Garmin 4208 serial port settings

[janders]

Hey kids,

I'm working on an NMEA0183 logger and I need to wire up a serial port connection to our Garmin 4208 chartplotter. I've got all the wiring done and of course it's not working. I suspect the wiring is problematic but I want to make sure I've got the serial port settings correct before I start snipping connectors again.

I'm using these settings, mostly as a guess, but they seem to be pretty standard:

baud=4800
bits=8
parity=none
stop bit=1

Can anyone confirm that these are correct/incorrect?

Cheers!

Jason
s/v Hello World

(The more I think about it, even if they aren't correct, I should be seeing garbage. Since I'm not getting anything on the port, I've probably got the wiring wrong.)

[svbellastar]

That is the correct serial configuration for NMEA0183 sentences.

Did you check for continuity on each of the connections?
http://www8.garmin.com/specs/pcwiring.pdf

You've verified the plotter is outputting sentences?
(Home screen > Configure > Communications > NMEA 0183 setup > Output Sentences... not sure if it's System or Garmin from there)

You can also connect your meter to the blue cable (or pin 2 on the DB9) and see if you notice the voltage jumping around. If it is then it's probably transmitting and you have a connection or protocol issue.

[janders]

Bella Star! I totally didn't see this reply, never got notified... Or didn't pay attention to the notification email. Thanks Aaron! Yeah, I fubar'd the wiring. My wiring diagram was spot on. My implementation of wiring diagram was... not.

Working now. We collected a spreadsheet with 17,000 NMEA wind measurements the other night while a big gale was pushing over the Baja peninsula. Kinda cool to trend the wind speed. Unless you were one of the two boats that blew up onto the reef. They didn't seem nearly as interested in my spreadsheet.