Quote:
Originally Posted by million440
Hi, Would you mind please updating us on how you went with the interface? What was your final intent? Can you elaborate on the plug and play Prolific PL2303? Indicative costs? Thanks in anticipation
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1. a physical connection between the pilot
NMEA terminals and a DB9 connector by means of a cable with a proper extension (connector 2 PC location)
2. a USB2serial convertor (Prolific PL2303 preferably), this goes between the DB9 connector and the PC, connecting to an availabe USB slot on the computer
3.
installation of proper drivers for the convertor on the PC and testing connection with
OpenCPN or other
software and the pilot itself on track mode
I dont know what the idea was on the original question, I guess controlling the pilot with the PC
software, I dont do this unless I am asked for, for
safety reasons, something could go wrong meanwhile you are inside the
boat looking at the LCD (power failure,
nmea stream broken, screensaver sleeping computer, Ozi had this as "experimental" for many time). The most common connection here is a
GPS providing signal to the pilot AND replicating this signal to the PC so as to have it as a plotter.
Works the same but the connection is different.
This is mostly true here where we navigate for short distances and the former looks more like playing gadget in my opinion, more seriously usefull for long legs having the PC controlling things but I imagine some other
equipment with
GPS backup,
AIS,
radar, kind of a complete
navigation setup, which I have done in bigger vessels with modular
autopilot units.
Getting back to the original, assuming you have a PC with a proper GPS signal. Use the USB2serial in a slot, plug the DB9 connector to the other end, DB9 will have 2
cables wired to pin 5 for shield and pin 2 for data receive from pc/gps.
This 2
cables will connect on the other end to pin 5 (nmea-) and pin 6 (nmea+) on the back of the ST1000
cockpit connector.
I assume you refer to ST1000Plus, older models dont have this.
With this setup placing an active waypoint/route on
OpenCPN (having configured
autopilot output port correctly) will provide data to the pilot for Track Mode.
USB2serial is about U$S 20 here, DB9 with cable U$S 5 at most.
Prolific works fine on Mac as well.
Converters dont have identification as to what chip they have, I always buy from the same importer, you can tell looking at the driver which will have a pdf manual for
installation.
Linux can tell too as it detects all kind of
hardware easily.
As usual,you use this at your own risk.
regards
alex