NMEA colours

Bigmuz7 · 07 July 2008, 20:02

Trying to connect a Yeoman plotter to a lap top and give it a GPS signal from a Raymarine GPS pickup (small white mushroom type). Its on a yacht, and I dont know what Raymarine unit it is, but there are 4 wires coming from it white, purple and black, cant remember the 4th colour.. (green

)

Question, does NMEA have a colour standard ? or has the original installer of 8 years or so ago just used a handy bit of 4 core ? cos I need to know which way to conect up to the 232 to usb interface to let the laptop get a gps position to work the plotter, I have another way of doing this, but would prefer to hook into the ships original gps receiver

Poly · 07 July 2008, 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigmuz7

Question, does NMEA have a colour standard ?

nah that would make life too easy!

Chris · 07 July 2008, 22:31

No chance even when you buy a new plotter and a new VHF they have different colour coding for the NMEA interface.

Generally there is one wire for transmit, one for recieve then a common wire which may well be the braided outer bit.

You need to dog up on old user manual to check whats what.

Nasher · 07 July 2008, 22:38

Bigmuz

I thought perhaps you were talking about a Raymarine Raystar 125, but the wires coming out of that would be different colours. Red, yellow, Brown, green, and the shield.

The Technical sections of Raymarines website are very good with handbooks and installation guides available to download for lots of older models of kit.
It may take some time to find, but its probably there somewhere.

Good luck

Nasher.

codprawn · 07 July 2008, 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polwart

nah that would make life too easy!

Especially when Navman mix up their colours!!!

Bigmuz7 · 07 July 2008, 22:46

The original installer has wired some kind of buz bar for gps use which commons two colours, and has replicated these dual sets about six times on a multiblock connector .. Does NMEA only require 2 signals for a GPS position or more ?

Nasher · 07 July 2008, 23:10

In theory you need a +ve NMEA out and a -ve NMEA out from the sending gear connected to a +ve NMEA in and -ve NMEA in from the receiving gear.

So you should only need 2 wires from the GPS unit for the NMEA.
However the Raymarine unit is probably an active unit, so also requires a 12V +ve and -ve to run.

Nasher

Bigmuz7 · 07 July 2008, 23:37

OK thanks Nasher & guys.. I'll have another go at this one

Poly · 08 July 2008, 00:00

Muz, just to confuse things a bit more - are you certain its running in NMEA mode - some of these can be set up to run SeaTalk (different standard for doing much the same thing) as well.

Bigmuz7 · 08 July 2008, 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polwart

Muz, just to confuse things a bit more - are you certain its running in NMEA mode - some of these can be set up to run SeaTalk (different standard for doing much the same thing) as well.

Full marks Polwart....

it was sea Talk after all..

Once we'd worked out what the auto helm was doing

.. things started making sense plus .. the charting dongle /interface for the yeoman was wired wrong

GRR why couldnt simple standards or colours be adhered to.. it would make so much more sense

Cookee · 09 July 2008, 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigmuz7

: GRR why couldnt simple standards or colours be adhered to.. it would make so much more sense

MikeCC · 09 July 2008, 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigmuz7

GRR why couldnt simple standards or colours be adhered to.. it would make so much more sense

Give it another 10 years and everything will be plug n play with NMEA 2000.

Amazing to think that with the advances in electronics and the relatively straightfoward connectivity in the PC market that no-one thought to include plug-compatability into NMEA 0183 (or indeed didn't make the standard so good that proprietary systems weren't needed).

Poly · 09 July 2008, 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeCC

Amazing to think that with the advances in electronics and the relatively straightfoward connectivity in the PC market that no-one thought to include plug-compatability into NMEA 0183 (or indeed didn't make the standard so good that proprietary systems weren't needed).

Ahh but thats not how these standards come about. They are agreed by committees where everyone (or at least most people) have to agree from various manufacturers. On the otherhand in the PC world, a small number of big guys can force a de-facto standard. There isn't one dominant supplier of marine electronics to do that.

geoffs · 13 July 2008, 19:57

Yeoman wire colours:

White NMEA in+
Blue NMEA in-
Green NMEA out+
Thin black NMEA out- and also battery -ve
Red 12v +ve

Now just need to know which RM unit you have and you will be set!