Migration to Raymarine SEATALKng

[PeteW]

The Raymarine people march to the beat of a different drummer, specifically.. their own. While the rest of the marine electronics business has gone to the standard NMEA2000, Raymarine maintains their trademark  high level of obfuscation by conjuring up Seatalkng. NG is a hybrid interface specification that has both NMEA2000 and the older NMEA0183 (Setatalk) bundled up into the same physical interface. They also introduced a custom and rather slick way with a custom connector of integrating a complete NG backbone; ready to by populated with thousands of dollars of new spiffy color displays.

My goal was to get an NG backbone up and running so I could integrate a single i70 Multifunction display into my boat which is entirely Seatalk1 (NMEA0183) without spending thousands of dollars. My first task was to get the NMEA0183 GPS sentences bridged over to NMEA2000 without spending $400 on a new smart GPA antenna. Instead I wanted to integrate a GARMIN GPS antenna that I pickup up at a flea market. To do this I found a used Actisense NGW-1 Gateway device for $125. This device receives NMEA0183 data that come in at 4800 BPS and re-clocks that data onto the NMEA2000 bidirectional data bus at 38400 BPS all while avoiding data collisions. Unlike 0183, NMEA2000 can have many talkers and listeners.  The Actisense device also operates in both directions so it is a true gateway. To get GPS data onto the NG backbone I am only using it in one direction. Here is my test setup.

The i70 MFD has a custom display to show 6 bits a pertinent GPS related data points. You can program the i70 with up to 8 custom displays for anything that other than graphics. So its not a chartplotter.
Here's a schematic of how its wired up.

When you purchase the Actisense device you need to specify your application so it can be programmed to the correct baud rates. Mine wasn't and that required me to download a flash bootloader application that runs on a laptop along with a USB to RS422 dongle. If you're a computer nerd its pretty straight forward. But the Flash Bootloader app seemed a bit dodgy. The CRC checksum calculator bombed out and indicated a failure. But there really wasn't a problem.

The Raymarine NMEA0183 Seatalk converter outputs (output only) Raymarine NMEA0183, seatalk1 in the required 12V level transitions. So that can be sent to legacy ST60 displays.

PeteW

[PeteW]

The next piece of equipment to be integrated onto the SEATALKng backbone is this Raymarine X-10 Smartpilot Course Computer. I pulled to cover off the electronics to take a look and its all fin-pitch surface mount conponnents. One drop of condensation in there and its toast. So I figure the only safe place to mount this sensitive electronic computer is inside the main salon. I opted for under the chart table.



Although I have an ITC-5 I ran the rudder position indicator and the fluxgate compass directly to the X-10. If you have any legacy Seatalk equipment the X-10 will bridge it. I connected the Madman Marine WiFi autopilot remote control unit to the Seatalk terminal and it works fine.

My autopilot display it the Raymarine P70.

Pete