Powering Seatalk network

[Midday Gun]

Bit of a weird question, but maybe someone knows the answer.



Can a seatalk to Seatalk NG converter be powered by the power on the old legacy Seatalk network?
I know the correct way is to have the legacy network powered from the stNG converter.

But..
I just pulled out my NG converter and cables to access an area behind where they were installed. And I didnt really pay any attention to how they were wired as its normally very simple to connect up the canbus style systems.


But now I'm plugging it all back in, I can't find any power going into the stNG converter.

All I have is:
- 2x Terminators
- Seatalk NG to Seatalk1 cable
- Spur to MFD
- Spur to AIS Transponder



There is no power present on the backbone, so I assume it must get it from the exiting Seatalk network or from the MFD. I assume it has to be the first as the MFDs shouldn't supply power to the network.

[stevead]

I have no idea why manufacturers bother with publishing manuals when no one seems to read them.

From the Setalkng Reference Manual.

Power supply considerations
It is important that power for SeaTalkng is provided from only one power source. If you intend using your SeaTalkng system with any other system (e.g. SeaTalk(1)), power may already be connected to the other system. If this is the case, do NOT connect an additional power source to SeaTalkng

[Midday Gun]

Originally Posted by stevead

I have no idea why manufacturers bother with publishing manuals when no one seems to read them.

From the Setalkng Reference Manual.

Hi Steve. thanks for the answer.
I was reading the manual on my phone onboard & missed that sectionm and go confused by this first bullet point, which I interpreted as meaning that the seatalk network had to be powered through the NG.

Ensure that SeaTalkng is powered from just ONE 12 V source.If SeaTalk ng is
connected to any other SeaTalk system, make sure this system does not have its
own separate power source.

[pcmm]

Originally Posted by Midday Gun

Hi Steve. thanks for the answer.
I was reading the manual on my phone onboard & missed that sectionm and go confused by this first bullet point, which I interpreted as meaning that the seatalk network had to be powered through the NG.

That's exactly what it means...Either power comes from the SeatalkNG side ( and as a result powers the old Seatalk bus) or you power the Seatalk bus and the SeatalkNG converter gets its power from the there, but not both.

[Midday Gun]

Originally Posted by pcmm

That's exactly what it means...Either power comes from the SeatalkNG side ( and as a result powers the old Seatalk bus) or you power the Seatalk bus and the SeatalkNG converter gets its power from the there, but not both.

That's clear now, but the wording is a little ambiguous.

If SeaTalk ng is
connected to any other SeaTalk system, make sure this system does not have its
own separate power source.

I read that as if Seatalk NG is connected to any other system, then ensure

'this system' (referring to Seatalk) does not have its own power source.



Anyway, thanks for the advice, I just wanted to check before I hooked up power!

[kayakerChuck]

Thanks from me, too!

[smac999]

the raymarine seatalk to seatalkng converter passes power. so either only one side should be powered. or both sides but then you need to isolate the red power wire between them so power is not passed through and shared. and FYI if you split power from different breakers the raymarine seatalk to stng converter must be powered by the seatalk side. which means it's the stng backbone that needs the power isolated, not the seatalk feed to the converter. which makes it harder to do. especially if the converter is not on the end of the backbone.

how you do this is part of the overall system design. if I have a bunch of seatalk and adding a single ng device I'll just power it via seatalk. or vise versa. if I have a number of things on each side I'll power both sides and split it. so an issue doesn't take down everything.

keep in mind that often pilots, and old ploters can power the ST bus. it doesn't have to have a deadicated power wire to actully power it. so it may have power even with no power feed.

[smac999]

Originally Posted by stevead

I have no idea why manufacturers bother with publishing manuals when no one seems to read them.

From the Setalkng Reference Manual.

the raymarine st to stng adpater is actully very complicated to use correctly and the manual is useless. it has multiple issues unless certain things are done in certain ways. none of which are mentioned in the manual. I ended up making my own manual for my co workers... because I often use it as a drop with no terminators instead of a backbone extension.

[jt11791]

Can you share more? My boat has some network gremlins that may originate from the st to stng adapter.

[Midday Gun]

My boat came with an older Seatalk system, this was powered by the ST4000+ autopilot drive.

In turn the Seatalk was connected to the SeatalkNG converter, this had two resistors and two spurs, one for the MFD, the other for the AIS transponder, neither of which can provide power to the NG backbone.

However all the data was shared correctly, I could see the depth / wind etc on my plotters. So I can only assume that the power can also come from the Seatalk network as well.