The Marine Electronics Hub
Bob Ebaugh got some GX2100 installation help over on the forum, and that gave me a chance to bug him for some more information on the interesting system he’s put together. Check it out above: two laptops connected wirelessly and simultaneously to MFD, AP, VHF/rxAIS, and Internet. Bob’s a pilot and ex-networking engineer who didn’t think he could write up the project well, but I think he did just fine…
I remember getting excited about Solomon Systems’ regenerating electric sail boat motors at the 2004 Annapolis show, but I never hear about the technology today. Then in late 2006 I got stoked about the Ossa Powerlite diesel electric system, and even dreamed of having one in a Maine Cat P45 (which went on to become the great P47). But Maine Cat dropped the idea after testing it on the prototype, and the Ossa web site today shows about the same few customers it showed back then. Designing a truly practical electric drive system for cruising-size boats, great as it sounds, is clearly not easy. However, Nigel Calder did his homework on these systems all along — and often was properly skeptical when others, like me, were infatuated — and now he’s put together an A list of companies and earned a $3,000,000 EU grant to develop hybrid marine propulsion. How cool is that?
Patrick Walters had two good ideas. First, he used Maretron’s N2KBuilder to prototype a network for his Pearson 424 ketch Deep Playa (which he blogs about here). Then he sent the .n2b file (downloadable here) with the thought that he and other Panbo readers might benefit from our comments on it. I have a few…
NMEA 2000 has been working well on Gizmo this summer, making it easy to get heading, wind, depth, GPS, and more to all the MFD systems I’ve been testing. AIS over N2K has some issues, but then again the Garmin VHF 200 is good evidence of what’s possible. However, I’ve just begun to explore how NMEA 2000 can integrate Gizmo’s engine, tanks, batteries, and other non-navigational systems. A few weeks ago, for instance, I plugged an Albatross demo case into the boat’s backbone to see how data from those three Analog Adaptors above would display…
Guest Entry by Dan Corcoran — Above is a picture of a Maretron field attachable connector that I have installed on Breeze Pleeze at the end of a Raymarine spur cable. The connector provided me a reliable...
Actually I like to slice bread myself these days, but, man-o-man, Maretron’s latest gift to the world of NMEA 2000 is one brilliant invention. N2KBuilder — which is free, and downloadable right now — would be handy if it just let you easily mock up a proposed network. But it does much, much more than that. As you drag and drop cables, connectors, and devices, N2KBuilder keeps an eye on total cable lengths, amperage loads, and the resulting voltage drops, and alarms you if you’re over the limits. It also keeps track of backbone integrity and plug genders, and all the while builds a system database from which it can produce various valuable reports, and even a bill of materials (BOM)…
Guest entry by Dan Corcoran —
Breeze Pleeze has received nearly half of her new NMEA 2000 backbone, actually two of them, and I thought I would describe the thinking behind my network design.
I love this photo. It may look messy, but not only is one man’s fine N2K+++ yacht system being tested here, but the standard itself is getting explored, possibly to the benefit of many boaters. This is Kees Verruijt’s attic somewhere in the Netherlands and, as explained on his new Yacht Electronics blog, that Commodore PET is the “PC” he first learned programming on back in 1979. The rest of the gear is going on Merrimac II, a Stadship 56 now under construction that Kees and his family have obviously put a lot of thought into. Kees wants to extend the usefullness of his NMEA 2000 data system, even to his iPhone, and he’s had to go to some serious trouble to do so…
I have no idea why Bob Congdon, former U.S. Sales Manager for B&G, is now working for Euro Marine Trading, the U.S. distributor for NKE…and I question the ravings at Sailing Anarchy on the...
I’m once again way behind on testing borrowed products, and my apologies to all manufacturers involved. The Airmar PB200 Weather Station dissembled above is a case in point. I mentioned how well it feeds NMEA 2000 data to the lab network back in February, and Dan Corcoran shared his beta testing experience before that, but there’s a lot more to say. For instance, I didn’t really understand how it delivered both NMEA 0183 and 2000 data — did it use one of the various junction boxes available to translate from one protocol to the other? — until I got my hands on the sample. Now I know that the PB200 flat out does it all! …
