Help! Garmin Install, Smartcraft to NEMA2000 question.
04-29-2015, 09:08 AM
#1
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Thread Starter
Help! Garmin Install, Smartcraft to NEMA2000 question.
I need help installing this unit.
I’m installing a new Garmin 741XS in my 36’ Sunsation. The GPS install is pretty straight forward but I then decided to integrate the engine data into the Garmin. I ordered a NEMA2000 Gateway, and backbone starter kit. Once I opened the dash, I realized there is no J-Box in the boat, due to the custom wiring harness, so I ordered a J-Box and a short Mercury double female 10 pin harness to use to make my connections.
If I understand this correctly, I will need to use the following wires in my new harness to plug into the J-Box.
• Red – Battery
• Violet – Switched Power
• Black – Ground
• Blue – CAN-Hi
• White – CAN-Lo
The boat already has the Livorsi Vantage View Tachometers so the CAN Hi & L0 (Smartcraft data) wires run to gauges in the dash. I assume I can just tap the Smartcraft data at the back of the tachs, run it through into my custom plugs to the J-Box.
Does this sound correct or should I throw in the towel and start selling the spare parts??
Thanks in advance.
John
I’m installing a new Garmin 741XS in my 36’ Sunsation. The GPS install is pretty straight forward but I then decided to integrate the engine data into the Garmin. I ordered a NEMA2000 Gateway, and backbone starter kit. Once I opened the dash, I realized there is no J-Box in the boat, due to the custom wiring harness, so I ordered a J-Box and a short Mercury double female 10 pin harness to use to make my connections.
If I understand this correctly, I will need to use the following wires in my new harness to plug into the J-Box.
• Red – Battery
• Violet – Switched Power
• Black – Ground
• Blue – CAN-Hi
• White – CAN-Lo
The boat already has the Livorsi Vantage View Tachometers so the CAN Hi & L0 (Smartcraft data) wires run to gauges in the dash. I assume I can just tap the Smartcraft data at the back of the tachs, run it through into my custom plugs to the J-Box.
Does this sound correct or should I throw in the towel and start selling the spare parts??
Thanks in advance.
John
Last edited by Scagburner; 04-29-2015 at 09:10 AM.
04-29-2015, 08:36 PM
#2
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
I would throw in the towel and order a center entry Active Thunder! Lol. Nice meeting you and Laurie in Sarasota, sorry I know nothing about electronics!
Steve
Steve
04-30-2015, 04:15 PM
#3
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Just make sure your CAN H & L wires from the tach's are correctly matched going into smartcraft / NMEA 2000 gateway and it should work fine. CAN is pretty tolerable, even if you hook it up backwards, it won't smoke anything. Just won't work.
The NMEA gateways should be switchable, Port and Starboard, verify that on your Garmin once you get data..
Last point to verify is the CANbus terminators on both networks, if you run into any problems. That starter kit should have came with 2 x 120ohm terminators, one female, one male for the NMEA 2000 network. Those go on the ends of your Tee's and everything else connects to the Tee's with drop cables. The 2 power leads +/- are pretty self explanatory and will power the smartcraft gateways. Bring the CAN leads in off the tach's, [which should all ready be properly resistor terminated] to the other side of smartcraft boxes and done deal.
There is some good YouTube videos about the Garmin starter kit that will help explain it better. It's all pretty much plug and play, but can be kinda intimidating...
-KT
The NMEA gateways should be switchable, Port and Starboard, verify that on your Garmin once you get data..
Last point to verify is the CANbus terminators on both networks, if you run into any problems. That starter kit should have came with 2 x 120ohm terminators, one female, one male for the NMEA 2000 network. Those go on the ends of your Tee's and everything else connects to the Tee's with drop cables. The 2 power leads +/- are pretty self explanatory and will power the smartcraft gateways. Bring the CAN leads in off the tach's, [which should all ready be properly resistor terminated] to the other side of smartcraft boxes and done deal.
There is some good YouTube videos about the Garmin starter kit that will help explain it better. It's all pretty much plug and play, but can be kinda intimidating...
-KT
04-30-2015, 07:07 PM
#4
Registered
Thread Starter
P.S. - I agree with you that the center entry AT's are better than the side entry AT's. The side entry seems to be too hard on drives... Lol
04-30-2015, 07:15 PM
#5
Registered
Thread Starter
Just make sure your CAN H & L wires from the tach's are correctly matched going into smartcraft / NMEA 2000 gateway and it should work fine. CAN is pretty tolerable, even if you hook it up backwards, it won't smoke anything. Just won't work.
The NMEA gateways should be switchable, Port and Starboard, verify that on your Garmin once you get data..
Last point to verify is the CANbus terminators on both networks, if you run into any problems. That starter kit should have came with 2 x 120ohm terminators, one female, one male for the NMEA 2000 network. Those go on the ends of your Tee's and everything else connects to the Tee's with drop cables. The 2 power leads +/- are pretty self explanatory and will power the smartcraft gateways. Bring the CAN leads in off the tach's, [which should all ready be properly resistor terminated] to the other side of smartcraft boxes and done deal.
There is some good YouTube videos about the Garmin starter kit that will help explain it better. It's all pretty much plug and play, but can be kinda intimidating...
-KT
The NMEA gateways should be switchable, Port and Starboard, verify that on your Garmin once you get data..
Last point to verify is the CANbus terminators on both networks, if you run into any problems. That starter kit should have came with 2 x 120ohm terminators, one female, one male for the NMEA 2000 network. Those go on the ends of your Tee's and everything else connects to the Tee's with drop cables. The 2 power leads +/- are pretty self explanatory and will power the smartcraft gateways. Bring the CAN leads in off the tach's, [which should all ready be properly resistor terminated] to the other side of smartcraft boxes and done deal.
There is some good YouTube videos about the Garmin starter kit that will help explain it better. It's all pretty much plug and play, but can be kinda intimidating...
-KT
Do I need a separate gateway for each engine or will one work?
The power lead with the starter kit is pretty straight forward, will this power the whole backbone or do I still need to run power into the J-box as I mentioned above?
Sorry if these questions seem stupid..
John
04-30-2015, 09:39 PM
#6
Platinum Member
Platinum Member
John,
I'm pretty sure our boat has a single gateway, and it's a Northstar, but I have a Simrad gps. I believe they'll all interface with one another with NMEA 2000. We were just talking about a LOTO trip the other night, let us know if you'ld like to go this summer!
Steve
I'm pretty sure our boat has a single gateway, and it's a Northstar, but I have a Simrad gps. I believe they'll all interface with one another with NMEA 2000. We were just talking about a LOTO trip the other night, let us know if you'ld like to go this summer!
Steve
05-01-2015, 12:37 AM
#7
Registered
I'm not that familiar with SmartCraft, but from what I've read it should be a "single twisted pair" CAN network feeding the tach's. Each tach is then configured for Port or STB data. So depending on the gateway you purchased, it should recognize the 2 engine ID just like the tach's do, and convert both to NMEA 2000 protocol messages.
On NMEA 2000 networks, typically everything shares the power supply off the common backbone cable. According to the pinout you listed above, I would say the J-box is not network powered. N2k 5 pin plugs have a Positive, Negative, CAN-H, CAN-L, and Shield. No "Key-On" wire in there, but you could easily use a small relay connected to spare dash switch to power your NMEA 2000 network, and wire key-on together with the the network hot. Then whenever your Garmin is on, so doesn't everything required to convert the data.
Hence the reason this all get intimidating. No common wiring layout between all these different marine systems. But at least most do share the CAN protocol standard, 2 wire twisted pair terminated with 120ohm resistors. These special gateways units are simply 2 modems connected with a small CPU. It reads XYZ data from one side and sends it out as ZYX to the other side. If Merc would just scrap the whole smartcraft thing and finally go to N2k standard, everyone would save money and this would be as simple as setting up your home network with a DSL router to a printer....
On NMEA 2000 networks, typically everything shares the power supply off the common backbone cable. According to the pinout you listed above, I would say the J-box is not network powered. N2k 5 pin plugs have a Positive, Negative, CAN-H, CAN-L, and Shield. No "Key-On" wire in there, but you could easily use a small relay connected to spare dash switch to power your NMEA 2000 network, and wire key-on together with the the network hot. Then whenever your Garmin is on, so doesn't everything required to convert the data.
Hence the reason this all get intimidating. No common wiring layout between all these different marine systems. But at least most do share the CAN protocol standard, 2 wire twisted pair terminated with 120ohm resistors. These special gateways units are simply 2 modems connected with a small CPU. It reads XYZ data from one side and sends it out as ZYX to the other side. If Merc would just scrap the whole smartcraft thing and finally go to N2k standard, everyone would save money and this would be as simple as setting up your home network with a DSL router to a printer....
05-12-2015, 06:18 PM
#9
Registered
Did you finish the final wiring and Garmin install yet??
Please post up some pictures along with the technical requirements we discovered along the way when ya get time. Should help make this plug-n-play for those who follow.
Please post up some pictures along with the technical requirements we discovered along the way when ya get time. Should help make this plug-n-play for those who follow.
05-14-2015, 10:53 AM
#10
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Thread Starter
Yes – I finished it and everything seems to be working fine in the garage. I hope to try it on the water this weekend and get some good photos to post.
As you said earlier, it can be somewhat intimidating but actually, not so bad once you have a basic understanding of CANbus.
I was really disappointed once I thought I had everything wired correctly and the Garmin displayed the live data (RPM, temps, pressures, etc) on both sets of gauges no matter which engine was running but that turned out to be an easy fix. Mercury ships all engines set to the factory default of STARBOARD regardless of quantity or position in the boat. I needed to connect my scan tool to the PORT engine and rename it as PORT then everything then functioned correctly. The renaming process was very simple and took less than 2 minutes.
Once again Ken, I can’t thank you enough for your technical support through this project!
John
As you said earlier, it can be somewhat intimidating but actually, not so bad once you have a basic understanding of CANbus.
I was really disappointed once I thought I had everything wired correctly and the Garmin displayed the live data (RPM, temps, pressures, etc) on both sets of gauges no matter which engine was running but that turned out to be an easy fix. Mercury ships all engines set to the factory default of STARBOARD regardless of quantity or position in the boat. I needed to connect my scan tool to the PORT engine and rename it as PORT then everything then functioned correctly. The renaming process was very simple and took less than 2 minutes.
Once again Ken, I can’t thank you enough for your technical support through this project!
John
Last edited by Scagburner; 05-14-2015 at 06:05 PM.
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