibility. Easy of use, reliability, and performance of nav gear are more important. A friend had a Lowrance GPS on his new Cruisers that the dealer installed. It was hard to use and unreliable. After getting stuck in the fog with a useless GPS, he threw the Lowrance out and replaced it with a Furuno GPS/Radar system. Although I have experience with only one Lowrance navigation set, it was a very bad experience. Finally, if you decide to add RADAR, you're out of luck. Lowrance makes a lot of fish finders, but that have nothing in RADAR. While fog might not be a problem where you are, RADAR makes running at night, actually from dusk to dawn, much easier and safer.

Regarding Gary's post about runaway devices. NMEA uses proprietary sentence structure on the standard CANBUS network topology. CAN has proven to be pretty reliable in automotive and truck applications. NMEA 2000 appears to use the standard CAN chip sets, and electrical levels, but wiring, connectors, and the payload packets are specific to the standard and not freely available. I would imagine that hardware reliability, and network integrity is probably pretty good. On the other hand, CAN is slow. Even in automotive applications, multiple networks remain the rule. My wife's car, the newest one we have, has four networks, plus fiber optics for audio. (CAN, SCP, ISO9141, and D2B) Marine manufacturers are planning to put everything, nav, engines, environmental, lighting, ships systems, etc. on NMEA 2000. It is yet to be seen how that's going to work. Supposed to have all of that in the spec. Or so they say.

Best regards,
Frank

 

[CSR_Admin]

I am a real pain in your ass today?

HUGE!

Your 0183 weather sensor will talk to units you have it connected to via 0183. Units can only listen to one other unit via 0183 so you can only connect your weather module to units that don't already have something going into it. Plus its a pita to connect them as it is since you have to match up unstandard wire colors. Is unstantard a word :huh:

Next time you come up here just stop by and I'll show you an2k network, then it will all make sense. It has actually been out since 2000, so it is well in its prime, now being widely adopted. You are just pissed off because you have all that old nmea0183 stuff on your boat and you refuse to believe you need new stuff :grin:

 

[CSR_Admin]

Frank, you lost me twice, once around the part where you said most innovative inventors won't make nmea2000 devices, and again where you said Raymarine sells more than Lowrance. NMEA2000 opens up a whole new world of innovation which is why the whole horizon on electronics has completely changed in the blink of an eye. 2nd, we sell probably equal parts Ray and Lowrance, but I would estimate that Lowrance units are probably in the hands of 8 times as many consumers. They make lots of stand alone stuff that appeal to a wider market. Considering the fact that you said there is not bad press about them on the net I am going to be forced to discount your entire post :grin: You really need to research this nmea2000 stuff.

It's nice that the network in NMEA 2000 works. It should work. It is still a negative that the protocol is proprietary because many small developers and non-NMEA members simply won't bother to build compatible devices. Most of the most inventive ideas do not come from the companies of the established old guard. iPods and iPhones come to mind. Neither from an audio company nor a cell phone company.

I would not base buying decisions primarily on NMEA 2000 compatibility. Easy of use, reliability, and performance of nav gear are more important. A friend had a Lowrance GPS on his new Cruisers that the dealer installed. It was hard to use and unreliable. After getting stuck in the fog with a useless GPS, he threw the Lowrance out and replaced it with a Furuno GPS/Radar system. Although I have experience with only one Lowrance navigation set, it was a very bad experience. There's probably not a lot of negative reports on the net about them, as their is about Raymarine, for example, simply because they sell so few units in comparison to Raymarine. For example, just to make up some numbers, fifty bad reports looks terrible unless you know that's 50 of a million. 1 bad report doesn't look too bad until you find that it's 1 of 10.

Regarding runaway devices. NMEA uses proprietary sentence structure on the standard CANBUS network topology. CAN has proven to be pretty reliable in automotive and truck applications. NMEA 2000 appears to use the standard CAN chip sets, and electrical levels, but wiring, connectors, and the payload packets are specific to the standard. I would imagine that hardware reliability is probably pretty good.


Best regards,
Frank

 

[CSR_Admin]

I honestly feel like I am in the middle of an argument about why Ipods are better than CD's. Does anybody even use CD's any more?

 

[Four Suns]

Your 0183 weather sensor will talk to units you have it connected to via 0183. Units can only listen to one other unit via 0183 so you can only connect your weather module to units that don't already have something going into it. Plus its a pita to connect them as it is since you have to match up unstandard wire colors. Is unstantard a word :huh:

Well... is that really fair? I mean I could say the same thing about cat5 Ethernet... It really allows two devices to talk to each other.. if I hook up a crossover cable, I can have two laptops talk to each other... but that's not how it was meant to work. You need a hub in the middle (i.e. star configuration).. in the case of NMEA 0183 it's called a multiplexer. (the Ethernet example is not an exact match but it works here). If I have all the sensors hooked to the multiplexer and all the displays hooked to the mutiplexer, everyone hears everything... last time I checked anyway.

Look... I am just trying to see what NMEA 2000 "enables" and I still don't know that... other than a "bigger network" and "easier install" which may be all well and good. I doubt the other companies will drop their properitary stuff so it's just going to be another "layer" IMO...

I'm very dissappointed in the chastising PM I got about this thread however... so I assume this discussion is over.

 

[CSR_Admin]

Cat V ethernet will do the exact same thing, but that is proprietary among brands. Cat V ethernet even does more, allowing you to share network devices like satellite weather or FF's. Cat V allows you to share stuff over many displays, not just 2. With nmea 0183 you can connect one device to another. Thats it. The connections go from one device to the other. On your single station bridge that may be fine for now. With nmea2000 nothing ever connects directly to anything else. They all connect to a central backbone. The backbone carries the data, whatever is connected to it can add and pull data from that network. Whatever it is capable of reading or outputting will be shared by that device on the network. You don't need to turn on sentences or anything, just plug it in. If you want to put a repeater display down in your master to show the conditions of your airmar weather sensor just install it and plug it in. That same display can also show you boat speed, depth, fuel tank level, water tank level, engine room tempurature, whatever.

 

[CSR_Admin]

I doubt the other companies will drop their properitary stuff so it's just going to be another "layer" IMO...

The proprietary networks will not be dropped. Proprietary networks allow you to share proprietary things. All units will have nmea 2000 which allows them to talk among brands.

Regarding the PM, I think the author is just tired of you being the star on emails that circulate behind the scenes practically daily. I know its your M.O. to stir the pot and I find it amusing but to the people trying to control the peace around here it can get old. Small price to pay for being such an effective pot stirrer :grin: Where's that thick skin ?

 

[Turtlesboat]

I honestly feel like I am in the middle of an argument about why Ipods are better than CD's. Does anybody even use CD's any more?

Music CD's still account for more than 90% of all album purchases.


I know that after reading this thread, I want to buy some equipment now.

 

[fc3]

Frank, you lost me twice, once around the part where you said most innovative inventors won't make nmea2000 devices, and again where you said Raymarine sells more than Lowrance. NMEA2000 opens up a whole new world of innovation which is why the whole horizon on electronics has completely changed in the blink of an eye. 2nd, we sell probably equal parts Ray and Lowrance, but I would estimate that Lowrance units are probably in the hands of 8 times as many consumers. They make lots of stand alone stuff that appeal to a wider market. Considering the fact that you said there is not bad press about them on the net I am going to be forced to discount your entire post :grin: You really need to research this nmea2000 stuff.

I don't see lowrance around here, except for their sonar devices. I find it hard to believe they move that many, but if you say so... I remove that part. It's non-sequitur anyway.

I've researched NMEA 2000 quite a bit, but since it's a closed and proprietary system, it can't be analyzed from a systems point of view, as one does, for example with IP, or ATM. So there's not a heck of a lot to research.

I do systems, networks, servers, clients, and applications. Proprietary stuff is just a big pain in the ... hiney. Many times, the information to do a paper build-out just isn't available for some technologies. In a lot of cases, the client usually just selects something else. Look around, how much VAX VMS, MPE, VS, PRIMEOS, AOS/VS, TOPS, DECNet, Arcnet. etc. do you see?

Best regards,
Frank

 

[CSR_Admin]

I don't know what any of that stuff means. I use this stuff on the applicatioon end of things, not the design end. It is my understanding you can get the nmea2000 protocol from NMEA, anybody can get it. Thats why lots of new companies are popping up with nmea2000 devices. So I would say that is not proprietary. N2K is based on CaNET which has long been used in other vehicles and machines. Mercury Marine has a version of it called Smartcraft which is proprietary, they will not give out the info to anybody so it won't work with anything else. Even regular NMEA0183 has different baud rates to contend with, it just was not a pleasant way to integrate different brands, but it did work relatively well most of the time.

 

[Kameroo]

Music CD's still account for more than 90% of all album purchases..

...because you get the whole album if you buy a CD, vs. just the songs you want. Didn't Apple just surpass Walmart as the #1 seller of music?

Sorry for the thread creep...

 

[fc3]

I don't know what any of that stuff means. I use this stuff on the applicatioon end of things, not the design end. It is my understanding you can get the nmea2000 protocol from NMEA, anybody can get it. Thats why lots of new companies are popping up with nmea2000 devices. So I would say that is not proprietary. N2K is based on CaNET which has long been used in other vehicles and machines. Mercury Marine has a version of it called Smartcraft which is proprietary, they will not give out the info to anybody so it won't work with anything else. Even regular NMEA0183 has different baud rates to contend with, it just was not a pleasant way to integrate different brands, but it did work relatively well most of the time.

Yes, you can get the spec. The primer version is here. That is not the complete spec, just the main, overview document. It's only $1050. The complete spec is five grand. Here is the list of companies that manufacture compatible products. Not many small developers or start-ups. It's proprietary because NMEA owns the spec and restricts access to members. Non-members must pay a higher fee to license the spec. If Gary's wife wants to write a piece of code for her laptop and integrate it into Four Suns navigation system, she can lookup the necessary sentence structure on the 'net and get what she needs. She would be stuck it Four Suns had NMEA 2000 equipment.

Best regards,
Frank

 

[Four Suns]

That would be a waste of money for you, me, or my wife because:

I daresay the same luddites bitching about this couldn't make heads or tails of it even if it WERE free. But they'll whinge about anything they don't understand.

Need to get back to my Sponge Bob Square Pants show... Mr. Crabs has a new crabby patty recipe he is trying out and Mr. Plankton who owns the Chum Bucket across the street may get the old recipe.

 

[CSR_Admin]

That is a pretty impressive list. Don't think Westerbeke would be able to integrate with anything via nmea 0183, now with nmea2000 you can integrate your generator data onto the network. Gary's wife is lucky, aside from being married to such an esteemed individual, she doesn't have to write any code for nmea 2000 to integrate a laptop, just buy a nmea 2000 gateway and instantly her laptop is connected and can share anything on the network. If she has the ability to write such code then her time is clearly worth more than the price to buy components to hook up the laptop. Only 5K to buy the complete specs and instantly a programmer has the keys to making all kinds of cool devices to plug into the network. I must be completely missing your argument, now you have me confused!

 

[Turtlesboat]

...because you get the whole album if you buy a CD, vs. just the songs you want. Didn't Apple just surpass Walmart as the #1 seller of music?

Sorry for the thread creep...

No, Walmart holds the top spot, best buy #2, Itunes #3. Of the top 5, iTunes is the only digital only retailer with a 10% market share.

 

[Four Suns]

That is a pretty impressive list. Don't think Westerbeke would be able to integrate with anything via nmea 0183, now with nmea2000 you can integrate your generator data onto the network. Gary's wife is lucky, aside from being married to such an esteemed individual, she doesn't have to write any code for nmea 2000 to integrate a laptop, just buy a nmea 2000 gateway and instantly her laptop is connected and can share anything on the network. If she has the ability to write such code then her time is clearly worth more than the price to buy components to hook up the laptop. Only 5K to buy the complete specs and instantly a programmer has the keys to making all kinds of cool devices to plug into the network. I must be completely missing your argument, now you have me confused!

Wow... no code to write to interpret and display the data and how to push stuff and read stuff off the wire... I'm impressed. Just hook it to a laptop and magic pixie dust happens and it works. This really is a miracle... Do I have to wear a mind reading helmet so it knows what I want to see on the laptop or does it just do that automatically also? Will it work with an iPhone? Will my chartplotter know my browser history?

Seriously, the wire and the protocol are not "enablers" here... At least I haven't seen anything to show that. We are just talking about pushing numbers/sentences around on a network and you can do pretty much anything with either NMEA 0183 or 2000 (I assume).... You are not going to push video out on 0183 but on the surface, that's not what 2000 is about either. NMEA 0183 does not prevent custom made instruments (such as a Westerbeke) from throwing data on the wire. I seriously doubt there is less code to write... just different code... oh wait.... you have to buy the specs to do it! But I'm too stupid anyway...

 

[Turtlesboat]

Mercury Marine has a version of it called Smartcraft which is proprietary, they will not give out the info to anybody so it won't work with anything else. Even regular NMEA0183 has different baud rates to contend with, it just was not a pleasant way to integrate different brands, but it did work relatively well most of the time.

Is there something that will take smartcraft data and integrate it into nmea2000?

 

[Four Suns]

Is there something that will take smartcraft data and integrate it into nmea2000?

Dude! Just plug it in and it'll work!!!!

 

[Turtlesboat]

Seriously, it's all so confusing.

 

[Four Suns]

Well... you might need a gateway but if you put on your "NMEA 2000 Code Generation Pixie Helmet", it'll configure itself... just find any gateway that has the correct plug on it.