Rick Morel wrote in
:

On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:45:52 -0500, Geoff Schultz
wrote:

Anyway that last paragraph above seems to say it doesn't matter
which input you use, the unit will use the data when in the "Track"
mode and will display the data.

Rick

Well, that's the way that I would like to think that it works, but I'm
still not convinced. As it says, "The SmartPilot control unit can
display SeaTalk and NMEA instrument data in a user-defined selection
of data pages."

I know that it can display the data, but I didn't think that the
ST600x controller converts it to SeaTalk. I just have this feeling
that RayMarine wants to see you yet another box to do the conversion,
as mentioned in the last bullet above (SeaTalk/NMEA interface).

-- Geoff

I'm kind of getting lost here. I have a Garmin GPS connected via NMEA.
The S1 uses the GPS info to go to a waypoint or follow a route, and
displays the info from the GPS - goto a waypoint on the GPS, hit
"Track" on the S1, it beeps and gives a turn direction and course, hit
"Track" again and the S1 steers to the waypoint or follows the route.

The only connection between the S1 computer and controller is Seatalk,
so it must be converting NMEA to Seatalk.

Rick

I've been continuing this same discussion at SailBoatOwners.com,
http://forums.sbo.sailboatowners.com...136#post621136
which is a forum where there's actually reasonable discussions about
boating...

But, before I digress...the conclusion there is that the ST600x will
display NMEA data which is presented to it, but it won't translate those
sentences into SeaTalk format. Thus if you have another SeaTalk based
display on the boat, you won't see the data being fed to the ST600x with
the NMEA input. To convert NMEA to SeaTalk, you need a box which
bridges the two.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean when you say a "Garmin GPS". Are you
talking about a GPS antenna or a chartplotter? For example, I have a
Garmin GPS antenna which connects to my course computer via NMEA and I
also have a NorthStar chartplotter connected via NMEA and a RayMarine
chartplotter connected via SeaTalk. All of these talk to one another
and my ST6001 just fine. However, let's say that I had a wind
instrument connected to my ST6001 via NMEA. The ST6001 would show the
wind data, but my RayMarine C80 wouldn't display the wind data.


-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org