T&T: Fw: nmea expanders (long)

[Larry N. Brown]

> As with anything involving boats, I was forced to learn more than I ever 
> wanted to about tying different NMEA devices together. I've spent the 
> waning days of 2008 on the phone to the local Furuno dealer, the Furuno 
> techies on an 800 number and, of course, the list. There are many possible 
> setups and solutions but here's mine.
>
> As I described my situation, I wanted to have the Furuno 1700C tied in as 
> a talker and listener to the laptop. ( by the way, my "laptop" is a second 
> hand Dell Dimension small form desktop with RS-232 port) I purchased a 
> cable with the chart plotter plug on one end and an RS-232 9 pin D plug on 
> the other from Furuno. This adapter connects the two devices' signal wires 
> and ground.
>
> The Furuno chart plotter is connected to a superb GPS but the presentation 
> is far inferior to the CAPN on the Dell, driven by a Deluo USB antenna. 
> Also, it is very time consuming to enter a route.
>
> As I understand it, the CAPN used to export routes directly to chart 
> plotters but they removed this capability a few versions back. Most 
> recently, they've added a command that saves their proprietary route files 
> into a more universal .dbx file. Here's how it works. You click on routes 
> and the command display or export routes. As usual, the list of routes 
> appears. Hit save all routes as .dbx files and it takes every route you've 
> ever constructed and saves a bunch of nameless files in a special .dbx 
> folder with a date/time stamp in lieu of a name.
>
> Enter a free program called GPS Utility. Use it to upload the .dbx to the 
> Furuno chart plotter. First 5 or 10 times, it was funky; now it's easy. 
> Evening before, in my lower Nav station, I can plan the route on my 
> desktop and upload it via LAN cable to the FB nav computer and upload that 
> to the chart plotter. I now have the same route on two separate displays 
> with separate antennas. Mirabile dictu! So far so good.
>
> But I also have 3 devices which would like to eavesdrop- the auto pilot, 
> the DSC able VHF and the FloScan fuel flow gauges to enable their MPG 
> function. I think it's possible to just parallel all the listeners and 
> feed it from the chartplotter; it has the horse power to do it but, as a 
> Furuno techie pointed out, there's always a possibility of screwing up and 
> smoking a port. So. . .
>
> Several people manufacture opto-isolated "expanders", the NoLand XP-15 
> being one of them. At $155, if it saves a $300 VHF, it's paid for itself. 
> I gladly sprang for one. I route the gps talker signal to the xp-15 and 
> from there to the listeners. The laptop talk wire is routed directly to 
> the chart plotter. In a pinch, I can use the chart plotter gps as a backup 
> for the CAPN.
>
> On a separate subject, I finished installing the FloScan FF system 
> yesterday and sea trialed it in the late afternoon. As Rich Gano would 
> say: kewl. My boat's fuel flow/speed came out darn close to my 
> calculations. The bottom's not just real clean so the numbers could 
> improve a little. I love the system and that being said, if I did it 
> again, it would be easy as falling off a tight rope but the first time. . 
> .whew. Put it this way, FloScan's literature is not oriented to the casual 
> installer. Anyone interested can contact me offline.
>
> To each and every one of you, I wish a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
>
> Regards,
>
> Larry and Teri
> M/V Cigano, 47' Prairie Sundeck Cruiser
> Lying: 64 Cypress Road
>          Covington, LA . . .but not for much longer
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Ron Rogers" <rcrogers6 at kennett.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 2:17 AM
> To: "'Steven Dubnoff'" <sdubnoff at circlesys.com>; "'Larry N. Brown'" 
> <cigano55 at hotmail.com>
> Cc: "'trawlers & Trawlering List'" 
> <trawlers-and-trawlering at lists.samurai.com>
> Subject: RE: T&T: nmea expanders
>
>> Rich, it looks like you have connected more than 3 devices to your GPS
>> output. Is that correct?
>>
>> I see that Ben Ellison (Panbo) is using a Noland isolator/multiplexor.
>>
>> Ron Rogers