NMEA into Router

[muttnik]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

again theres no standard ( for example no way to identify sources , other then by assumption )

Possibly getting off topic but can you expand on what you mean by this? Do you mean lackof standardized service discovery (ie learning the address of data sources, "by assumption" meaning you have a priori knowledge of the server's address), or authentication/verification of source (ie knowing that a packet received is actually from the device it claims to be)? Both are very interesting points.

Back on topic...try the Raspberry Pi solution. Super-simple with Yacht Al's requirements (I can post details if required). If you don't like it you just give the pi to a nephew or niece for their birthday :-).

[Yacht AL]

Thanks for all the info everyone. Am I correct in saying one of these will work:

ShipModul Marine Electronics (Miniplex 2E)

?? Having said that, I do have a the same type of multiplexer, one with RS232 only and one with RS232 as well as USB outputs, can these multiplexed outputs be converted RS232 to Ethernet OR USB to Ethernet? and then be inputed to my router to achieve the same result?

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Yacht AL

Thanks for all the info everyone. Am I correct in saying one of these will work:

ShipModul Marine Electronics (Miniplex 2E)

?? Having said that, I do have a the same type of multiplexer, one with RS232 only and one with RS232 as well as USB outputs, can these multiplexed outputs be converted RS232 to Ethernet OR USB to Ethernet? and then be inputed to my router to achieve the same result?

According to me, you can. According to Dave, you can't. There was somebody else posting in this thread that he could and used that GX2100 device, but you really need input from more people to decide. The Shipmodul mux with Ethernet port (they have wifi too) is just their regular mux with a TCP server built in.

[muttnik]

Originally Posted by Yacht AL

Thanks for all the info everyone. Am I correct in saying one of these will work:

ShipModul Marine Electronics (Miniplex 2E)

Yes but it's 339 euros and you already have a multiplexer.

Originally Posted by Yacht AL

?? Having said that, I do have a the same type of multiplexer, one with RS232 only and one with RS232 as well as USB outputs, can these multiplexed outputs be converted RS232 to Ethernet OR USB to Ethernet? and then be inputed to my router to achieve the same result?

That was, if I'm not mistaken, your original question. A couple of people have proposed using various device servers to do this (taking an RS232 input and plugging the output into your router). I was suggesting using a computer of some sort (your nav computer or perhaps a Rapberry Pi) and made some suggestions of free software which would facilitate that. This could use an RS232 input if you have a serial port, USB if you have USB, and connecting to the router via ethernet. This very definitely does work.

Google "nmea to ethernet" and at least one device dedicated to that purpose comes up but it seems rather pricey for what it is.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Correct, these terminal servers (called "device servers" nowadays) do full encapsulation and work exactly like the "marine" products.

Jedi is correct about this. The simple RS232-Ethernet converters will work just fine for NMEA-0183, I use them to network data to various programs. One of the programs is NavMonPc, which I wrote, so I know for a fact that there is no special encapsulation going on. It's just a TCP/IP data stream.

The simple serial/ethernet converters usually only provide one TCP connection, so if you want to connect multiple clients you will need to look for a converter with a more powerful server, or perhaps use UDP(?).

The Shipmodul miniplex mux with WiFi also only supports one WiFi connection.

[goboatingnow]

I think we're at cross purposes here , what I was addressing with the OP , is that merely transmitting the data onto tcp/ip in itself isn't sufficient , you have to have an application that handles 0183 over tcp/ip or a virtual serial port setup , or another serial to Ethernet to then use the data. You can't just run up any application per say. , ie it must be tcp/ip aware. ( or use the other methods )

By the way I have used several serial servers that added things like source ID to allow you to handle multiple serial streams , it used a virtual serial port client at the other end , or you could decode the packet structure and roll your own.

Dave

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I think we're at cross purposes here , what I was addressing with the OP , is that merely transmitting the data onto tcp/ip in itself isn't sufficient , you have to have an application that handles 0183 over tcp/ip or a virtual serial port setup , or another serial to Ethernet to then use the data. You can't just run up any application per say. , ie it must be tcp/ip aware. ( or use the other methods )

By the way I have used several serial servers that added things like source ID to allow you to handle multiple serial streams , it used a virtual serial port client at the other end , or you could decode the packet structure and roll your own.

Dave

Dave, I suppose that you never used a navigation app on the iPad? Where would you plug the rs422 or usb into? It's all IP. Also, you said that marine nmea to ethernet bridges did work but not the tcp servers. How difficult is it to just say you've learned something today? I was an IETF member, know this stuff pretty well, wrote some parts of the protocols specifications... still learn things as it all keeps evolving.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Dave, I suppose that you never used a navigation app on the iPad? Where would you plug the rs422 or usb into? It's all IP. Also, you said that marine nmea to ethernet bridges did work but not the tcp servers. How difficult is it to just say you've learned something today? I was an IETF member, know this stuff pretty well, wrote some parts of the protocols specifications... still learn things as it all keeps evolving.

Jesus nick , I'm in this game 30 years , I have it patents , I have designed serial severs , I've just finished a wifi monitor project. I know how this stuff works at an electron level. I've even written tcp/ip stacks.

I must have tried and played with virtually every marine platform , I've wrote nmea2k canbus solutions , I've played with virtually every iPad nav app there is, I write software for the marine industry.

What I was saying was that simply feeding 0183 I to a serial server , isn't in itself a solution , what's at the other end must be IP aware. (,ie specifically aware of an incoming tcp/ip encapsulated 0183 stream, or you have to use something like IP to virtual port drivers etc, which also often doesn't work on old clients too ) ( or hardware clients that decode back to serial or USB

In relation to NMEA to wifi servers I was referring to a way to access 0183 using a simple web browser. Ie that there was no need for a specific nav ( read 0183 tcp/ip aware ) package .

I mean the OP is very non technical as was demonstrated by his original post, since he didnt specify the client , I was merely trying to point out you need a sender( encoder) and a receiver ( decoder) to make 0183 over Ethernet work. That might be obvious to you , but not to the OP maybe.

Even a poster previous confirmed what I said indirectly he used navmonpc , which he wrote. Somewhere in that software there is code handling tcp/ip to NMEA 0183 , striping out the 0183 data and using it. If that software didnt do that, you could have all the serial servers in the world and it wouldn't work. That might be blindly obvious to you Nick, but not to someone like the OP

I have at this stage installed well over 1000 serial servers (ports) , I used to own a company selling and designing industrial control systems. I know them intimately ( and I know the problems that arise too )
Dave

[muttnik]

Clearly just a little talking at crossed purposes. Yacht Al did say his target device was an i-thing, so I suspect that Paul, Jedi and myself made the assumption that any app that might be used on such devices would be expecting a data feed over IP. As goboatingnow correctly points out, a program on a laptop expecting serial input can't just use an IP feed without help. Regarding the "IP to virtual port drivers etc", I believe (Paul can correct me if I'm wrong) NavMonPC will do this: taking NMEA-0183 over IP and presenting it via a virtual COM port that other programs can use. Certainly kplex will do that for Linux (and Mac if you compile it).

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by muttnik

Clearly just a little talking at crossed purposes. Yacht Al did say his target device was an i-thing, so I suspect that Paul, Jedi and myself made the assumption that any app that might be used on such devices would be expecting a data feed over IP. As goboatingnow correctly points out, a program on a laptop expecting serial input can't just use an IP feed without help. Regarding the "IP to virtual port drivers etc", I believe (Paul can correct me if I'm wrong) NavMonPC will do this: taking NMEA-0183 over IP and presenting it via a virtual COM port that other programs can use. Certainly kplex will do that for Linux (and Mac if you compile it).

Correct , why I mentioned the NMEA to say wifi bridges is that the OP just wants " to see his data" hence the simplest is a web servers based solution, this works with virtually any iThingy

There no point using openCPN if all you want is to see wind and depth for example.

Dave

[s/v Jedi]

Dave, let's keep Jesus out of this; he is above us all. If you reply like that you kill the discussion. Calm down man, this is no contest for life.

The OP has iPads, iPhones etc. The apps on them (AIS, navigation) expect the NMEA data encapsulated in TCP on a certain port number. Both the marine quality muxes with ethernet/wifi ports and the standard device servers provide this. Both work. You have stated that the device servers insert extra characters for port numbers etc. that is just wrong, period. They provide the exact same output as a mux with Ethernet.
Then you change arguments, anything to cloud the issue, you start talking about laptops, virtual port drivers etc. but that is all irellevant. As we clearly have similar backgrounds, I think I accurately assumed that you were thinking Telnet servers which indeed do insert extra data which would disrupt the NMEA feed. These device servers however do not do that. Your argument that the other side must be IP aware is correct, but you keep missing that the apps on the iPads ARE IP AWARE.

This just works. A marine grade mux with Ethernet port does not make it work better on the OP's iPads than a marine grade serial mux with a plain vanilla device server attached to it. You have been arguing that the former works but the latter doesn't.

To add to this, I described that the device servers also come with software to satisfy programs that expect NMEA over a serial port. Or, even if that doesn't come with it or it would be bad software, you can get software elsewhere that does it. I mentioned Eltima. So, with some extra software, it also works on PC's, while the OP does not need this for his iPad.

[Paul Elliott]

It sounded like the OP wasn't looking to put a PC in the middle of his nav suite, or I would have suggested using NavMonPc as a TCP/IP NMEA 0183 server. NavMon does indeed route NMEA between physical serial ports, virtual serial ports, and TCP/IP ports.

But, as Dave has pointed out, to feed an app a TCP NMEA stream, that app or device needs to be able to interface to the TCP datastream. NavMonPc can create virtual serial ports, so a program (on the PC) that doesn't have TCP capability can interface via the virtual serial port. NavMonPc isn't the only program that can do this type of interface/muxing. GpsGate is another, and there are certainly others.

The web-server is a good way to display NMEA data on any device with browser capability, but there are few NMEA-to-webpage programs. Some hardware muxes include a webserver, and these may be worth looking into.

There are plenty of IOS apps, and some Android apps that will accept a TCP or UDP NMEA stream, and display some of the data. I assume these are what the OP had in mind. In this case, if the OP wants to run more than one device or app, they need to have a server that can support multiple clients. Most of the simple RS232-TCP converters, and the ShipModul Miniplex (with WiFi) only support a single connected client.

[s/v Jedi]

+1 on all that Paul said. For the webserver idea, Maretron has this, I believe it is called the IPG-100 or something close. It is expensive though, but you can design your own pages with all the numbers, dials, control etc. and it supports every N2K sensor value. It's a bit posh though...

[goboatingnow]

I have a Apple AirPort Extreme router and want to feed my NMEA 0183 data into one of the routers LAN (RJ45) ports to transmit the NMEA along with other data to my iDevices.

Hi , Nick , I habe no wish to engage in a ding dong, Heres part of what the OP wanted. He doesnt mention any client software , which is why I mentioned the NMEA servers which typically use HTML avoid the need to run a chart app.

For the OP unless he has a chart app in mind, then web browser support is the easiest and simplest to integrate. Serial servers may need cross over cables, you may need a switch in-between, then a separate wifi router. ( Im not sure what the OP meant about 3G)

All I was trying to say is that at one end you have a serial server and at the other you need a tcp/ip aware client, its not as simple as just buying the serial server. That in itself is only one part of the solution

BTW just in case you weren't aware , have a look at Digi Systems Real Port serial server, you either use Digis client or you decode the protocol.

Simple boxes like Moxa & lantronic etc work like you require, but you need a TCP/IP aware client.

Try running Garmins app and seeing if you get NMEA data over TCP/IP displaying, try versions of Seaiq version under 1.8 , try Navionics Mobile., Marine Map Navigator, Users simply dont understand this stuff, especially ones that think RS232 can be wired in an Ethernet port.

Dave

[goboatingnow]

Paul has summarised my own views in far clearer english then I did, good summary Paul. The OP has vanished anyway!

dave