Bill,

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, at this point I'm just trying to get the
basic instruments working and functional. I just want to make sure
before I spend more money that I am not painting myself into a corner.


I am fairly comfortable with NMEA-0183. A few years ago I designed an
FPGA device to convert the data from my handheld Lowrance GlobalMap100
to a standard VGA display to make it larger and easier to see. Another
project involved reading in the position from multiple (3 or more) GPS
units over the 0183 bus and my microcontroller decided if any of the
GPS's on the network were malfunctioning, and if so it would alert me.


I suppose my lack of NMEA-2000 protocol knowledge that makes me worried
about investing money into these instruments. I have read as much as
possible without purchasing the actual standard, and it sounds like
everything should dovetail nicely, on paper at least . The
proprietary standards out there frighten me much more. I hate the
thought of sitting down with a logic analyzer trying to decode those
proprietary standards if I ever want to add my own custom hardware the
network again.

Thanks,
Mike