Navpod with 3 instruments

[LeslieTroyer]

This confusion over cables is one reason I like the way RM did SeaTalkNG. Blue is backbone white is drop. No confusion on what’s a transducer or backbone or drop. Unfortunately it’s all N2K now.

Additionally if you have open drops on the manifold you should fill them with blanks.

 

[LeslieTroyer]

Thinking of it as a bunch of T’s hooked together is fine - I just do more SeatalkNG where the T’s don’t interconnect so my mind is warped into that paradime.

 

[dlochner]

This confusion over cables is one reason I like the way RM did SeaTalkNG. Blue is backbone white is drop. No confusion on what’s a transducer or backbone or drop. Unfortunately it’s all N2K now.

Well, it is N2K now for a short while longer. I recall reading that NMEA has finally established an ethernet protocol. Ethernet has considerably more bandwidth than N2K which is necessary for sonar and radar among other things.

 

[dlochner]

Scott we have about the same system, 2 Triton2 displays, radar, Zeus2, Autopilot. Here's a photo of the brains of my system. You can see how I strung together 4 Tees with a terminator at the end.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Scott we have about the same system, 2 Triton2 displays, radar, Zeus2, Autopilot. Here's a photo of the brains of my system. You can see how I strung together 4 Tees with a terminator at the end.

Nice installation! Mine was a tangled mess underneath the quarter berth last summer. I'm working on making an organized cabinet to fit under there this year. I actually have 3 cables into the helm pedestal. The autopilot and the power cable for GPS were not a problem. The N2K cable for GPS is the one that I need to splice. I should have looked at the Maretron manual first for clarification. I was questioning about the bare "drain" wire in the cable before.

 

[dlochner]

The N2K cable for GPS is the one that I need to splice.

When I ran the cables up the pedestal guard I found that sequence was important. The cable with the largest connector goes first, then the next largest and so forth.

 

[Davidasailor26]

I thought about putting the second Triton at the helm with the Vulcan chartplotter, but the chartplotter can show your instrument readings, no? So if there is no need for it at the helm, I thought I would put the second one at the base of the mast, as somebody suggested.

Depends on how you want to use your chartplotter and how much data you want to see. I have the key data items along the top of the plotter, but there are other things that I like to see that don't fit on that screen along with the chart, so the instruments aren't really dupicative. Having said that I could probably still see that data on the Triton's if they were elsewhere too.

Additionally if you have open drops on the manifold you should fill them with blanks.

Are you sure? Beneteau left blanks in all 3 manifolds on our boat. They just put one terminator on the end of the MFD manifold. Not to say they did everything else perfectly, but still...

 

[LeslieTroyer]

I have to go reread the spec but seems like good practice as the signal lines are open to stray rf if not covered. Just like loss of shield for short bit.
Plus chance of something shorting the pins.

I do know RM has blue plugs (terminators) and black plugs ( blanks)

 

[Scott T-Bird]

The Maretron manual said a little bit about that. They indicated that the beauty of the system is that various components can be removed for servicing without disrupting the other components. I think that means some open drops would be ok. However, I would only consider that temporarily. It's so easy to insert or remove a drop Tee in the middle of the manifold that it wouldn't make sense to install anything that is intended to be left open.

Which is right?? The navpod and mast top aren’t the only location for N2K drops. I would view the mast as one end of the backbone and navpod at the other, you could swing by the engine, power center, stern (for gps) then to navpod. What ever looks good.

Yes, I think that works, too. The upstream end starts with the wind transducer cable (if he is using one) and the downstream end can terminate in the nav pod. That way, just the backbone cable and the power cable needs to be run to nav pod for the chartplotter and instruments.

 

[LeslieTroyer]

Lowrance talks about cap connectors, maretron sells both male and female cap connectors
M000101 & M000102 (cheap) but the look 100% plastic so no rf shielding.

Couldn’t find a spec talking about open drops....

 

[LeslieTroyer]

I still wouldn’t put the power insertion in the navpod. Move it closer to the middle of the boat do line loss up the mast isn’t too big.

 

[Davidasailor26]

Lowrance talks about cap connectors, maretron sells both male and female cap connectors
M000101 & M000102 (cheap) but the look 100% plastic so no rf shielding.

Couldn’t find a spec talking about open drops....

The Lowrance caps that I see in google are for the connectors on the back of the chartplotter itself (Ethernet, network, etc), not the NMEA cabling. Navico also seems to sell some kind of other Simnet cap but it looks like that's for the ends of unused cables, not open network ports. Maybe Simnet is less vulnerable to accidental shorts anyway since it's a smaller connector.

 

[Davidasailor26]

I still wouldn’t put the power insertion in the navpod. Move it closer to the middle of the boat do line loss up the mast isn’t too big.

I agree. Power in the middle on a manifold, wind with built-in terminator on one end, and manifold with instruments, MFD, and terminator on the other. One other manifold near the middle if needed for compass and AP computer. Still need secondary power for the MFD though, so 2 wires up the pedestal (3 if adding sonar, radar or anything else Ethernet).