[TG] [TG11] ECI-100 & STW

[BernieK]

I have an axiom pro 16, Evolution pilot, cp470, Ray73 and ECI-100 all connected properly and working properly.
All software is up to date.
I have 2 Yamaha 115 outboards connected to the ECI-100
I need the STW.
The engine gauges can use either GPS data (if available) or engine data to provide fuel flow, economy units and speed.
I have a requirement for STW whilst fishing as well as to SOG.
I anchor in deep water (350meters) using a Min Kota, and I need the current speed. STW when stationary give the speed of the current.
From this I can work out how far from a fish source I need to be to hit the spot when there is current.
I am pretty sure this is provided by the engine when its on, but I cannot see it on the MFD
I believe the engine uses a pitot tube of some sort to derive the speed.

Under diagnostics Speed Through Water does not detect a source.
The NMEA data of the ECI-100 shows the appropriate sentence, though I haven't looked at it whilst underway.
Is it just that the MFD does not decode the STW from the ECI-100 at all?

If this sentence is not fully decoded in the MFD, does Raymarine have a speed transducer of some sort to connect to the STng network to get STW

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello BernieK,

The ECI100 should pass STW data in PGN 128259 from engine-side NMEA2000 to STNG, so if that's not coming through that suggests that perhaps it's not present (in the standard PGN at least) on the engine side.
It ought to be possible to tell though by temporarily bypassing the STNG network and ECI100 and connecting the Axiom Pro's NMEA2000 connector directly on to the end of the Devicenet cable that is currently going to the engine side of the ECI100, then checking/recording the NMEA2000 data there. That will show what is and is not present on the engine side of the ECI.
If you connect like this and go to Home > Settings > Network > Diagnostics > NMEA Devices and Messages > NMEA Messages and see what PGNs are being listed - do you see 128259? If in doubt, record some of the data and post it back here and we'll see what is and is not present.

If standard NMEA2000 STW is not present (or is, but is not being bridged by the ECI100 for some reason) then yes, we do offer NMEA2000 STW sensors - see 'i70 Smart Transducers' at https://www.raymarine.com.au/view/index-id=1479.html for details - or http://analogue transducers connected via an ITC-5 interface. I would generally recommend the analogue+ITC5 route rather than an NMEA2000 transducer: they're a similar price but more modular, and (unlike the NMEA2000 types at present) can be calibrated through an LH3 MFD without requiring a dedicated instrument display.
Hopefully this won't be required though.

Regards,
Tom

[BernieK]

(04-13-20 09:25 PM)Tom - Raymarine - Moderator Wrote:  Hello BernieK,

The ECI100 should pass STW data in PGN 128259 from engine-side NMEA2000 to STNG, so if that's not coming through that suggests that perhaps it's not present (in the standard PGN at least) on the engine side.
It ought to be possible to tell though by temporarily bypassing the STNG network and ECI100 and connecting the Axiom Pro's NMEA2000 connector directly on to the end of the Devicenet cable that is currently going to the engine side of the ECI100, then checking/recording the NMEA2000 data there. That will show what is and is not present on the engine side of the ECI.
If you connect like this and go to Home > Settings > Network > Diagnostics > NMEA Devices and Messages > NMEA Messages and see what PGNs are being listed - do you see 128259? If in doubt, record some of the data and post it back here and we'll see what is and is not present.

If standard NMEA2000 STW is not present (or is, but is not being bridged by the ECI100 for some reason) then yes, we do offer NMEA2000 STW sensors - see 'i70 Smart Transducers' at https://www.raymarine.com.au/view/index-id=1479.html for details - or http://analogue transducers connected via an ITC-5 interface. I would generally recommend the analogue+ITC5 route rather than an NMEA2000 transducer: they're a similar price but more modular, and (unlike the NMEA2000 types at present) can be calibrated through an LH3 MFD without requiring a dedicated instrument display.
Hopefully this won't be required though.

Regards,
Tom

Hi Tom
Thanks for the quick reply. The Australian Raymarine website is broken. The popup on the covid-19 seems to have mucked up all the menus. The .com (US) sight works OK.
I cant find the analogue transducer menu or URL on the US sit
I am using up to date Firefox.
cheers
Bernie

[BernieK]

Hi Tom
Well I had a look at what the ECI puts out and it puts out 127488 & 127497 which are not what I need. These are without the engine running so I need to do that to see if there is any variation
By the way it would be nice if Raymarine decoded into PGNs rather than hex.
I actually had to engage the brain cells (not a bad thing, i guess) to work out the PGNs.

I also looked at the manual (always a last resort and fraught with danger) at the Yamaha app and I am able to configure it to get STW so it must be possible. But perhaps the Yamaha App sends requests rather than relies on broadcast.

The Yamaha app is pretty useless when it can only be full screen though

I will make copies of all my setup, way points, routes & tracks and try that.
cheers
Bernie

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hi Bernie,

I think the thinking on the diagnostic display output is that if you don't know much of what you're looking at then message titles are more useful than (decimal) PGNs, whereas if you do know what you're doing you probably want raw, raw data, including source address etc.. We don't do a middle ground.

On the website - we are transitioning some parts of the site I believe and have had some things break, sorry about that. You can go to Products > Instruments > ITC5 / Transducers, down at the bottom.

On the Yamaha - I do think it would be worth trying to temporarily bypass the ECI and see what you're getting direct on the engine network. That would confirm whether it's the ECI not passing it through, or it not being present (in standard data) in the first place.

Tom

[BernieK]

Hi Tom
Well I managed to get the Yamaha engine directly to the MFD.
Luckily I had half a device net cable I used to make a backbone cable for STng & Devicenet on my last boat. With a couple of T Pieces and a couple of resistors for terminators, I was able to make a devicenet backbone of sorts with spurs to Yamaha gauges and MFD.

It was as you suggested. The engine and gauges produces a lot more PGNs and one of them was in fact 128259.
I did try the ECI-100 with the engine running but it still does not pass through the engine 128259, though the documentation says it should.
The ECI-100 software is V1.2 which is the latest.

I don't think it is desirable to have the Yamaha Gauge connected directly to the STng because then I have 2 different power sources connected together on the backbone.
Worse for me is that the engine battery is separate from my house battery, which is in turn charged by solar panels or the engine battery via a CTEK D250. The house battery runs all instruments.
The ECI is ideal because it separates the 2 NMEA networks.
If I was to just use the engine to power the full network, I would lose AIS data from my Ray73 unless the engine was on.

Is there anyway to reset or cause the ECI-100 to transmit all the PGNs?

There is very little technical data on the gauges, unfortunately.

At a pinch I could modify the spur cable from the gauges to STng backbone and cut the power wire, but I think that would be a last resort.
cheers
Bernie

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello Bernie,

I wouldn't and didn't suggest making this a permanent connection - did you by any chance record the Yamaha-side NMEA2000 though, so that we can see what is in those 128259 messages?
If there's valid 128259 on the engine side and ECI100 isn't passing it through when the specification in the handbook says it should then I would like to report this to Engineering, but would need a recording of the engine-side NMEA2000 in order to do so.

There's no configuration for ECI100, it should always output every data type that's available and supported; possibly there's a bug where it's not bridging valid data, or perhaps the data in those 128259 messages isn't valid. Did you see an STW value in the MFD's Dashboard app or data overlays when you did that temporary direct connection?

Thanks,
Tom

[BernieK]

Hi Tom
Ask and you shall receive.

With the engines connected directly to the MFD when each is first turned on it gives an "Engine Shutting Down" (see screen shot 2) alarm followed by 8 "unknown error" which are things like position of neutral switch etc.

I have included the log file plus diagnostics with no engines 1 engine then 2 engines.

I did 3 individual log files but they were all appended into one.

The diagnostic_2eng seems to be the same as Diagnostic_1Eng, I suspect this may be some of the problem because it seems LH3 is using the names as identifiers rather than name and instance.

If you also want log file with the ECI-100 I can do that fairly easily. The boat is in my driveway and with the weather and the lock down I spend hours sitting it mumbling "fish, fish, fish, fish...."

[BernieK]

Hi Tom
One thing I forgot to say was that with engines connected directly to the MFD, the Engine Data can be selected as the Speed Through Water and it appears as zero in the data box and goes to _._ as expected when the engine is turned off.

I also obtained a Garmin NMEA 2000 Power Isolater just to make it easier. (I don't have to disconnect everything else).
cheers
Bernie

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Thanks Bernie.

There are two different sources of 128259 in that log, from devices with addresses 0 and 1 (the engines), one with no/invalid data and one with zeroes:

Line 15: Rx 297247 09 f5 03 01 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff From:01 Speed STW:--kts
Line 28: Rx 297340 09 f5 03 02 ff 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff From:02 Speed STW:0.00kts
Line 41: Rx 297447 09 f5 03 01 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff From:01 Speed STW:--kts
Line 54: Rx 297540 09 f5 03 02 ff 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff From:02 Speed STW:0.00kts
Line 69: Rx 297647 09 f5 03 01 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff From:01 Speed STW:--kts
Line 80: Rx 297740 09 f5 03 02 ff 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff From:02 Speed STW:0.00kts
Line 100: Rx 297847 09 f5 03 01 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff From:01 Speed STW:--kts
Line 114: Rx 297940 09 f5 03 02 ff 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff From:02 Speed STW:0.00kts


I would guess that the ECI may be not handling well the situation of two different Speed sources, one with invalid data, and bridging the wrong one (perhaps because of lower source address?) or bridging neither. I'll log a report on this.

The unexpected engine alarms you are seeing when connected bypassing the ECI are because Yamaha engines have a quirk where the set all of the Reserved bits in the Engine Status fields in 127489 Engine Parameters Dynamic to 1 instead of 0 (1 is the value for reserved bit fields in almost every other place in the NMEA2000 spec, but in this particular field the spec says they should be 0.) Our MFD interprets these reserved bits as flagged alarm states for alarm types that we don't yet know about (e.g. from a device programmed for a later version of the NMEA2000 spec.)
The ECI100 knows about this quirk and works around it, setting all those reserved bits back to 0.

Regards,
Tom