C120 and Fluxgate Compass

stainlesteve · 26 November 2006, 19:03

Does anyone know how to connect a Raymarine Fluxgate compass sensor direct to a C120?

codprawn · 26 November 2006, 19:22

Try Raymarine's technical support - I have found them most helpful in the past.

What problems are you having - the manual looks pretty straightforward to me.

stainlesteve · 26 November 2006, 20:18

I've looked at Fluxgate wiring and I think they do not translate to either NMEA or Seatalk, I'm not sure if you have to fit the head unit which I don't want to do.

jwalker · 26 November 2006, 22:09

I don't have your setup but, if it's any help, I do have a Ray fluxgate talking to a Ray plotter/radar and the heading information travels over Seatalk.

codprawn · 26 November 2006, 22:14

Which fluxgate system do you have?

jwalker · 26 November 2006, 23:12

It's a fluxgate which is part of my Sportpilot auto-pilot system. It can talk over NMEA and Seatalk but heading info only travels over the Seatalk bus.

codprawn · 26 November 2006, 23:21

Ahh I meant the original poster sorry.

jwalker · 26 November 2006, 23:33

Oops...

stainlesteve · 27 November 2006, 20:03

I'm told you cannot do it, you need a processing head so cheapest solution is to buy a ST 40 Compass system and fit that. Cheers

Nasher · 27 November 2006, 20:32

Hi

I believe you are correct, the C series and E series displays are basically set up as GPS Plotters and need seperate control units for any other purpose.

I might be being daft, but what exactly are you trying to achieve? as the Fluxgate compass is usually used to drive another system such as an autopilot or instrument array. The GPS will give you all the directional information you should need.

I can ask at work(Raymarine) but will need to know what you want to achieve.

Nasher.

codprawn · 27 November 2006, 21:02

A fluxgate compass is needed for Radar when using MARPA to give better accuracy.

Nasher · 27 November 2006, 21:51

Ah....OK

Of course the Radar doesn't need seatalk or other additional 'unit' to communicate with a C series so there is no input option.

I believe that Raymarine recomend using their gyro enhanced Smart Heading sensor to give the best radar overlay and MARPA performance. Its probably a Fluxgate compass with some additional software to give some direct compatability with the Display.
But its another £660

Nasher.