Connecting Raymarine ST60, ST4000 (black) to E15023 SmartController

[patrickkidd]

I have a Raymarine ST4000 autopilot (original black, not grey ST4000+) and a Raymarine ST60 speed and depth instrument which are not connected via seatalk. I bought a Raymarine E15023 wireless SmartController, mostly to be able to remote control the autopilot, but it also can display speed and depth.

However, the ST4000 has two tab connectors for seatalk and not the three-conductor plastic SeaTalk plug that came with the SmartController. I imagine the ST60 has the same three-conductor plastic SeaTalk plug since it's a similar generation as the SmartController.

Does anyone know how to connect the smart controller to the ST4000 via SeaTalk, and similarly how to connect the ST60 to the ST4000 via SeaTalk? Can I just cut the plastic plug and crimp two of the three wires or so I need some $5000 adaptor for it?


Thanks!

 

[DougM]

You can cut the connecter and wire the cable leads to the autopilot course computer.
The course computer manual should spell out the correct connection points.
I have done that connecting a spare ST40 bidata to use as a repeater at the nav station.

 

[patrickkidd]

You can cut the connecter and wire the cable leads to the autopilot course computer.
The course computer manual should spell out the correct connection points.
I have done that connecting a spare ST40 bidata to use as a repeater at the nav station.

I am seeing some things that lead me to believe that you can cut and splice a few SeaTalk1 connectors together. That is, that they don't have to be daisy chained to talk to each other. Is that true?

I am asking because the D244 junction box seems to do this. The SmartController base station has a SeaTalk1 plug coming out of it for bi-directional communication of the autopilot head, and the SmartController has another one just for charging. So you need a D244 three-way junction box, which looks like it just connects the three conductors in parallel.

For future reference, I also found this thread that explains the ST4000 and the difference in its pre-SeaTalk protocol & connections and the actual SeaTalk1 protocol in the ST60, etc that everyone is familiar with:

http://forum.raymarine.com/showthread.php?tid=2483

This stuff is hard to find!

Thanks!