[TG] [TG11] Network Issues

[Mustang 3200]

Hi guys, Needing a bit of help here down under on the Gold Coast Australia, I have just done a full overhaul on my Mustang 3200 Cruiser which included a repower, I have fitted 2 brand new Petrol V6 Volvo Penta 280’s. To take advantage of the newer technology I have installed an NMEA2000 system, I have a Fusion RA-70 radio, A Fusion NMEA2000 remote, 2 x Raymarine Axiom 7s joined with network (Raytalk ?) cable, 2 x Volvo “Easy Connect” NMEA2000 interfaces and 2 x NMEA2000 fuel level sensors (not yet fitted these). I have connected all components to my backbone cable, I can control and see the Fusion radio from Axiom 7, When I go into “Network” and view all NMEA2000 devices I can see all components but I am not getting any information from the engines, At one point I had the Starboard motor displaying on the LH side of the engine screen I switched the engine off and started the Port motor which was displayed also on the LH side of the engine screen but I cant get both engines displaying on the screen together, I have configured it for 2 engines but it also wont do the engine identification procedure “ No data seen” I have tried Raymarine Technical over here who say it’s a Volvo issue as the Easy Connect interfaces are showing up in the NMEA200 list. I contacted Volvo who say it’s a Raymarine issue…………. Any ideas…. Thanks.

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Mustang 3200,

I'm not sure if we've spoken on this - I had a very similar-sounding support call yesterday - but if so, I thought that the problem was that you were getting no data at all rather than that both engines were appearing as if they were Port, on the left side of the screen.

If both engines are appearing as Port then that's a very common issue: that's the Instance field within the engine messages. Instance is the numerical value that NMEA2000 uses to show which of multiple engines, tanks, batteries etc. a particular bit of data applies to. The NMEA2000 specification says that in a twin-engine system, 0=Port, 1=Starboard but in your system your Easy Connect is transmitting both engines as Instance zero, which means that the MFD has no way to tell that one of them is in fact starboard.

This is indeed a Volvo setup issue, your Volvo engine installer (or perhaps this is a simple menu setup item on the Volvo gauges) just needs to configure the Starboard engine to be Instance 1 as it should be. It's not a fault, just setup.

By the way, the reason why the Raymarine MFD's engine setup wizard isn't working is just that that's designed to configure our ECI-100 engine gateway, it can't set up the Volvo interfaces.

Regards,
Tom

[Mustang 3200]

Attached a pic with some more information which may help. Thanks for the reply Tom.

[Mustang 3200]

Some more information

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Mustang 3200,

Thanks. There's nothing wrong with the network or any of the electronics I think, based on your description of seeing the starboard engine's data on the port side of the screen I'm 100% confident that that's just the instance setup in the Volvo system. We've come across this sort of thing too many times to count, it's very common in multi-engine systems from many engine manufacturers. Our ECI-100 can override the engine system's Instance setup and output NMEA2000 data with adjusted instance IDs if it is used as the engine gateway, but I am not suggesting that there's anything wrong with the Volvo gateways except that we can't do the configuration on them to change the instance IDs that they're transmitting.

To see whether I'm right or not, we can look at the raw data: if you

1. start both engines
2. go back into the network diagnostics as in your photo
3. For each of the Volvo gateways in turn, press on its name and then select the NMEA messages pop-up to look at messages from that device only
4. let it run for a few seconds, pause the display and then look through and find some Engine Parameters Rapid Update lines (there should be lots, they are transmitted 10 times per second)
5. Look at the number before Spd: at the start of the decoded data in the right-hand column. This is the Instance number.
   

My prediction is that from either engine gateway, the Instance number you will see is 0 as in my attached screenshot, whereas data from one of the two gateways (starboard) should be instance 1.

If in doubt or things still aren't working perfectly once the Instance is set correctly in the Volvo, please record a couple of minutes of data with both engines running and send to me. I would be happy to look at the raw data in detail.

Tom

[Mustang 3200]

Thanks for the help Tom, Much appreciated, I fitted the KUS NMEA2000 fuel level sensors, One in each tank and I am similar issues there as well, I take it I will have to get the KUS setup tool and set the instances for both level senders as well ?

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Yes, that's it: each data type for which there are commonly more than one source on a boat - engines, fuel tanks, water tanks, batteries etc. has an Instance field that needs to be configured correctly.