ST2000+ Garmin NMEA connection

[FourPoints]

having trouble getting my Garmin GPSMap 540s to talk to the tiller pilot. It will report distance off course, but nothing else.

Does anyone know if it should be in NMEA high speed, or normal for the data port, and which sentences should and should not be turned on?

Additionally I could only get it to function this much with the NMEA+ and NMEA- from the tiller pilot attached to both NMEA+ wires from the chart plotter, (wired + to - for both wires didn't seem to function, nor did + to + and - to -) so I believe I have two separate issues here.

Any Suggestions?

 

[twalker H260]

Blue from garmin should go to position 6 on st2000 bulkhead connector, indicated as nmea+ and white in Raymarine manual - in 6o'clock position.

Garmin Black power ground should be connected to position 5 on bulkhead connector located at the 4:30 position and indicated as nmea- and green in manual. -I have mine connected to 12v negative (ground) and then jumpered to the nmea- on my auto pilot.

Plotter settings should just be set to NMEA 0183 standard (p41 of manual) you shouldn't need to worry about which sentences are turned on as autopilot shouldl disregard any it doesn't need/understand.

Make sure the nmea setting is on port one and not port 2!

Garmin manual here
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/store/manual.jsp?product=010-00614-00&cID=148&pID=8059

Autopilot manual here
http://www.raymarine.eu/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=1503


Good luck!

 

[FourPoints]

Garmin Black power ground should be connected to position 5 on bulkhead connector located at the 4:30 position and indicated as nmea- and green in manual. -I have mine connected to 12v negative (ground) and then jumpered to the nmea- on my auto pilot.

Thanks! This is what I suspect is the issue. From this I assume that it's not working because the TP doesn't need NMEA- wire from the Garmin connected, it essentially needs a 2nd ground wire.

If that's the case it should be simple to fix as I have all of the connectors on a terminal block. Currently I have the pos 6 wired to port 2 NMEA+, and pos 5 wired to port 1 NMEA+ since it wouldn't work at all on the NMEA- connectors (unclear how it could even partially work wired like this, but it does). I'll move the pos 5 wire to the ground post and see how that works.

Make sure the nmea setting is on port one and not port 2!

Are you just saying this to make sure that I'm using the same output wire and port setting on the plotter, or is the a reason it couldn't be attached to port 2 using the grey wire instead of the blue for port 1? It doesn't matter either way as I don't yet have anything else attached via NMEA to the plotter, but I just want to know if there is some reason it couldn't be wired on port 2

 

[twalker H260]

You could use the port 2 wire if you wish with the appropriate wire. Just wanted to make sure output was going to the right port.

The other nmea wires from the garmin aren't negatives, they are nmea in. Ie. take output from a radio or other device for use by the plotter - both positives.

You are correct to connecting as a second ground to post 5. Confusing for many but saves having four additional nmea - wires to there existing bundle.

Not sure why it works at all with the two nmea +outs connected though.

 

[tommays]

Most of the NEMA settings on the GPS can be changed and it might help to know what speed the auto pilot would like to receive data at and be sure the GPS is set that way

 

[Bill Roosa]

You should check to see which of your two nmea ports is the talker and which is the listener. nmea is a one talker many listener type protocol. If you try and get the talker to receive data it will not do much. ditto with trying to get the listener to send data to another device.

 

[FourPoints]

Swapped the wires around yesterday and everything works great now. Why the NMEA- wire on the tiller pilot connector even exists when it really just needs connected to ground, which could be more easily done internally I don't know, but at least it was an easy fix.

Thanks!