NMEA 2000 Smartcraft Gateway

Since the lightning strike im upgrading to the garmin gpsmap 741xs due to the lack of real estate on my dash, but it is definitely a huge upgrade to the Lowrance 2400 thing that's there now.  The garmin is NMEA 2000 compatible.  Has anyone had experience with a 2003 5.0 MPI.  The motors are smartcraft, however all of my gauges are analog and extremely unreliable.  If my research is correct... BIG IF...  I can purchase the Mercury Twin Engine Gateway for around $300, hook it into the NMEA 2000 network and simple as that I can view all of the engine information on the chartplotter.  I believe this will show fuel flow (most important), Engine RPM, Oil/Water Pressure, Temperature and maybe some others too.  If this works I will probably replace the entire current gauge panel and install a couple Garmin GMI 10's and do away with all of those gauges.


Has anyone had any experience with the 2003 MPI and the Mercury Gateway. Any incite would be greatly appreciated

Comments

  • LaReaLaRea Member Posts: 7,505 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Correct, IF you have a SmartCraft junction box with an available port.  

    My boat has digital throttle & shift (DTS), so there's a spare SmartCraft port on the DTS controller.  My network backbone is Raymarine SeaTalk-NG, so I am using Raymarine's NG-N2K adapter to bring in the N2K data from the gateway.  Instruments on the NG network can display engine data, and it's a great way to have digital alternatives to the analog gauges.    

    However, I haven't been able to get engine data on my chartplotter (Raymarine C80, which is a SeaTalk-1 device).  The path to the C80 is:  SmartCraft --> N2K gateway --> N2K network --> NG/N2K adapter --> NG network --> NG/ST1 adapter --> chartplotter's ST1 port.  Something in that path ain't quite right yet.  (Work in progress.)

  • Dream_InnDream_Inn Member, Moderator Posts: 7,552 mod
    I did it on my 2002 310 with MPI using a northstar Explorer and it worked great.  I now connected the vessel view to my 2008 400 with no issues as well.

    Dream 'Inn III -- 2008 400 Express

  • MarkBMarkB Member Posts: 3,960 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2014
    Sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm very interested in the last few comments. I have an SC1000 gauge connected to my 2012 350 MAG MPI. I also have a Lowrance HDS GPS/FF with vessel view. Can I daisy off the SC1000 gauge into the Lowrance, or do I need to install a NMEA network?  If I need to install an NMEA network, are we talking big bucks and lots of complexity, or is it pretty simple?

    Boat Name: King Kong

    "Boat + Water = Fun"

  • SeaShiftSeaShift Member Posts: 27 ✭✭

    I have been studying this stuff a lot lately.  Don't take this for the gospel but I believe the SC1000 has a NMEA 2000 plug on it.  Since everything is in the dash I think all you need is to build a small network with a cable coming from the gauge to a T connector connected to another T Connecter Power Supply connected to another T Connector with a cable going to your NMEA 2000 chart plotter then a male a female termination cap.   Wouldn't cost very much at all probably less than $75


    If that Makes any sense...  lol   there are lots of videos on you tube that explain the network.   If I were to do the above connection on my garmin to the SC1000.   An Icon would automatically pop up on the home screen that says gauges and I could view all supplied engine data on the chart plotter.   Just that simple.

  • frodo13056frodo13056 Member Posts: 212 ✭✭✭
    I just added the NMEA 2000 gateway to my 08 320. Here's what you need to know: 1) you will need one Merc part # 8M0065208 (non-DTS dual engine gateway). I paid $300 for mine on e-bay for a brand new one. 2) One Can Link (connects 2 J-Boxes together) part # 891957K01 ~ $30 on e-bay 3) One dual engine instrument adapter part # 892323T01 ~ $38.50 on e-bay 4) Two J-boxes - the J-boxes are junction boxes that everything connects to. You need one for each engine. Part # 878492K14 ~ about $20.00 per junction box on e-bay. 5) Two Can Data Harnesses - these harnesses are what connects to the engine on one side and the J-boxes on the other side. These are ordered to length - I purchased 2 of the part # 879981T 10 where the 10 represents the length of the cable. These cables are available in 10,15,20,25,30 foot lengths and are not cheap. The 10 footers were ordered from a marine place at a cost of $116 EACH. 6) From the factory, Mercruiser engines ECM are programmed both as starboard. You will need to re-program the port engine ECM to "Port". I have the Rinda technologies scanner software so I was able to easily re-program mine. 7) I already had the NMEA 2000 backbone in my engine compartment since I have the Lowrance fuel flow monitoring hardware installed. The gateway comes with the NMEA 2000 connector and an end of line resistor so the hookup was very simple for me. 8) I have a Lowrance radar and a globalmap 7200c and a HDS 5 display. Once I fired up the engines, I selected the gateway from the network setup menu and could pick form lots of data. I set up a gauge display on the HDS 5 with port and starboard engine functions that overlay each other with the port engine needle in red and the starboard engine in blue so if either engine has a parameter significantly different than the other, it clearly shows. On the 7200c, I set up a page that displays numerical data for selected parameters with gauge displays for engine RPM. I absolutely love this! Hope this helps!
  • SeaShiftSeaShift Member Posts: 27 ✭✭

    Wow!!! Thanks


    any chance you have a diagram of how all of this is connected?

  • Robyw1Robyw1 Member Posts: 56 ✭✭
    All I want to do is get GPS speed to my SC1000 system speedometer. The blue and white NMEA 0183 wires are useless because the SC1000 speedo will not read any NMEA 0183 that is version 2.3 or later. I would like to know that if I bought the SmartCraft Gateway, a NMEA 2000 starter kit and a NMEA 2000 GPS receiver, would the speedo read GPS then? I don't care about having the engine data on my GPS screen, I just want the SC1000 speedo to read GPS speed and time.
  • LaReaLaRea Member Posts: 7,505 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Resurrecting an old thread here ... I still haven't been able to get my Smartcraft gateway to work correctly.  

    When I connect the gateway to my N2K network, I can see engine data on my displays.  However, the gateway sends a bogus rudder position signal that causes my autopilot to go unstable.  Apparently it's a known problem with how the Raymarine C80 handles duplicate data messages.  There's no way to tell the gateway not to send a rudder signal, and no way to tell the Raymarine gear to ignore it.  

    For now, my only workaround is to disconnect the gateway.  
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