NMEA Mux (multiplexer) recommendation?

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jviss

jviss

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Feb 5, 2004
7,089
Tartan 3800 20 Westport, MA
I need a NMEA 0183 Mux. I have been putting it off for years, toying with the idea of converting to NMEA 2000, but I guess I really need one. There are a few on the market, but very little in the way of reviews online.

I have the following:

Talkers:
Furuno GP32 GPS receiver

Listeners:
Icom M502a VHF radio
Raymarine R70 radar display

Talk and listen:

One of the other of:
MacBook running PolarView (USB)
Toughbook running Maptech (RS-232)

Raymarine S2G pilot computer (fast heading output)
Raymarine 425 chart plotter

I may have to deal with Seatalk, not sure.

I may add ST-60 wind/speed/depth at some point. Beyond that I will either rip everything out and upgrade, or get a different boat.

I'd like something that's programmable, so I can delete certain sentences or even modify sentences on the fly.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations, reviews, or experiences you can share!

jv
 
jviss

jviss

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Feb 5, 2004
7,089
Tartan 3800 20 Westport, MA
Wow! I expected someone to have been down this path before. Am i the only one?
 
Bill Roosa

Bill Roosa

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Jun 6, 2006
6,990
currently boatless wishing Harrington Harbor North, MD
We be sailboaters not IT geeks. ;-)
What are you trying to multiplex? Most items can be connected with sufficient head scratching and the (gasp) reading of many manuals.
 
jviss

jviss

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Feb 5, 2004
7,089
Tartan 3800 20 Westport, MA
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Thanks, Bill.

The things I want to connect at this time are listed in the original post.

Yes, I know this can often be pieced together using just the existing gear, for example, resolving a multiple-talker situation by carefully arranging a serial in/out scheme so a talker talks to a listener who then repeats the first talker's sentences, and so on. But that requires that every involved piece of equipment by turned on and running, at least the ones required to pass sentences on; so if one fails, or you want to save power, you can take down your bus. In addition, filtering, speed changing (e.g., 38400 in to 4800 out), and so on, are either impossible or difficult and challenging to do. The most reliable, flexible, most straightforward to configure and safest solution is an NMEA mux.

As a side note, as it is now I have to keep the autopilot turned on in order to have heading information to other units, as the compass sensor is an analog output unit which connects to the pilot. I could eventually get a NMEA-output compass, or even a Raymarine ITS-5 A/D converter. But that's another story.
 
Maine Sail

Maine Sail

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Feb 6, 1998
11,701
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
I would say the Brookhouse or Actisense units are the ones I find most used and most liked. I tend to lean towards the Brookhouse units and I think Tim R. has one. NMEA 0183 can't go away fast enough IMHO. :) N2K is soooooooooooo much better.....;) I'm not sure for what you listed that a multiplexer is necessary but I don't know how many in/outs each device has. I am still stuck in 0183 land but don't need a multiplexer but it did take some creativity.....

There is also Noland, Shipmodul, Digital Yacht and Raymarine (if you have Ray ST this may be your best choice) has one too I have seen a few others out there but did not recognize any of the names. In the 0183 hay-day there were a number of multiplexers now there are less... ..
 
jviss

jviss

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Feb 5, 2004
7,089
Tartan 3800 20 Westport, MA
Maine Sail said:
I would say the Brookhouse or Actisense units are the ones I find most used and most liked. I tend to lean towards the Brookhouse units and I think Tim R. has one. NMEA 0183 can't go away fast enough IMHO. :) N2K is soooooooooooo much better.....;) I'm not sure for what you listed that a multiplexer is necessary but I don't know how many in/outs each device has. I am still stuck in 0183 land but don't need a multiplexer but it did take some creativity.....

There is also Noland, Shipmodul, Digital Yacht and Raymarine (if you have Ray ST this may be your best choice) has one too I have seen a few others out there but did not recognize any of the names. In the 0183 hay-day there were a number of multiplexers now there are less... ..
Click to expand
I've been leaning towards the Brookhouse, but I'd like to hear from folks with experience (like you!). Also, I read something of someone wondering if they were still in business; do you know if they are?

Yes, I'm stuck in NMEA 0183 land for now, too.
 
AnsleyS

AnsleyS

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Feb 3, 2009
58
Camper Nicholson 39 CC Rockland, Maine
Jviss,

I have a Brookhouse multiplexer and it works well. Attached is a diagram of the data flow of my system. The only problem that I have had is recently I upgraded to a 64 bit Win 8 computer and I have not found a 64 bit driver for the multiplexer.

I think that Brookhouse may be out of business as I have not gotten any response from them in a while.

I would be happy to answer any questions. I am still a 0183 guy also as I do not want to replace operating hardware for new communications protocol only.

Cheers

Ansley Sawyer
 

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kenn

kenn

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Apr 18, 2009
1,271
CL Sandpiper 565 Toronto
As MS mentioned, NMEA0183 networks require some creativity and out of the box thinking, in order to get the best arrangement with the least additional hardware. There is a real push among manufacturers to get away from NMEA0183, so buying 0183 problem-solvers might not be the best investment, if you will be replacing nav equipment soon.

I have the following:

Talkers:
Furuno GP32 GPS receiver

Listeners:
Icom M502a VHF radio
Raymarine R70 radar display

Talk and listen:

One of the other of:
MacBook running PolarView (USB)
Toughbook running Maptech (RS-232)

Raymarine S2G pilot computer (fast heading output)
Raymarine 425 chart plotter
Click to expand
This is a great start. The next steps are to diagram all the network ins and outs - Ansley's diagram is perfect - and to make a list or map of what data is available and what data you want/need to go into what units. With all this information brought out, you can then distill it down to the essentials, and you might find a way to avoid using a multiplexor, or take advantage of units that provide internal multiplexing of the input with their own data. You can sometimes get away with sending a talker's data output to more than one data input.

With the computers, it might be cheaper and more flexible to provide them with low-cost GPS-USB fobs than to feed them from the 0183 data.
 
jviss

jviss

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Feb 5, 2004
7,089
Tartan 3800 20 Westport, MA
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Thanks, Ansley. Great diagram.

I certainly hope Brookhouse is not out of business, I think I'd really like to get their AIS mux with the USB and Seatalk options. Can't even get a price yet.

Ken, thanks. Yes, I know I can get this configured without a mux, but as I said, I don't want any one piece of gear on the boat to be a single point of failure, or to have to power up a power-cunsuming device like the autopilot just to have all of my other devices connected and working. By this I mean that if I'm relying upon the autopilot computer to do some of the mux'ing, i.e., sentence insertion into the stream and fan-in, then the autopilot must be powered up for my NMEA bus to work ('though it only consumes about 350mA in standby mode).

In addition, there are some really nice features in muxes, like the ability to filter sentences, transform them, and provide for gps backup sources.

Finally, I don't think I could easily add a 38.4kbps AIS stream to my bus without a mux.
 
Tim R.

Tim R.

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May 27, 2004
3,626
Caliber 40 Long Range Cruiser Portland, Maine
I have a Brookhouse that I will be selling. Replaced most everything last year with nmea2000. PM me if you are interested.
 
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