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NMEA cord problems

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Benni Newbie

Benni Newbie

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We installed a NMEA cord when we had our boat built because advice on this forum said to do it at the build. However, it doesn't work. We have analog gauges. The dealer says that it doesn't work with analog gauges and we should have had digital gauges. The dealer says Bennington should have caught this mistake in the build. Is this correct? Anyone know anything about the NMEA cord? It was an expensive upgrade that we haven't been able to use.
 
I should have my husband answer this because I do not have a clue. All I know is that it is a cord that connects with the Simrad to display engine data. NMEA stands for National Marine Electronics Association.
 
NMEA 2000 is a plug-and-play communications standard used for connecting marine instrumentation within vessels. The plug-and-play interface allows devices made by different manufacturers to communicate with each other within the same network without causing interference between devices. We had a problem when the dealer installed our Simrad. The analog gauges weren't communicating with the Simrad and vice versa. So the dealer changed all to digital gauges. Problem solved. I doubt that the problem lies within your NMEA interface. It's what they have hooked up to it.
 
BigKahuna said:
NMEA 2000 is a plug-and-play communications standard used for connecting marine instrumentation within vessels. The plug-and-play interface allows devices made by different manufacturers to communicate with each other within the same network without causing interference between devices. We had a problem when the dealer installed our Simrad. The analog gauges weren't communicating with the Simrad and vice versa. So the dealer changed all to digital gauges. Problem solved. I doubt that the problem lies within your NMEA interface. It's what they have hooked up to it.
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Thank you for your reply. If you are suppose to have digital gauges in order for the NMEA to work...don't you think Bennington should tell you that when you order the NMEA cord? Should the repair come out of our pocket for not knowing? We probably wouldn't have ordered the NMEA had we known we had to upgrade the gauges as well. The Bennington pontoon build site was really good about telling you if things weren't compatible when building the pontoon...however, we totally missed this!! And our pocketbook will too! lol
 
If the dealer is telling you that Bennington should have caught this mistake when the boat was built then let the dealer "go to bat for you" so to speak and communicate with Bennington. Something (The boat builder) or someone (The factory) along the line should have known about the compatibility issue and caught it prior to it being built and definitely before leaving the factory. Is the dealer being receptive?!?
 
I replied to your other post about this issue. Perhaps avoided posting the same issue in two different posts/forum threads to help keep this place more streamlined and less redundant. :)

My other response:
My understanding is it does need to be connected to a digital interface. EITHER digital gauges, or for instance your Simrad, or both if you have both of them.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you have analog gauges with have a Simrad gps/fish finder. Your NMEA should be able to connect to the Simrad and give you more read outs through that. I’d follow back up about checking that connection. IF the NMEA and Simrad were on the boat at purchase as part of your order through Bennington, getting that resolved should be covered by warranty. If either the Simrad or the NMEA connection were after market add ons, then I would expect that it’d be on you.

That said, I believe one would otherwise normally connect their NMEA to digital guages. Fortunately, with your Simrad, you basically have a large digital display now, and it should interface if a) hooked up properly, and b) all components work.
 
You can certainly run a NMEA 2000 network with analog gauges. Many do. I am not saying that is preferred though. What the NMEA 2000 network can tell you is a lot of engine information and tie it into your gps if it is also on your network. This will give you mpg, any engine errors, trip hours, rpms, trim of the engine and so on. So it is not necessarily an error on Bennington's end as some prefer analog gauges in addition to having the other information available on a screen. I would make sure that the NEMA network is connected to your engine and then tie it in to the simrad.
 
Thread locked as responses provided in other thread posted.
 
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