Extending NMEA 2000 to VHF radio

J

jagizzi

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Apr 17, 2017
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Fluid Motion Model
C-242 C
Non-Fluid Motion Model
R-23, July 3rd delivery, yippee
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Next Ten
I am trying to get the GPS from the Garmin 7610 to the Standard Horizon radio and have the wiring diagram that seems to reference NMEA 0183 connections. Basically connecting color coded wires from the radio to the Garmin. Sounds easy, not so far.

The radio wires are pretty easy to find and color coding matches expectation. I pulled the radio and voila, there they were tie wrapped neatly waiting for a connection, so far so good.

On to the Garmin. I went into the head and lowered the fuse panel to look at the back of the Garmin, easy to see but no wires sticking out waiting for me. I pulled the panel below that and accessed great bundles of wire but couldn't trace them out given the small hatch.

I then pulled the wall in the head, still pretty easy to do and can now trace the cables on the back of the Garmin. The only likely candidate is the NMEA 2000 cable but it runs to the autopilot, I think, and is connectorized on both ends. There are no loose unconnected wires from the back of the Garmin. Where are folks making this connection?

I know that this has been done as folks talk about it, but how was it done? Any ideas out there. Is the old wiring diagram obsolete with NMEA 2000?

At a loss here and looking to see if anyone has done this already. I may be out of luck as it seems that the factory is now doing this for folks but I sure do want to have DSC call capability and the emergency call capability with broadcast coordinates.

Any one have any ideas on this?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Jim
 
Jim,
You peaked my interest, so I looked up NMEA 2000. I found this bit of info which refers to NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183 and states NMEA 2000 is an upgrade to NMEA 0183. Might be part of your problem? Be advised, I'm no tech know wizard.

"NMEA 2000 (IEC 61162-3) can be considered a successor to the NMEA 0183 (IEC 61162-1) serial data bus standard. It has a significantly higher data rate (250k bits/second vs. 4800 bits/second for NMEA 0183). It uses a compact binary message format as opposed to the ASCII serial communications protocol used by NMEA 0183. Another improvement is that NMEA 2000 supports a disciplined multiple-talker, multiple-listener data network whereas NMEA 0183 requires a single-talker, multiple-listener (simplex) serial communications protocol."
 
Hi, we have a 2012 R21EC that was equipped with a Garmin VHF 2000, and a GPSMAP 760 when we bought it in 2013. The NMEA interfaces were not connected. There is a lot of commercial tugboat& barge traffic passing near us, so I wanted to add an AIS transponder. We selected the EM-TRAK B100. To interconnect the three devices we started with a Garmin NMEA 2000 starter kit "https://buy.garmin.com/en-CA/CA/p/66030" and added a couple of cables as required. NMEA 2000 is a backbone architecture with multiple "T" connectors and dummy loads that allows several devices to be interconnected. It also needs DC power on one of backbone ports. The installation is neat and tidy and has worked solidly for since installed in 2013. AIS traffic is displayed on the GPS760, vessel traffic conflicts are raised as alarms on the GPS760, Present position is displayed on the VHF, GPS Time is displayed on the VHF and I presume the VHF emergency features will send position when activated.

I think we could have connected two of the three devices together using NMEA 183, but not more than two - I might be wrong - I started down the NMEA 183 path but diverted to NMEA 2000 when realized the installation would be simpler. I have a neighbour who connected a Garmin Chartplotter to an ICOM AIS receiver using NMEA 183 and it works well, but he has no interface to the VHF.

We don`t have an autopilot, so I cannot recommend changing your autopilot NMEA configuration, but it might be worth querying about installing a NMEA 2000 backbone, and connecting your aurtopilot, chartplotter, and VHF to the backbone.

Bill Baines
 
Thanks so far. I saw the Garmin info on there support pages which is what leads me to believe that the info I have is old. There is no port on the back of my Plotter labeled NMEA 0183, but there is one labeled NMEA 2000.

Hopefully I will get this worked out and then I'll write it up and post it for others.

Jim
 
The Garmin starter kit is the way to go as termintors are also required for nmea 2000. Also, the back bone has to be the top of the tee and add devices to the bottom of tee connectors if. That makes sense.
 
Jim,

The NMEA 0183 wires for the Garmin 7610 are part of the power cable. The installation manual indicates there are 2 NMEA 0183 outputs and 2 NMEA 0183 inputs. Wire color info is in the installation manual. If you use NMEA 0183 to supply GPS data your radio you would use one of the 7610 outputs.

Does your Standard Horizon radio support NMEA 2000? Not all radios do.

Howard
 
Thanks Howard, Ivan told me the same thing, and that it is simply a matter of going to the fuse panel and pull the wires from there. I will be on the boat today and will get this lined up

Jim
 
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