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goerke84

Hi,

I'd like to connect my Mercruiser 350 MAG MPI (2002) to the Axiom 9 RV.

My setup:

SMARTCRAFT to NMEA 2000 Gateway is connected and terminated with an 120 ohm 0,25W resistor. I installed a NMEA 2000 backbone and terminated both ends. On one drop I connected the SMARTCRAFT gateway. On another drop I connected the 12V power supply for the network. On another drop I connected the axiom via Power/NMEA.

The gateway shows, that nmea and smartcraft network works properly. I receive engine data like rpm, fuel consumption, gear etc. on the mfd, but the engine could not be identified so it shows the warning sign and brings an alert every time I start the engine. I found an option to disable engine alerts but I'm not satisfied with that.

I found some postings regarding this topic, for example:
http://forum.raymarine.com/showthread.php?tid=105
but I need some more explaination regarding the identification of the engine in the mfd. How do I set a nmea instance for this engine? Do I need a NMEA 2000 to USB gateway (Actisense NGT-1-USB) to read/configure the NMEA communication?

thanks a lot in advance

Dennis

***Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator***

Welcome to the Raymarine Forum Dennis,

As indicated within the FAQ which you have referenced, the Raymarine MFD's Identify Engines feature is only applicable to engines which have been interfaced to the system via an ECI-100 Engine Gateway. For all other engines systems, proper instancing must be adhered to. Please refer to the FAQ found here (link also provided within the FAQ which you have referenced) which further addresses this subject. Procedures and/or programming equipment / software required to perform assignment/configuration of Instance IDs should be sought through the marine propulsion system's engine gateway ... in this case Mercury marine.

All of this said, should the Raymarine system be repeating engine data and should the data correspond to the instance (ex. MFD correctly reports port engine RPMs and starboard engine RPMs ... if the port engine's throttle alone is increased, the MFD only reports increased RPMs for the port engine; if the starboard engine's throttle alone is increased, the MFD only reports increased RPMs for the starboard engine). If so, the the engine gateway would be determined to be transmitting the correct instance IDs for each engine.

With regard to alarms, the MFD's merely repeat data which is present on the NMEA 2000 backbone. Raymarine has received no reports of such alarms being reported by the MFDs when in fact no corresponding Engine Discrete Status was included within the PGNs transmitted to the NMEA 2000 backbone by the engine gateway. When the question of such possibilities arise, a NMEA 2000 analyzer (ex. Actisense NGT-1 w/PC running Actisense NMEA Reader software, etc.) would typically be interfaced to the backbone to monitor the Discrete Status items within PGN's 127489 (Engine Parameters, Dynamic) and 127493 (Transmission Parameters, Dynamic). I suspect that you or your technician perform such monitoring during engine starting you may find that the Discrete Status items of these PGNs are indicating alarms. It would not be uncommon for such alarms to be transmitted during engine starting, as it may be part of the engine system self test ... much the same self test which one would observe with the dashboard's "idiot lights" when starting one's car.