Lowrance and NMEA 2000

Since Brunswick got rid of Northstar they no longer have a system that will read their smartcraft data, so industry folks are expecting them to release their code so it can be integrated. Who knows.....
 
the navman has smartcraft but not nmea2000? Or it just can't share the data? Not that I have a lot of systems to integrate, but it would be nice to start buying stuff that can be used down the line.
 
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Well Jim...

On the serious side, you should really think about bringing a van full of gear up to our BIH event and setting up an area for us to look and play with stuff and get to know this stuff better. What a better audience than ~30 big Sea Rays...

Bring manuals.
 
Perhaps I'm out of line here, but in my limited time of being on the board, it may be beneficial to all involved to sacrifice Gary and save the goat.
 
Are you any closer to deciding on a system? :huh:

I decided what I wanted the system to do for me.

Fish finder, Chart plotter, Radar and Fuel monitoring with a future auto pilot.

I started by looking at each main function and deciding what I liked and didn’t like about the main players in my price range. Started several spreadsheets and kept a running total for all the pieces from each vendor with likes and dislikes and prices.

I stuck with a single vendor to limit the compatibility and interface issues of cross vendor product system integration. I figured a single vendor stuff would work with its own stuff.

The auto pilot was dropped since I can not find a unit that will work with my cable drive power assist system.

Good luck.

Oh what other juicy threads have you started? :lol::lol::lol:
 
Got most of the equipment in.

Lowrance LCX 38C-HD combo package included 200 kHz Transducer and LGC-3000 GPS Antenna
Additional Accessories
2 EP-60 Fuel Sensors
1 kit for Bennett Trim Tabs position sensors.
Misc extension cables etc for transducers etc.
Total price was about 2k
The unit also supports Radar but I will not be adding that at this time. I'll be mounting the transducer in hull, and maybe next year might upgrade to a better transducer unit, although the fishfinder functions aren't critically high on my priority list. In the initial purchase, all the equipment is Lowrance, but I want the flexibility to add equipment from other manufacturers in the future.
I looked at the Northstar units and while they seemed nice and had Smartcraft connectivity (which my boat doesn't) I decided against them. I also had a sales rep at a store highly steer me away from the Northstar units. FWIW I haven't encountered a single manufacturer that someone hasn't said to stay away from. Whether it is the advice on the board here regarding the Lowrance or other sources I've encountered saying to stay away from Garmin, Northstar, Raymarine, Furuno etc. It seems that every manufacturer has a naysayer somewhere to rag on them.

Yesterday I setup a test network in the garage and powered everything up and it looks very nice so far. Now I just have to wait until next weekend when we go back to the boat and I can start installing everything. Since the boat is in San Diego and I live in Phoenix, I can't really go back and forth to tweak things so the "Plug and Play" type compatibility in the NMEA 2000 sensors was high on my list of requirements. While the discussion regarding 0183 vs 2000 was entertaining, and I would imagine there are some of us here on the board who would understand the specs if we had access to them, I have zero interest in the intracacies of the network involved. I just want something that is able to be supported by multiple vendors, and that has some intelligence in the network to be able to identify the sensors involved.

I'll update after next weekend when I get a chance to get it installed.
 
Man that’s quite the commute to go boating. Plan on some heavy grinding with a dremel tool and an angle grinder to get that old through hull transducer out if you need to. It was a lot more work than I planned on to replace my factory original with the Airmar.
 
admin said:
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!
Click to expand...

Since it's only $5K, I'll send you my address, and you can send me the 5 grand? OK? Even better, I'll be at BIH, you can bring, cash? Right?

The point isn't that it doesn't work. The point is barrier to market entry. After you get (read: buy) the spec, build, debug, and test some device, then you get to pay NMEA once again for certification. What joy!

Best regards,
Frank C
 
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fc3 said:
...then you get to pay NMEA once again for certification. What joy!
Click to expand...

And as long as it delivers the same plug-and-play success as existing NMEA2k gear then the customers are the winners. Honestly, given how inexpensive most of the NMEA2K devices are, and from the wide range of vendors, it's silly to keep whining about specs and barriers to entry. That dog won't hunt.
 
If you have some cool NMEA2000 devices on the brain I'll gladly give you 5K to get started. I can sell 5K in nmea2000 stuff in a phone call. 5K for a company that has the resources to mass produce electronics devices is nothing. Would you rather that anybody can build nmea2000 stuff then the consumer has to fish their way through the good stuff and the bad? 5K lol
 
wkearney99 said:
And as long as it delivers the same plug-and-play success as existing NMEA2k gear then the customers are the winners. Honestly, given how inexpensive most of the NMEA2K devices are, and from the wide range of vendors, it's silly to keep whining about specs and barriers to entry. That dog won't hunt.
Click to expand...

Your dog may not hunt (it's probably a toy poodle anyway) but I'll give you a little example just so I can whine and be silly.

I spent about 5 hours today out of shear boredom reading through NMEA 2K vendor products and papers and prices. I guess that now makes me an expert because I moved beyond "Boating Magazine". I was so intrigued by Jim's "hook up the generator" idea, I had to learn more. I am tired of poking my head under the stairs going to the bridge to see the generator gauges.... wouldn't it be great to display this on the boat's marine PC on the bridge or even put some of this stuff on the network so I could write some code for my iPhone...

Maretron N2KView software allows me to display the values on the N2K network on my PC... List price = $3000.00. HOLY POOP! It has a hardware dongle so you can't demo it either. I thought someone said I could just plug my laptop in and it would work!? You forgot to mention the 3 grand. The sensors? You have to have Maretron displays or the software to configure Maretron sensors... And those gateways and sensors are not cheap...

The point is, no one in the open source world is going to develop something to simply view NMEA 2K data on a PC because you are going to have a ~$10K barrier just to see if it works.... so you can't "give it away" which in turn leads to less competition for Maretron. My Rosepoint Navigation software (Coastal Explorer) displays NMEA 0183 sentences and that was "only" $600.... and it's a great chartplotter/planner also.

I'm intrigued by the whole thing. NMEA 2K to Ethernet bridges, however, are all proprietary at the moment and if there was an "open" one, you could get data over the Internet and monitor your systems/boat... and you can do that IF you stick with a single vendor (network server and clients appear to have to come from the same company as whatever is coming over TCP/IP is proprietary)... No different than the high-end NMEA 0183 systems that have been out for years for Megayachts like from Palladium. Getting data out from my QSM-11's using Maretron appears to be possible... I also learned how the redundant GPS (and other) sensors work conceptually but sensor configuration from different vendors is a big big issue in that case. It seems to come up over and over in the literature than sensor configuration is not multi-vendor supported and that issue has to be resolved for this to really be "plug and play".

A lot of things come from hobbyists messing with new technology and this does stop that from happening... The whole iPhone thing we discussed in another post (the one Mr. Kearny ragged on iPhones and Apple) would be very cool with NMEA 2000 as you could basically turn and iPhone into something like a Crestron display for home automation but for your boat.... So I think that's a cool idea and I would appreciate the $5K initial investment. I'll send you the company name to make it out to....

Now I need to go wake up my Golden Retrievers and tell them they can't hunt.

Does your dog even like you? Did your parents have to tie a steak around your neck when you were a kid so the dog would play with you?
 
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wkearney99 said:
And as long as it delivers the same plug-and-play success as existing NMEA2k gear then the customers are the winners. Honestly, given how inexpensive most of the NMEA2K devices are, and from the wide range of vendors, it's silly to keep whining about specs and barriers to entry. That dog won't hunt.
Click to expand...

Bill, did the manufacturers absorb those costs or is it more likely they passed them on to the consumer? What purpose was served by the costs?
 
I understand the open source thing loud and clear. In my whole life of boating and 6 years of specifically selling marine electronics I have never seen an open source nmea0183 gadget that somebody has brought to the market. So you are really arguing about something that may be encountered by somebody somewhere, but in general doesn't exist.

Vessel view is pricey, there will be lots of new software packages like that coming to the market now that nmea2000 is the standard. Albatross from overseas also has a similar program. $3K shouldn't be much for you, isn't that about the price of a fill-up on your boat?
 
Ohh, and Gary, if you do pull the trigger on a N2K part you better get the pastic ready as you will get addicted. You are a gadget guy like me, I have both of my boats decked out in it, engine sensors, fluid level sensors, fuel flow sensors, displays, etc. It could get painful on your boat.
 
Sooo.... we all know why *JIM* likes it now...

From my days in the software world, a $5K fee to license an API, become a partner, etc. is called a nuisance fee. If NMEA gets 200 companies at 5K that is only $1M which is enough for maybe 6 employees for 1 year? Hardly enough to "run their business" on. Looking at their Website it appears they have far less than that in the program. It does, however, keep the really small guy (i.e. single developer/hobbyist) out (i.e. the "nuisance") and the certification process prevents someone from just dumping something on the network. My guess is that because a bus topology (just plug it into the backbone) is essentially a "trusting" network design, they don't want any joe-schmo sticking something on the network and crapping it up. I am not always referring to "gadgets" but software one would write on a computer and mess with the NMEA 2K network... Such as just writing a display package...

Jim? You still sending me my $5K to start my new business? You skipped that part in your response... Oh.. and maybe you could sell me N2Kview at a really really deep discount so I'll stop making fun of Kearny and his dog (referring to "pet" and not "boat").
 
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I've been in Florida boating for the last 2 weeks and have checked the CSR forum, this thread in particular, early or late every so often to see who is calling who what, who has spoken with less than the all the facts, and who, if anyone has been censored.

A thought has come to me that I wanted to ask about...........just how important is it to be NMEA 2000 compliant? I am probably typical of most everyone here..my boat is 10+ years old, my electronics are the same age, I have nothing networked and no dual purpose displays. My engines are bullet proof mechanical diesels that have analog gauges that you read by glancing at them instead of punching buttons. I have 2 plotters and a separate GPS (2 differential and one WAAS) all interfaced to the radar and autopilot with NMEA 0183 cables and the system is accurate enough that I have to disengage the AP to steer around sea bouys that are arrival way points or I'll run over them.

Is NMEA 2000 that important ?.......What will it do for me since I'm not about to change electronics that work as well as mine do?.....or is this an exercise for those who are early adopters of new electronics or for computer guys who are also boaters and for folks who are setting up new electronics.....which thanks to sea Ray's making Raymarine the default option on their boats seems to be everyone with a 3-4 year old boat?
 
I thought it was one of the franks that wanted me to send him $5K. You want $5K too? Oh boy, I messed that one up, you are going to have to ask him to forward the $5K over to you. I actually sent him a $10K check because that is all I had, with instructions to write me a $5K check back and he keep the other 5.
 
C'mon Frank... No one is calling anyone names... We just all stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. And even though I have NEVER plugged in an NMEA 2K product, I am now *the* expert because I read a review in Power and Motoryacht Magazine.
 
I also think Frank W. is just jealous because he knows I'll put an NMEA 2000 display in my master head and I can get rid of the cheap-o holding tank LED monitor and then I can, not only see the holding tank level, but see engine data while I'm taking a poop. Don't get any better than that!
 
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