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How To: Marine Electrical Seminar - Troubleshooting Your Electronics - Episode 9 of 12

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[Music]  good morning everyone good morning  thank you for a blue water cruising  association for hosting this event  the word electronic and electrical are  used  interchangeably by a lot of people but  they're different  electrical is simpler  right it's power right there's no  computer there's no nothing i mean  battery charges inverters yes but  pretty straightforward electronics are  for example  um a radar chart plotter  your depth sounder your ais  it's basically a computer right that's  what electronics are right phone is  electronics  the phone is not electrical there's  electrical within the phone  but it's a little bit more complicated  than just electricity okay  so for troubleshooting  honestly you can't troubleshoot  something without understanding how it  works  otherwise it's sort of being blind and  leading the way  it's not going to happen nothing's going  to make sense and it's so random you're  just going to get frustrated  so that's why yesterday and part of this  morning you've got to spend  time caring about how conceptually  something works  and if you understand how conceptually  works your chances of troubleshooting  something are much higher  if you don't understand how it works at  all troubleshooting it is going to be so  random  you're going to get just frustrated and  you're probably going to give up the  only thing is  first thing is understand how it works  and once you understand how it works  then you have a chance of solving it by  troubleshooting  the other one too is if you understand  how it works then what are the parts  part of that solution that could have  failed  because it's not a one thing right when  we looked at the battery charger  yesterday off a generator  how many things power a battery charger  from a generator there's a lot of  different  things that are part of that process  you can't be random logic you got to  start at the beginning you got to wait  walk down you can't just start going  everywhere you can't be haphazard you're  going to waste your time  your time is precious  we talked about this earlier generally  it's very rare that a device actually  fails  generally it's to do with the  installation of that device it's  possible  but a lot of times actually believe it  or not it's things around it  okay  so the next one is well you've got to  start eliminating the obvious  you can bring someone on board if you  don't value money  but the first thing would be is the  battery switch turned on  sounds silly but pretty common we get  called out all the time  a lot of panic someone turned the  battery switch on  or off they don't know where the battery  switches are they come back on board  their boat is dead  they think their batteries are dead and  their vacation is ruined  they don't leave on friday night as they  planned and the only problem is  the mechanic turned off the battery  switch off when they were doing the work  and they didn't even know they had one  and they don't know how to turn it on  so i've had no seriously it happens all  the time boaters miss a weekend miss  nine day trip they're leaving on a  friday can't get a hold of someone  and then they come to the boat the boat  don't start they cancel the holiday and  they go back and the only thing that was  wrong was the battery switch was off  simple but you got to understand that  you know and that's why you got to care  because none of us and i remind this all  the time to everyone  none of us have enough summers in our  lifetime i don't care if you have 70  summers left in your lifetime  you have a hundred that is not enough  time left to enjoy life  every weekend is precious everything is  precious and so if you missed a weekend  because of the battery switch  that kind of sucks right because your  boat was ready you just didn't  understand it  next is the breaker panel that is super  common  most people don't even bother looking at  their breaker panel  how often am i called in that the fridge  doesn't work  and the breaker that says fridge on the  breaker panel  is not on you laugh but it happens all  the time  they don't look at it somebody  accidentally touched it they were  doing something else they turned it off  they never look at it they don't even  know it's there  again it's not i'm not saying it's their  fault it's just you know what it's boats  are complicated  and the breaker's off and now suddenly  the fridge is off  you turn the breaker on the fridge works  it's embarrassing and it's frustrating  look make sure that the breaker does  your appliance have a breaker and if it  does is it on  the next one too is the branch breaker  to the device so like for example in my  case  on my boat there's no breaker for radar  or ais  i have a breaker for navigation  electronics now that's code word for a  lot of different things  on my boat it means char plotter radar  ais vhf all these different things  so you have to know what those breakers  mean on your boat because you might see  for example upper bridge electronics  that breaker's off that breaker gives  you tons of different things  and it's often you know like my radar  and sharp water don't work  you're not understand that that's a key  word for up flybridge electronics means  navigation equipment running off of the  flybridge  so understanding what breakers do on  your boat are gonna allow you to  troubleshoot a little bit things and  then  you're not you can't get as much as  frustrated  and the other thing it's obvious but did  you actually turn on the device and it  sounds silly but again  sometimes some device automatically turn  on if they were left on the last time  but if you turn them off and you turn  the power back on  they're still in off state so they have  a memory of their state  there you turn the power off and they  were on next time you turn the power on  they're still on  you turn them off before turning the  breaker off  you turn the breaker on they're still in  off state you need to change the state  press the power button  on the electronics to now turn it on  again  sounds silly but there a lot of  electronics actually remember their  state  so if it was turned off when it was off  it's going to be off when it's powered  and then if you eliminate the obvious  then you start  the journey and that's where it gets  interesting  you start at the beginning  first problem that is most common is  there's not enough power or no power at  the device  common one is your char plotter works  when you connect to shore power  it works a little bit when you leave the  dock and when you're sailing it doesn't  work  what's that problem is a problem with  the radar or chart plotter or is it the  problem that the batteries  are getting low with voltage over time  and that your batteries are either  getting weak or the connections were not  done well and it only works on shore  power because your batteries are at 13.5  on shore power and as soon as you  disconnect from shore power you're at  12.6  and then you're sailing you go down to  12 2 and that delta delta delta  loss and loss makes that your sharp lot  and radar stop working  in the middle of the straight of georgia  every single time is the radar  coincidently knowing that it's in the  middle of straight or georgia  well it could happen but no  it's a voltage drop problem voltage  dropped because maybe the batteries are  weak  or maybe because the connection was  badly weak it's badly done and it  doesn't manifest itself  when you've got lots of power  battery voltage has dropped too low  super popular  happens all the time with nav lights how  many times that we're called out to  replace a nav light  and the issue is that the nav light is  on the bow of a boat it's exposed to  salt water  it's a very corroded connection right  same thing on a mast  how many i was on a boat just recently  well not myself but one of our crew  going up a mass changing  a steaming light was the steaming light  broken was the  fixture broken not at all it was it  hadn't been installed properly it leaked  and the connections inside were corroded  and corroded enough that none of it  so we clean the connections read them  them properly and the nav light  and the fixture were working by the way  the owner bought both the nav light  and a replacement light because when you  send someone up the mask  time is money so just because of a bad  connection  that hardware was already purchased they  already had it on their nav table ready  for us because they assumed that it was  the light or the fixture it was neither  it was the connections  corrosion on the terminal or connector  oh my god  welcome to a world of hurt that is  any connections that are in an  inhospitable environment  are going to have corrosion on the  terminal or the connector and that's the  first place to look  handoffs of energy through connections  are the number one culprit  and the chance of a broken wire loose  connect a broken wire on your boat  are one in a million  one in a million how does a wire break  if it's a flexible wire  now solid core wiring oh yeah of course  no problem  no problem but a flexible wire that's  broken  now of course there's exceptions i had  an owner  had a uh for example on his radar arch  had  someone installed deck lights and when  they installed the deck lights  they drilled a hole and they drilled a  hole and they hid the wire inside the  tubing  and it made their satellite dish not  work they literally drilled a hole right  through the coax of course  then i always ask did someone do  anything around there did  anybody do anything oh no nothing we did  nothing we just installed lights i'm  like  bingo where did they install them oh  yeah well there you go sure enough you  pull the cable and you see  like a drill mark right through the  cable so that can happen but if you're  not drilling or playing on your boat  what are the chances that you're going  to have a wire that's severed i mean  that's that's that's that's pretty crazy  but a loose connector that is  all the time boats vibrate  vibration causes things to undo  themselves  i came on a boat once they had 12 guard  12 golf cart batteries and eight of the  golf cart batteries were not part of the  other four  the connections had all undone  themselves most of the nuts were not  even on top of the battery  they were in the bottom of the battery  bank  they had no idea this is about a 60  footer they had battery problems  never went to look at the battery the  batteries were not given it was  unreasonable battery life  and they were right definitely  unreasonable and it's the same thing  that you know once you do like  with wheels or something you have to go  and tighten it up again after three  months  right and if you just hand tighten it  well then welcome to the world of magic  welcome so a loose connector oh that  happens all the time it's you got to  start it there  like either the bad crimp or it's a  loose connection right  now safe is real if you don't support  your wire and your boat and your wires  are simply  loose and you think it's just an  aesthetic desire  to have things in bundles and they don't  move  over time not the first year not the  second year now if you go offshore  yes but if you're here in a marina  10 20 30 years of chafing absolutely  will cost shafe  i see it all the time the the jacket  will actually be rubbed right through  i've seen that on engines i've seen it  all the time wires are just running  loose  and over time just enough rubbing causes  the jacket to actually  wear off and then eventually you'll have  a positive wire  shaved i saw that on a commercial tug  once  where one of the jackets had rubbed so  much on the metal  because it was an aluminum boat they had  lost  i mean the damage was like humbling and  it was one of their wires was actually  leaking into the hall  but not enough to cause a short but  enough to  actually energize their underwater  metals and it was  massive amount of damage and it was  because the bundle was not protected  from the hull and  it was loose it was chafing it's  commercial boat used a lot  this fuse may be hidden problem i  brought that up earlier  that's a world of hurt too you turn the  circuit breaker on but you don't have  power of the appliance  because there's a fuse and the fuse is  sort of hidden  you know i'll remember that yeah it's  midway in the pedestal because that's  the length of wire and i didn't want to  extend the wire  and that's what it was it happened to be  right in the pedestal between the lower  helm and the upper helm and i'll  remember next time if it blow  that you just give it a little bit of  slack and look yeah yeah sure yeah you  remember that for a while  what about the next owner i've seen  fuses in places that defy  all logic there is no logic it's  actually evil  is what it is and there's nothing wrong  with the appliances everything's fine  the fuse blew in a place that you can't  find it and then it becomes  it's a nightmare so make sure your fuses  if there are there they're always  accessible okay and then  use a meter to test the entire the  entire circuits in sequence  okay with that we're going to kick off  and we're going to talk about  first we're going to start with  navigation a little bit  this is the way things used to be  this is called naba0183  there there's a newer protocol today  called enemy 8 2000  90 of us are going to have zero 183 on  our boats  it's going to take a long time for enemy  01 a3 to disappear  and it's complicated hence why 2000 came  up  but look at a display for example a  multi-functional display like this and  look at the amount of connections that  had to happen  for that device to work and all of these  are  actually it's absolutely important to  remember what is sending what to what  the right polarity so this is right now  sending information to the pilot and  it's receiving information on the pilot  this is truly a bi-directional  conversation  the pilot sends heading to the chart  plotter the chart plotter sends  tracking information routing information  to the autopilot  same thing with the is right you could  have ais  information going here you could have ai  not ais but different information here  going to the is  and then you saw this like this looks a  little bit like ctalk right like bust  apology from raymarine  and then you would have that and then  everything would be daisy chained  this doesn't look that bad but let's be  honest  the reason like in the past like five  years ago  the number of vhf radios that would just  have  two wires connected to the chart plotter  for gps position which is  essential essential for having  a 9-1-1 feature the dsc feature on your  vhf radio  like we're talking about opting out from  9-1-1 that takes a lot of courage  you have to have a serious level of  confidence in yourself  to say that i will never need a 9-1-1 in  my life if you opt out into that like  you have you're a  much stronger man than i am i can't  imagine  95 percent of all boats didn't have a  vhf connected to their chart plotter or  gps  because the two wires that needed to be  connected were so complicated  because you needed to remember that a  talker can only talk to a listener  and a listener vice versa so you had to  remember i'm a talker i have to connect  to a listener  that one now is a talker and needs to  listen  i need to listen to it so it's literally  like you've got to talk on one side  listen on the other  and the other one talks to you you can't  just go talk or to talk or listen to  listener  because you can't talk to another mouth  i mean it's impossible  and you can't listen to another ear so  literally people would go talk talk  listen listen they're thinking it's  going to work  no didn't work and that's if they were  connected  less than ten percent and it's probably  closer to five percent  of vhf radios were getting a gps  position so that little dsc function on  the radio  was disabled useless no value  everyone was opting out of 9-1-1 because  it was too complicated  okay and so it was very rare to actually  see an nmea network  that was fully utilized and that was  sharing information between different  pieces of electronics equipment on your  boat so that for example you could have  ais come in your chart plotter  right or have maybe your chart plotter  also chairing into a laptop  okay and that's easy  on the big boats  we did a 115 115 footer  it was crazy amount of work and that's  what it looks like  it was humbling literally every single  of those devices we had on that boat  we had multiplexers gateways  converters bridges  you had all these different devices and  everything  was context driven a talker talks only  to listeners you can only have multiple  amount listeners you can't have multiple  talkers  talking to one listener then you've got  to have a multiplexer  and this was the world up till recently  like we did that boat in 2012 and we  built it like this in 2012.  so that's not that far  and what happened is then the world came  and you can't troubleshoot that this is  your  you're done i mean you're sort of like  tap out  and that's why people didn't like  integration because honestly you  couldn't get it to work  and even if you could you can  troubleshoot it because you needed to  have a crazy understanding  and then the world went to this and now  this one  we can help each other with this is  called  enemy a2000  if you've got a navigation equipment  that is less than  5 probably even 10 years old  10 maybe depends  garmin for sure raymarine has a rename  they just call it c  talk ng same same but different  you're going to have what's called a can  bus here which is the enemy 2000  backbone  and then you're going to have a bunch of  drops these are called drops  the power needs to energize this  backbone and then you can have  instruments a char plotter another  instrument a fuel sensor  a transducer and on some boats  like we did a 145 you know there's like  70 80 of those drops right i mean it's  crazy  but you could have a selena 60 foot  saleen we did a 60 foot saline they've  got about 40 drops 50 drops too  yeah one backbone how do you know what  you have  well i actually you can actually believe  it or not if they're all properly wired  you would actually be able to in one of  the displays  like even on your chart plotter to  actually see every single enemy 2000  device that you have on an mba 2000  backbone  or you can also buy a diagnostic tool  and you can plug it into one of the  drops and you'll see every other device  on the backbone  well you'll see that actually on the  chart bar will tell you like if you've  got a char plotter you'll actually be  able to see the com ports  see communication ports enemy 2000 and  you'll have literally they'll actually  name you what they are  they'll say fuel sensors carbon monoxide  detectors they'll actually  tell the name of what it is like on one  big boat we did  another 115 we had nine fuel not nine  tanks right every tank had a fuel level  sensor  right bilgewater dark gray  fuels hydraulic tank right  all of them were enemy 2000.  this wasn't invented by the marine  industry it's basically  like a lot of things good ideas come  from other places  um this was invented by bosch it's can  bus  it's control area network it's any to  any there's no talker or listener  everything can talk or listen and  there's no intelligence  you can take one device on you can take  it off it doesn't matter  it's basically auto learns how to  prioritize information  different items on the backbone have  more  priority than others a gps has more  priority than say  a fuel tank sender so even if the  network is congested  certain things will go through over  other things you don't need to know  where your fuel tank level is every  second  but you want to know where your position  is every second  so they'll actually they all have it's a  protocol and they know when it's their  time to speak  if they speak too often and depending on  their priority level they're going to be  brought down  you can have enemy a2000 compasses  chart plotters now enemy 2000 not to be  confused will not send  video signal what's a video signal  video signal is sounder image a radar  image  all those things that have a high amount  of content  cannot go over an me2000 they're going  over an  ethernet backbone we're going to talk  about that in another slide  enemy 2000 is a limited amount of data  ais  will go on there you can have depth but  not a depth  not a fish finder but depth as a number  and that's why they call this an  intelligent transducer  this device actually calculates depth  inside the device  and outputs depth to the backbone it's  common we do that on trawlers all the  time  we need an 80 footer we'll do you know  the bottom  they'll have normal depth fish finder  and then we'll put in a secondary depth  sounder just depth only  just as a backup do that a lot even some  boats 40 footers 50 50-footers  some sailboaters i did on my boat you'll  have  depth as a fish finder and depth as a  number  you probably have that on your boat from  one transducer two transducers  yeah you'll want backup it's backup no  but they'll do that it makes sense  honestly it's not crazy  there's a lot of gadgets in life depth  is not a gadget if you think death is  not important and i meet owners  sometimes they tell me i don't need  depth because the chart has depth  i choose to not engage in a conversation  because i don't have the time but that  is an interesting choice i'll leave that  at that  i am not one to believe that they don't  ask me what i think and so i don't share  because i mean obviously we can't find  middle ground on that  but i am a huge believer that depth is  not a gimmick  i'm a huge fan of depth propulsion  steering depth  vhf yeah lead line  led line works but depth is pretty  important  it's up there it's really up there so  you can buy a transducer now  like an enemy 2000 transducer that  connects into a backbone and you can  have depth at the front of the boat and  you can depth at the back of the boat  big boats could do that on a sailboat  depth of the front of the keel  death of the back of the queue you can  do whatever you want and they're not  expensive  and so again they're not working with a  big chart plotter you could actually see  it directly onto an instrument  right so a lot of depth sounders for  example fish finders you need a big  chart plotter to show that you're not  going to see that on a small  a fish finder is not going to work on a  four inch let's say small instrument  you see depth on that but you're not  going to see a fish finder on a four  inch  instrument and so if you want to have  for example  on a boat you want to have some  instruments showing depth on here  you're either going to have to have that  on or you're going to have to have  intelligent transducer connected to that  so that you don't need your big chart  plotter to provide a fish finder which  gives you depth  to then in turn share that information  with the little screen  so we do that all the time on trawlers  like 40 foot all the time i don't see a  radar up there  no and that's right why because i said  radar is  large image it's video can't be up on  any 2000  and that is one of the biggest  misconceptions there is  people think that ma2000 can do  everything no it can't it's a limited  amount of bus  right it's it has some throughput but it  cannot do a video image  you're not going to have video cameras  on ma2000 you're not going to have a  radar in ma2000 your radar doesn't take  any me 2000 there's no such thing as a  radar enemy 2000 port  you'll do an autopilot yes your char  plotter is going to be connected to it  but again it's not going to be sharing  any your chart data is not going to be  sharing from one chart plotter to the  other chart plotter over enemy 2000  that's way too much data that is going  to happen over  ethernet and we're going to talk about  that in the next in the next few slides  limited amount of data goes already may  2000  so when you're troubleshooting this sort  of network and quite  honestly this is not rare not anymore  happens is generally is one of these  little rings these little connectors  gets loose through vibration  so you need to know where every single t  is on your boat this is called an  ma2000t  because it has three sides right and  that little nut there could get loose  and if it get  loose then you're going to lose the  backbone half the backbone is going to  work  the other half backbone's going to work  but both of two halves of your backbone  if they were powered independently would  be working but not talking  or you might have one that's energized  the other one's not energizing the other  one's dead  because you see how here this needs  power if that fuse blows or is  disconnected and i get this all the time  my enemy 2000 is doesn't work i lost it  and honestly as simple as  the circuit breaker labeled enemy a2000  on the dash  is not energized this is why it's so  important as boaters to be curious  you're not curious until you have a  problem the chances of you being able to  ride a bike or ski if you've never skied  before  are pretty low you might have a high  level of confidence in yourself but if  you've never  practiced and you don't know where  things are  when things don't work it's upsetting  it really is and then you're depending  on people like myself  to either help you remotely if i'm  available  or what happens sometimes some of my  technicians get on flow planes  this morning you're going on an airplane  you're going in the middle of nowhere  and you're going to go rescue someone  and that's what you end up doing  and some of those rescues are worth the  time to go  and some of them sometimes aren't and  they're simple little things  so understand your boat so that when  things do go wrong  you know why and that circuit breaker  here because you see how you have to  have an inline switch or ignition  that inline switch if it's off then  your intelligent transducer is not going  to work your fuel flow sensors are not  going to work your autopilot's not going  to be even energized  all these systems are going to be down  and you're going to be driving yourself  crazy for just simply a switch on the  dash that you didn't know existed  as simple as that  now here's the bad news this looks  simple right  it's pretty simple the bad news is  the macgyver technician or the mcviver  owner  that looks at this and thinks he can do  whatever he wants and does not educate  themselves  i've seen it even production boats after  the fact or the  manufacturer does normally  this and the owner decided to emphasize  strongly to the manufacturer that they  should do more but they're not really  competent at that  and so they do it but they shouldn't do  it  and i've seen boats that are worth  quarter million dollars  750 i saw a power boat like a high-end  powerboat  seven hundred thousand dollar powerboat  like it was 35 feet so you can imagine  what kind of powerboat that is  it's not size that they bought it's a  lot of gear and the enemy a2000 backbone  it took us three days to fix it  because they just thought it was plug  and play they didn't follow the protocol  they could only be one resistor on one  end and another resistor on the other  end  there's you can't have it's it needs to  be one backbone and then individual  drops  i have a youtube video just on the  backbone  you have to follow the code and most  people  remember what i said nobody likes  reading thank god for youtube at least  now people can watch  but without that you have to follow the  code and if you don't  if you don't then welcome into the world  of magic  question  i don't remember something like it's 64  or something like that or it could be  128 i don't  there's all these lengths there's math i  don't remember but there's a limitation  there's a limitation on the number of  drops the number of cabling there's apps  that actually measure all that  meritron is a great app like we don't  chance it we'll design it  and we'll actually plug it we'll  actually do a design and then execute  and it's a software and they'll tell us  if there's errors  but yeah don't take the chance  everything's simple until you do it  question in the back one question is how  essential are the termination resistors  on a backbone  utterly critical if you don't have them  it won't work or it's going to work  it might work sometimes but it's going  to work intermittently  you could actually remove a connection  and still have the t there but have no  connection at that point  so like oftentimes we'll be running a  cable through the boat  and we'll have spare t's in different  location as we're leaving the engine  room going up to the fly bridge we might  put a t in a  few different places so they can add  stuff as they go along  under no circumstances the question is  can you tur  put a cap at the end of a tee right here  a cap here is not protection against  moisture or anything  it actually is essential for the  communication bus  you can never have more than two t's and  the two t's have to be at the end of the  backbone  you no one shall ever ever put a third  tee anywhere on a backbone  the backbone has a start and it has an  end and nothing else  correct you will shall never put a  resistor or  anything on that that is a resistor on a  t  there are caps if you want like cheap  little caps if you want to protect  the pins but a termination resistor is  not a cap  and if you do welcome to the world of  magic it's  five wires in that cable the can bus  cable has five wires  two for signaling two for power and one  for ground  oh yeah 100 proprietary 100 proprietary  cable  and that's why raymarine of course  decided to give it a different name and  they called it ctalk ng  and they changed the pin configurations  and the connector configurations to make  it more  complicated but it's c talking g there's  just they're  it's sort of like me calling english  kinglish i don't know  just making it up a different word but i  don't change anything i don't make any  difference  it's just i re-label it it's just to  confuse the marketplace  that's all it is confuse the marketplace  and it works i mean there's a reason to  do it but  yeah so you can talk from ctalk and g to  ma2000 you just need a pigtail it's just  a wire  there's not even a box in between it's  just going from one proprietary  connector to a non-proprietary connector  it's it's a marketing decision it  doesn't really make any difference  this is a bigger backbone right again  bunch of t's  a drop for power and then you can start  seeing like this is an ma2000 to usb  gateway  larger char plot not a char plot a  larger instrument  solid compass this is a weather station  with a gps  like not this one is gps but you can buy  weather stations  this is a dst-100 this is a smart  intelligent transducer  gives you depth speed and temp  and then you can have some we did a boat  about two years ago uh we digitized the  whole boat so all the circuits on the  boat could be turned on from a chart  plotter  right the whole boat was wired like that  like from scratch  the boat and that's we did that with  c-zone so we were doing that you seen  that like for example boston whaler does  that too they're doing c-zone  so you can actually turn on every  circuit you want on a chartplotter you  can do anything you don't even have a  panel on the boat anymore  the panel your screens or your panels  right and you can say  here's the mode i'm on the mode at  anchor then  a bunch of switches automatically get  turned on and off i'm underway  navigating a bunch of switches get  turned on and off i'm going to bed  a bunch of switches get turned on and  off i'm going to leave the boat for  extended period time bunch of switches  get on it so you have different modes  and you're able to do that via these  digital switching modules which are  connected believe it or not over enemy  2000  the point is when you're doing enemy  a2000 or anything on your boat  first of all create a schematic okay  that's  first point don't just do it like write  it down  because you're gonna forget what you did  even on your own boat so make a plan  right think about building a house with  a plan that would be sort of crazy  right the house would not look normal  nobody's ever built anything  that looks pretty or looks pretty  impressive without a plan  like the plan is the first part and i  even remind this to my own technicians  i'm like  no no like we're not going to do  anything you're talking a lot of words  great yeah sure take a picture of your  plan  send it to me on it i want to see it  let's look at a plan and let's build to  a plan  and when you're doing enemy a2000 if you  have one start creating a diagram  a little bit like a wiring diagram we  wrote an article in pacific yachting  i think about a year ago about if you  don't have a wiring diagram on your boat  create one right be curious because  again when you're going to need to  troubleshoot your bow  it's going to be really helpful if  you've got a wiring diagram  you can do a lot of magic and a lot of  troubleshooting with a wiring diagram  if everything is just buried and you  don't know where things are  it makes it quasi-impossible well unless  you have lots of time or money  but it becomes very frustrating so even  on my bone boat that i love my boat  i have a wiring diagram of where all my  tees are  what they do where are they on the boat  so if i ever want to troubleshoot  i know where all the devices are and if  you don't have one  it's a great rainy day project question  is can you start integrating zero and a  three to two thousand  right like how do and absolutely there  are gateways that are zero one eight  three to two thousand  and you can start having a hybrid system  you don't have to go all in  you can start creating an ma2000  backbone have a legacy system  and have the legacy and then you sort of  talk over what are called zero one eight  three to two thousand  and we do that all the time even on like  crazy navigation systems  where someone's dropping a hundred  thousand dollars believe me or  believe it or not some gear is still  staying that doesn't change everything  you know the autopilot might be zero and  a three and we're not gonna change it  and we're gonna have a gateway from that  to enemy 2000 because at one point you  can't do it all  and on a normal boat the same thing we  might keep the instruments c  talk which is not zero it's not even  zero and a three  we might take the instruments raymarine  sea talk leave them there and put a c  talk to enemy 2000 gateway  or see talk in g and then c talking g to  ma2000  and we'll put a new navigation suite and  leave the instruments there  so it's not an all or nothing you can  integrate okay  now this is an example of  look at they've got blue is for enemy  2000  instruments sharp plotters satellite  that's xm radio vhf that's enemy 2000  and then look at the red the red here is  ethernet  so they've got an ethernet cable and  notice there's a little one there too  that's hard to see but it's important  a little red here so the char plotter  sharp sharpener chart plotter  the sounderbox right here the radar are  connected over ethernet  okay and that's how  really modern navigation systems are  done you've got always two protocols  one ethernet nma 2000 or any a03 but you  have both  because you can't share a radar image or  a sounder image  on enemy 2000 there's just too much data  okay  question a char plotter would have an me  2000 and ethernet  and enemy a0183 some of them actually  will have  all three they'll be able to integrate  enemy 2000  0183 and ethernet on the same port  i'm not saying port but the back of the  device that's why there's so many ports  at the back of those things  and some of them will actually even take  like coax for video cameras  question is ethernet wire is a solid  wire no marine grade ethernet wire that  you would buy from the manufacturer  because they have proprietary ends  to actually lock them in place they're  still rj45s  right those wires are actually  they're ethernet wires not solid right  they're going to be like well i mean  they're  tiny but they're not big solid they're  going to be marine grade ethernet wires  on those rj45s but now they're tiny  little wires they're super flexible  even wire you could almost coil in  something this big  right  this is another example of the same  picture  you see this switch over here this  switch is doing ethernet to a radar  to a sounder to a chart plot or a chart  plotter switch like at home right it's  ethernet  and then you have an ama2000 bus doing  an instrument an autopilot a vhf an ais  transponder enemy 2000  and it's also talking to a char plotter  and another char plotter  and then you have a  basically a mult a panel that is  powering  each device right the radar the char  plotters  the switch the sounder and also the  backbone  this is a very typical nav system  not hard just pretty vanilla  that's how they work ama2000  ethernet and then power everywhere and  then it gets more complicated when you  have legacy systems  that are zero one a3 question that seems  redundant to have two cabling to do  one thing uh there's going to be yes  there's a new protocol  called onenet i think that's the name  it's in the works right now redundancy  though is a good thing  you know personally uh  i like to me i don't know if i'm ever  gonna ditch my new a2000 i'm going to do  it unwillingly  i like depth certain information to be  stand alone i don't want to have all my  eggs in one basket remember this is  nativigation this is not  your loss you can't watch cnn anymore  and your day's really off because your  football is not coming in  right you're talking i want everything  to be on one cable in one system  so much so that i'm willing to learn  depth ais gps  everything about everything i want to be  blind i want so much simplicity  geeks are going to love that honestly  people that are geeky are going to love  that  i'm a little cautious i like to have two  separation and on the big boats guess  how many backbones i do  i don't do one backbone i do multiple  backbones and on the big big boats do i  do even one backbone i have a big  backbone two of them and then i have  redundant backbones right beside  right just in case because remember this  is not a gimmick  a lot of us are going further afield to  places that we would never go if we  didn't have  charts or if we didn't have depth  and without that there's a lot of places  that we wouldn't go there's places that  are pretty tricky  they're pretty damn tricky and if you  didn't have a char plotter or  an i.e a lot of us only have a char  plotter there's a lot of places on  vancouver island like i spent all the  summer  on the outside of vancouver island this  summer and let me tell you  it is pepper sprayed it's like an evil  joke  it's like rocks everywhere and if you  don't know where they are  you're going down there's no other way  around it  it's not predictable you're not only  going to hit shore you know  and you're going to sink there are rocks  where you would never expect them  and i don't think that a lot of people  are going to be comfortable  putting everything all their eggs in one  basket  it's going to happen but it's going to  be a it's going to be an interesting  adoption rate  i think there's going to be unwillingly  there's going to be some people that are  going to sort of  hold on for a long time okay  question yeah so the question is if you  have a char plotter you know or there's  a note  that you also are in a lot of countries  legally responsible have paper charts  and that's true and on my boat i do you  know i had paper charts before  i bought my chart plotters and i have a  lot of paper charts  but there's also a reality that we get  comfortable with char plotters  and i think if one day somebody removed  my chart plotter on my boat and i was in  a really tricky place like  in the browns or outside of vancouver  island  it would be it would be scary honestly  it wouldn't be the same  i wouldn't have been there in the first  place if i didn't have a char plot and i  have charts  but there's something to be said about a  radar overlay a char plotter  a good depth sounder and if i didn't  have any of that  and i just had a compass i probably  would not do a lot of things that i do  right now  i would not be gunk-holding in a lot of  the areas i go i just wouldn't  i wouldn't be comfortable i would risk  tolerance i would be like you know what  let's just keep it in sort of familiar  waters where i know  most of the things and there's not a lot  of things to worry about  question redundancy how can you achieve  render  redundancy like i have you buy like for  example i have an avionics app on my  iphone  great idea i have it on my ipad i mean  you want redundancy absolutely but  iphones and ipads are great absolutely  but then you can't do radar overlay on  an ipad right now  so you can do radar on an ipad but you  can't do radar overlay on an ipad  so that's why i think it's good to have  both radar overlay  gives a high level of positional  accuracy i mean  there's radars doesn't lie radar is only  the truth  they only see i mean it's there or not  there  there's nothing and that's why all the  big ships and commercial operators  run their boats by nothing else than  radar radar is the truth  everything else is sort of trying to  make it easier for ourselves  this is an example of a typical  raymarine network  i mean this was brought in about 2005  2007.  so you see that a lot of boats you got  enemies zero and a3 you got ctalk  they both had those ports sea ctalk hs  is  ethernet going to a switch going to  sounder other network displays  the radar effectively here is coming up  at the top but it's not really true it's  actually going at the back of the switch  you had remote cameras going in so you  could have coax feeds  you could do a remote monitor and then  you had a gps which was either enemy  0183 or ctalk  but that's basically what it looked like  that was 2005.  and things haven't changed that much  from there you still have the network  you might not have ctalk you'll have  0183  you'll have enemy a2000 and you'll also  be able to bring either now ip cameras  or coax cameras but things are pretty  much the same  this is an example of a modern  equivalent  not that modern i mean this is probably  three years old now four years old  but you can actually see there's no  switch here  because this device has like two or  three ethernet ports  it's a switch in itself so you got a  radar connected to it another display  you've got wi-fi going to a tablet  you've got cameras vhf going off enemy  2000  and then you've got your instruments  your control head for your autopilot  you've got an ais and even your  autopilot the reactor is actually  working  on enemy 2000 for communication and then  you've got a smart transducer or a  transducer plugged into the back of this  one  because this one is called xsv so it  actually this one is not smart it is  actually a transitional transducer  and that transducer goes on a transducer  port so nowadays a lot of  depth fish finder functionalities are  actually built into the screens  you can actually have a transducer plug  directly into the back of the screen  and so this is not just raymarine garmin  for runo simrad bng  lorance they're all doing this and so  now instead of having before we had  char plotter and depth sounder like a  black box  now the black box and the display are  built in together  but you have to buy it like that you  have to know that you need it  and so they'll that's the  differentiating for raymarine for  example they'll either have it as  xs or xsv the v means side view  you know the good news about electronics  and the bad news about electronics  is that there's a lot of choice and  there's a lot of choice  it's good or bad right it goes either  way  this is a firono we were on a 90-footer  just recently  and this is not unusual you know  but the trick is to draw it out  you know even if i have a technician  living on a boat for four weeks  eight weeks 12 weeks and it's their life  that's it that's all they get to know is  that boat  eventually it gets even too much  information to remember while you're  working on the boat  right it's too big you got to work from  a plan and it's a really good habit to  work from a plan  it's really good you can always go back  to that  it's like the habit of taking notes  right and now look at this  i mean you're actually seeing all these  ethernets  everywhere junction box between  all these enemy 2000s look at all these  instruments our me 2000  all this stuff and ethernet hub that is  ethernet  radar sat compass  so the only hope in health  to troubleshoot your nav system is to  have a diagram for it  to be honest if you don't have one and  you're not a pro  you're in a world of hurt you're just in  a world of hurt  so i can't emphasize enough  for people to be curious and to start  creating a diagram for their nav system  now when things are working  then waiting for things not to be  working and it's one thing if you're  having an electrical electronic problem  at the dock  it's easy you can call in a tech but if  you are away from the dock and it's  happening in a far away place  and you can't even there's no road that  even leads there and you can only get  there by float plane  and you've got to come back days of  journey to get back into civilization  where someone can even come and meet you  you'll never regret having that diagram  because any technician  can help you troubleshoot something if  they know what they're looking at  question question is do i know of any  apps that make it easy to do diagrams  no i use professionally vizio or autocad  some of my technicians use autocad  because they know it i use visio because  it's easier but that's not easy  i say you can even do it on a piece of  paper you know honestly  don't find reasons not to do a diagram  it's like not going to the gym  here's the list of the million reasons  why i'm not going to do any exercise  this week  and we're all really good at selling it  to ourselves and how about finding the  only reason why you should go  right like there is no reason not to  have a diagram just put it on a piece of  paper  pencil and and honestly make it it  doesn't have to be pretty  just start by putting pen on paper  pencil  something and over time add to it and  then at least  it's you're not gonna forget it because  you're even gonna forget the things you  know about your boat  i do as an owner and i never thought  that would happen  it's like forgetting something about my  child it's like how  do i not know everything that's ever  happened i love her  and yet i've over time like what did i  do i'm like oh  thank god i got a notebook and i go back  i'm like i totally forgot about that  it's right here question is if i have  manuals is that  a good replacement or sufficient  for knowing how things work and the  answer is no  because honestly uh the devils are in  the details  everything's easy in a manual by the way  i  if if you've ever worked with anything  technical the manufacturer makes  everything sound so easy  everything always works the technician  whoever installed it found out a lot of  problems on the install  and they're going to have junction boxes  in certain places there's going to be  things hidden in  other places there's gateways they're  not going to talk about it's the devils  are in the details  and a manual is not sufficient it's good  to troubleshoot an individual item  absolutely  like i have this thick of binders on my  boat  for every single piece of electronic  gear and gear on my boat i have  literally  it's like takes this amount of space  like this deep  there's it's crazy of every single  physical piece of equipment that's  inside my boat  but that is not a replacement for how  you ended up installing it  especially when things are networked  that would be my advice  but hey it's our boat hr way right it's  just an opinion    

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