Buoy Scout

I am working on a new electronics installation and have a couple questions that Garmin tech support can’t seem to handle. Hoping someone here can.

I have two Garmin 4210 mfds, and five MNEA 0183 devices. (DSC, AIS, Heading sensor, autopilot, GPS receiver). The 4210s have 5 ports each. The manual says to hook them all to one mfd. I was going to connect 3 to one mfd and 2 to the other mfd, using ports 1,2 and 3 on one mfd and 5 and 6 on the second mfd.

Garmin tech support says this is OK, but the mfds won’t share AIS or DSC data across the Garmin Ethernet network.

Q1. The manual says to connect all 0183 devices to one display. Is this necessary?

Q2. Is it true that DSC and AIS data will not be shared across both displays? It is on my 3xxx series network on my other boat. Is the 4xxx series less capable in this regard? I find that hard to believe, but that’s what Garmin tech support told me. (I think they are confusing the N2K network with the Garmin Ethernet network).

Q3. Are the five NMEA 0183 ports shared between the two networked plotters? Or do I really have 10 ports available?

bonus Question: I will also have a NMEA 0183 intelliducer connected to a GMI-10 on the N2K backbone. I assume depth data is shared across N2K to both MFDs? (this is in addition to the GSD22 networked to the displays, and separately switched).

sajen

10 ports total, 5 each. Each 4210 will have : port 1 and 2 are TX and RCV. 3 and 4 are RCV only, then you have 1 port dedicated for a GPS antenna.

Per the link below, Depth info will xfer from 0183 through the NMEA 2000 network.

As far as what information gets shared where? Don't think there is a list of data shared on their marine network but for nmea information they had this article(page loads wierd, may need to scroll down) :
https://support.garmin.com/support/s...-000000000000}

captcdub

To answer the bonus question, as long as your one of your chartplotters is hooked up to the NMEA 2k backbone, it will transmit water depth across the garmin marine network cables.
To answer the bulk of your post, i personally hooked up my AIS & VHF through NMEA 2k and dont have a problem, But if your trying to hook them up using NMEA 0183, you may want to hook them up to both chartplotters. I know the 4000 through 7000 series chartplotters run on a different version of the marine network than the 3000 series. So it may be possible that it worked on your previous setup (3000 series) but wont work on the newer chartplotters. At the end of the day I guess you'll know when you hook it up the way you describe, and it will either work or it wont. Cheers

alwayssomewhere

Q1&Q2: on installation manual, "NMEA 0183 devices must all be wired to one chartplotter on the network. The data is then shared over the network to other connected chartplotters."

Bonus question：As far as I know, GMI10 can not format NMEA0183 to NMEA2000, while 4210 can. Maybe you should connect intelliducer to one 4210, it will format depth data to NMEA2000 data，then GMI10 can share depth data over NMEA2K network. On Owner's Manual, "You can turn on, configure, or turn of output bridging. Output bridging occurs when a chartplotter takes NMEA 0183 data it receives from any source, formats it into NMEA 2000 data, and sends it over the NMEA 2000 bus.".

Buoy Scout

OK, so I can wire all the devices to one chartplotter, as well as the intelliducer. That makes 6 devices:

1. DSC (plotter transmit and receive),
2. AIS (plotter receive only--(it's a receive only AIS))
3. Intelliducer (plotter receive only)
4. KVH compass/heading sensor (plotter receive only)
5. Autopilot (older Robertson unit--plotter transmit only)
6. GPS17 receiver, dedicated port.

Can one port listen to more than one device? For example, can 2 and 3 share the same receive port on the plotter? I understood that you can have multiple listeners to a single talker but not the other way around.

If I can't double up on the ports, then can I use the transmit only output of the second plotter to drive the autopilot?

I did not have these issues on my other boat since I did not have a heading sensor and the autopilot was not interfaced to the plotters. AIS, DSC, GPS were all run to different plotters on the network and everthing was shared.

alwayssomewhere

I don't think one port can listen to more than one device, but one port can talk to three devices.

You can the output of any plotter to drive the autopilot.

LI32

You can use three listeners per port (which receive data transmitted out from the 4210), but only 1 talker (data it sends in to the 4210).
I know on my 4212's it shares NMEA 0183 receive data (in my case ais and dsc-vhf (inbound), but I can send NMEA 0183 data from the non-connected unit - so my Icom M504 and Simrad autopilot can only be controlled from the unit they are connected to. All of mine are on the same 4212, just because that is the unit I, 99% of the time, run as my chartplotter - the other unit is usually sonar, radar or XM weather.

From what you lay out, you have four talkers that will send data to the 4210 and two listeners that receive - one of those does both (VHF), so all four will fit on one 4210 if you chose, so long as that is the one you want to send info from your auto-pilot with and also control your DSC-VHF -just make sure the autopilot is on a normal speed 0183 output - the AIS will need a high speed port setting. So if you set the DSC radio (in & out) to port 1, autopilot (out) and KVH (in) to port 2, AIS (in) to port 3, and intelliducer (in) to port 4, you will be all set.

Buoy Scout

I like the suggestion to split port 2 into a listener and a talker. I hadn't thought of doing that. Thank you.

As for sharing data, does DSC and AIS data show up on both of your plotters or only the one you have connected to these devices?

I often run with both plotters on different scales--one zoomed in for details, the other zoomed out for the big picture as I'm running a route. Sometimes weather on the small scale (zoomed out) and sometimes with radar overlay on one or the other. So it's nice to see AIS and DSC targets on both. Or do I need to connect AIS and DSC to both plotters to see this? My 3000 series network shares this data.

Birdman

That is not what he meant. A NMEA port can't do both.

LI32

Yes it can - so long as both connections are the same speed. All NMEA data is, is standardized sentances - it matters not whether in comes from one NMEA source and goes out to another - it is only if the external unit is both a talker and listener that they need be on the same port.

As for the sharing DSC data from the radio and AIS data will show up on both plotter so long as you have NMEA 0183 bridging set to on and both plotters are connected to the NMEA 2000 backbone; you cannot send data to the DSC radio from the non-attached chart plotter.

Birdman

HUH??? I think you are referring to "port" the wrong way. If you mean on "NMEA 1 - In" and on "NMEA 1 - Out", that is ok. But you can not have a NMEA IN and OUT connected to another device which is just a NMEA IN. Gabbish? Or you can say it this way, you need a minimun of 3 wires connected (an in, an out and at least one ground) to do both.

Buoy Scout

I'm interpreting his suggestion as Port 1 out and Port 1 in connected to two different devices.