Simrad instruments

[witzgall]

Originally Posted by brak

IS12 does not have any NMEA support natively but has special repeater-instrument that does the translation.


IS12 is definitely discontinued and IS15 seems to be discontinued too.

Well, back to Raymarine then.

---IS12 has NMEA 2000 suuport, but no NMEA 0183 support.

[artbyjody]

Also note that there are multiplexers on the market that can take NMEA 2000 and 0183 and interject each other into whatever version network by doing the bit conversion. The only real difference in NMEA 2000 is that it supports duplex sentences, has a bit more robust langauge, and is generally 100 mbits, where NMEA 0183 is half duplex, and can only support bauds up to 48,000 (i think) and is considered a more serial versus Ethernet network. Most of what NMEA outputs can be read by NMEA 2000, and the same goes for the other direction - except that if its not NMEA 0183 definition, it simply gets dropped.

NMEA 2000 is more of an investment as it is based on the early PC network structures where termination was used to create local networks and units had to be precisely coupled into the system. You'll be fine with NMEA 0183 - its simple to install and understand. However, anything High Definition like Radar etc, can not be "shared" on such network - which is ok because most vendors allow direct attachment to their displays without having to have the NMEA backbone to swap.

The only real usage of NMEA 2000 currently, is if you have multiple displays that you want to share radar, dsm, video to other remote displays. OR, you want to take a high definition component such as the Raymarine HD radar and integrate it with your NMEA 2000 compliant Lowrance, Simrad, or Garmin display.

So, do not let NMEA 0183 stop you from purchasing - its the simplest and cheapest route to go for a standalone system, and NMEA 0183 instruments can be used for the most part with brand independence and later integrated into a NMEA 2000 network if you desire at a later time.

[brak]

I am not a big fan of repackaged coax ethernet (aka NMEA2000) - I had enough of that back 15 years ago As a network developer (among other things) I don't really care for ethernet on the boat at all and would prefer serial communication any day. The less the bandwith - the less probability of problems in transmission and interference.

So, I am all for NMEA0183.

The thing is - none of these instruments seem to be able to talk NMEA0183 without an external box (except perhaps IS15 - but I haven't figured that out quite yet)

[artbyjody]

Originally Posted by brak

The thing is - none of these instruments seem to be able to talk NMEA0183 without an external box (except perhaps IS15 - but I haven't figured that out quite yet)

Most of all the new Simrad stuff (1999+) is NMEA 0183 compliant and in some cases dual support. I have a WP-30 AP from Simrad - it is NMEA 0183 and I tie it into my otherwise Raymarine exclusive network - works just fine with course changes invoked via the systems...

Now, for the input and output - you do not need it - use a Pass-Thur (tm) box - to tie it together and you will have a hub - and will not need two instruments. If you want to do it cheap style - then you get bus bars - 5 of them - and you attach each of the individual nmea wires based on what it does to a specific bus. The combination of all will in effect create a hub that passes information across - but the pass-thru box is easier to use, and what I personally use. I use the bus bar for creating seatalk junctions, where it doesn't make sense to have long cable runs to connect various items...