Brookhouse NMEA 0183 Multiplexer

egodsey · Mar 18, 2012

http://brookhouseonline.com/nmea_multiplexer.htm

JoeWhite · Mar 18, 2012

I appoint myself as the expert on serial communication. I am quite familiar with the serial communication and NMEA 0183. I am sure I can help you. But I am not sure what it is that you are trying to do. The NMEA 0183 is a standard and it is normally sent and received in a serial format normally at 4800, n, 8 , 1. If you are using Hyperterminal - you must first set-up a comport on your laptap that is set to the above serial buad rate and settings. Also from the main screen open - File\properties\settings and select VT100. You must have a hard wired 9Pin Serial port on your lap top motherboard for this to work. If you do not have one then you have purchase a USB to Serial converter. These are relatively inexpensive item uner $ 40.00. Then your laptop will detect and set-up the COM ports - usually it will be COM 3, 4,. One you do this you can plug in the 9 Pin serial port to your device that you are trying to communicate with. You may have to reverse the pin 2 and 3 in order that it communicates. All you need are pins 2, 3, and 5. If I can help more contact me haro_b@att.net.

Scott B · Mar 19, 2012

Crane man said:
Hey thanks,
But they do not return my E-mails!

This may be why, from their order page

Availability status and order information.
February, 2012
Please note that we temporarily won't be shipping any new orders for NMEA multiplexers until further notice.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Bill Roosa · Mar 19, 2012

Perhaps we would be of more help if you could tell us the actual problem. You are thying to trouble shoot the multiplexer why.....?
As a general rule when a customer came to me with a "the xxx is not working" I would always ask them what the car was doing anyway because they may or may not have diagnosed the problem correctly and I can look all day at "the xxx" which is not broken and not find a dang thing wrong.
So before we get too wraped around the axil trying to get winders to do something that resembles serial communications with non winders devices (never fun BTW) what is broken and does not work and why do you think it is the multiplexer?

Bill Roosa · Mar 19, 2012

I also see that you "cannot configure garmin and RayMarine....."
NMEA is a standard protocall and you probably will not be getting the NMEA multplexer to start talking some different standard.
You will have to change the protocal on the chart plotter and auto pilot so that they are using the NMEA standard then the multiplexer will work correctly.
I have no clue on converting Garmin to NMEA but the Raymarine usually has a dedicated connection for NMEA, usually as extra wires/pins that are part of the power plug
another way of saying this is the NMEA mulitplexer don't speek garmin or Seatalk so set the garmin and raymarine devices to the NMEA standard the multiplexer uses.

Bill Roosa · Mar 19, 2012

OK, so what are you trying to configure the ports as? Perhaps "configure" is the wrong word. Configure to me means set up the protocol so the two devices can talk. I would believe that since it is a MNEA multiplexer the only language/protocol it might speak is MNEA 0183. Not at all sure how you could possibly change that.

In any case your "9 pin USB cable" is going to be problematical as USB only has 4 wires and the USB ports on a MS OS are not seen as "serial comm ports" (which is totally dumb but that is how MS does it).

So using hyperterminal with USB is not going to work unless you know the USB port memory address on your computer (start-settings-control panel-device manager?)
Just getting a USB to serial cable will still require you to map hyperterminals comm port to the USB port memory locations.
Another way of saying this is hyperterminal has a pull down menu where you select the comm port you are going to use. Since you do not have a serial (mini D) port you probably just get a blank pull down. If you did have a mini D serial port it would be COMM (1.2,3, or 4) and that would still not be a USB port.

If memory serves hyperterminal has a set up page where you can specify the ports and memory ranges to them for "odd user configurations". If you can ID the USB port name and memory range and the actual protocol (for NMEA in this case) you could enter it there and it will show up in the pull down as a valid port.
I have no idea if this will work as MS has taken upon itself to "defining USB" as something less than Universal and I don't even know if it will operate at "reduced baud setting" or "other than 'universal' port settings.

My advice is to just forget the USB to serial cable and go serial to serial
or
Use Linux where you can just plug it in and it works automagically with the terminal program. Ports is ports in linux.

joker460 · Mar 19, 2012

Yes they are in business still, well maybe. They were in Jan of this year.

I assume you looked at their site for help.

This shows how to set it up. http://brookhouseonline.com/mux_setup.htm

You don't say if you installed the USB drivers that came with it. You can download from their site also.

You also don't say what operating system you are using or wether it is x32 or x64 becuse it will make a difference with the driver installation.

Good Luck

twalker H260 · Mar 22, 2012

Are you trying to get the chart plotter to accept data from the tri data and auto pilot or simply getting the plotter to provide course info to the auto pilot?

The tridata can use seatalk to communicate with the autopilot which can accept nmea input directly from the garmin plotter - no multiplexer needed. This is how I have my system configured. If this works for you let me know what model plotter you have.