"Larry" wrote in message
...
Isn't it ironic we're still fighting RS-422 nonsense on one talker
serial buses in 2010 when the rest of the electronic world has forgotten
all this nonsense and moved on.

It's way past time when the boats should be totally wireless....not
proprietary wireless to keep your competitors' electronics off your
private little data system, but STANDARD wireless with every piece
aboard capable of communicating with every other piece aboard over as
many direct links as necessary at STANDARD 802.11b/g/n speeds.

Larry,

Your idea is great and I'm darn sure that 1000's of other people, in or
outside the industry, have thought of this. Have you ever wondered why
everything isn't wireless yet?

There are quite a few practical issues to be solved: first of all, having
wireless sensors scattered throughout your boat is a nice idea, but they
need power. Wired power! Then there is a cost factor. A wireless interface
costs at least 10 times more than a wired interface. Then there are
infrastructural problems: when you wire things, this is YOUR domain. Noone
can intrude, collide with your data or whatever. In a wireless system,
everyone can collide and intrude. You have to take measures against that.
These measures cost time and processing power; read: MONEY. Oh and then
there are metal boats. Faraday cages.

The problem could be solved from the start: when building a boat, install
power AND data wiring from the start. That will give you almost unlimited
and cheap ways to expand your system. Install a twisted pair bus. Cheap and
reliable. RS-485 or CAN buffers cost next to nothing. And when instrument
power and data are closely tied together, there isn't even a need for
galvanic isolation which makes CAN/NMEA2000 so expensive.

Meindert

On Jul 23, 5:14*am, "Meindert Sprang"
wrote:
"Larry" wrote in message

...

Isn't it ironic we're still fighting RS-422 nonsense on one talker
serial buses in 2010 when the rest of the electronic world has forgotten
all this nonsense and moved on.

Your idea is great and I'm darn sure that 1000's of other people, in or
outside the industry, have thought of this. Have you ever wondered why
everything isn't wireless yet?

I agree with Meindert. I'd add to his list of challenges interference,
both internal and external. Internally, there are lots of shared
consumers on the same frequencies as wifi. Can you imagine the
scenario in which the autopilot can't find the GPS for heading data
every time your cell phone rings and your bluetooth headset goes off?
Or how about boats jockeying at the start line in a race where someone
else's instruments may be closer to your readout than your own? Not so
good.

I'm not sure that any particular flavor of serial is the right answer,
but I do think wired is the way to go. I have never understood why
Ethernet isn't the obvious answer. Perhaps I'm missing something.

On Auspicious I do have a wireless remote autopilot control and a
bluetooth connection from laptop to printer. Everything else (sans
cell, VHF, and HF SSB) is wired. Except when I'm pulling wire through
conduit (*grin*) I prefer it that way.

sail fast, dave

"Auspicious" wrote in message
...
I'm not sure that any particular flavor of serial is the right answer,
but I do think wired is the way to go. I have never understood why
Ethernet isn't the obvious answer. Perhaps I'm missing something.

Because ethernet is also more expensive than a simple serial bus. Ethernet
requires an ethernet chip which is more expensive than a RS-485 or CAN
driver, a transformer and last but not least, a huge amount of code in a
processor just to be able to handle ethernet traffic, compared to what is
needed to do the sensors' job.

Meindert

Auspicious wrote in news:a4752c71-2ca1-4c14-92a5-
:

I agree with Meindert. I'd add to his list of challenges interference,
both internal and external. Internally, there are lots of shared
consumers on the same frequencies as wifi. Can you imagine the
scenario in which the autopilot can't find the GPS for heading data
every time your cell phone rings and your bluetooth headset goes off?
Or how about boats jockeying at the start line in a race where someone
else's instruments may be closer to your readout than your own? Not so
good.



All this MIGHT have been an issue, in 1985, but not today. I sit
watching TV at 1.2Mbps in a restaurant where wifi finds 12 open and 22
secured wifi hotspots in a 1 block area. The TV works fine, except my
Geelong Cats got beat (Aussie Rules Football). Noone intruded into my
system, noone sent false information to me, all that old radio nonsense
from.....well....1985.

These old arguments simply are no longer true. You sit playing on your
laptop in a marina full of laptops running off the marina wifi and
rarely ever see a problem.

What you all see as interference stopped when we went from dialup modems
into FM radios to 802.11a, the first edition of tiny pulsed transmitters
on broadband. Who apartment houses full of hundreds of wifi routers
feeding thousands of laptop computers works just fine....now at ever
increasing data rates over ever widening bandwidths to increase, even
further, the availability of more and more data to all.

Bluetooth isn't much better than an old serial port now. I wouldn't
even want to go near Bluetooth devices. The licensing fees, alone, are
a great reason to stay away. Bluetooth jams too easily as anyone in a
Best Buy can attest.

It's well past time to lay all these old wives tales from 1985 aside and
go wireless on all the boats NOT made of steel, which is most of them.
They'll still have NMEA's archaic ports for a long time or some
proprietary bus nonsense to prevent other manufacturers from talking to
Seatalk....but boaters should have that choice. NMEA will resist at all
costs. So won't the manufacturers all going in divergent ways with this
bus or that bus like Seatalk, for instance. Every boater suffers from
the consequences of this proprietary nonsense.....


--
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry

Larry,
You normally have your act together, but not this time. Meindert is correct about his stated risks, but he is overstating the cost
of Ethernet solutions. Today they are canned in firmware and reasonably priced. The savings in installation complexity,
drastically increased speed and system flexibility far exceeds any increase in component cost. Please don't get me wrong. 802.11
has its place, but not in systems where data integrity are safety issues. CAN solutions work well and meet equipment
manufacturer's requirements, but as an end user I must counter with a standardization argument. The only thing that is standard is
the CAN pipe, everything else is proprietary and manufacturer unique. The ability to mix and match instruments and devices from
different manufacturers would virtually disappear. Furthermore, the CAN bus is slow in relation to Ethernet, reducing the amount
of net users and traffic the pipe could ultimately handle. Then there is the question of physical pipe length and noise
susceptibility. Ethernet has it all covered, but Meidert and I have had this discussion a while back and I didn't convince him
then. Maybe today, he's older now.
Steve

"Larry" wrote in message ...
Auspicious wrote in news:a4752c71-2ca1-4c14-92a5-
:

I agree with Meindert. I'd add to his list of challenges interference,
both internal and external. Internally, there are lots of shared
consumers on the same frequencies as wifi. Can you imagine the
scenario in which the autopilot can't find the GPS for heading data
every time your cell phone rings and your bluetooth headset goes off?
Or how about boats jockeying at the start line in a race where someone
else's instruments may be closer to your readout than your own? Not so
good.



All this MIGHT have been an issue, in 1985, but not today. I sit
watching TV at 1.2Mbps in a restaurant where wifi finds 12 open and 22
secured wifi hotspots in a 1 block area. The TV works fine, except my
Geelong Cats got beat (Aussie Rules Football). Noone intruded into my
system, noone sent false information to me, all that old radio nonsense
from.....well....1985.

These old arguments simply are no longer true. You sit playing on your
laptop in a marina full of laptops running off the marina wifi and
rarely ever see a problem.

What you all see as interference stopped when we went from dialup modems
into FM radios to 802.11a, the first edition of tiny pulsed transmitters
on broadband. Who apartment houses full of hundreds of wifi routers
feeding thousands of laptop computers works just fine....now at ever
increasing data rates over ever widening bandwidths to increase, even
further, the availability of more and more data to all.

Bluetooth isn't much better than an old serial port now. I wouldn't
even want to go near Bluetooth devices. The licensing fees, alone, are
a great reason to stay away. Bluetooth jams too easily as anyone in a
Best Buy can attest.

It's well past time to lay all these old wives tales from 1985 aside and
go wireless on all the boats NOT made of steel, which is most of them.
They'll still have NMEA's archaic ports for a long time or some
proprietary bus nonsense to prevent other manufacturers from talking to
Seatalk....but boaters should have that choice. NMEA will resist at all
costs. So won't the manufacturers all going in divergent ways with this
bus or that bus like Seatalk, for instance. Every boater suffers from
the consequences of this proprietary nonsense.....


--
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in
:

Ethernet has it all covered, but Meidert and I have had this
discussion a while back and I didn't convince him then. Maybe today,
he's older now. Steve


Meindert, no offense, but he makes NMEA multiplexers. Ethernet would be
the end of that business.



--
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry

Larry,
Actually, I think exactly the opposite is true. I believe NMEA multiplexers could be made using NMEA over TCP/IP on an Ethernet
backbone transparently to the end NMEA device. This technique is used commonly in existing networks today, where the TCP/IP header
is used exclusively for routing purposes and at the endpoint device, the TCP/IP header is stripped and the NMEA sentence is
presented to the NMEA customer bit serial transparently in the normal manner. Similar devices already exist on the market as
Ethernet gateways to RS232/422 devices. Additionally, advanced QOS is available for priority routing if required, preserving the
advantage of manufacturer independence and all the advantages of Ethernet. I personally believe this represents a golden
opportunity.
Steve

"Larry" wrote in message ...
"Steve Lusardi" wrote in
:

Ethernet has it all covered, but Meidert and I have had this
discussion a while back and I didn't convince him then. Maybe today,
he's older now. Steve


Meindert, no offense, but he makes NMEA multiplexers. Ethernet would be
the end of that business.



--
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Steve Lusardi" wrote in
:

Ethernet has it all covered, but Meidert and I have had this
discussion a while back and I didn't convince him then. Maybe today,
he's older now. Steve


Meindert, no offense, but he makes NMEA multiplexers. Ethernet would be
the end of that business.

Not at all. I'll be having a MiniPlex-2E in a couple of days.

Meindert

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
Larry,
You normally have your act together, but not this time. Meindert is
correct about his stated risks, but he is overstating the cost
of Ethernet solutions. Today they are canned in firmware and reasonably
priced. The savings in installation complexity,
drastically increased speed and system flexibility far exceeds any
increase in component cost. Please don't get me wrong. 802.11
has its place, but not in systems where data integrity are safety issues.
CAN solutions work well and meet equipment
manufacturer's requirements, but as an end user I must counter with a
standardization argument. The only thing that is standard is
the CAN pipe, everything else is proprietary and manufacturer unique. The
ability to mix and match instruments and devices from
different manufacturers would virtually disappear. Furthermore, the CAN
bus is slow in relation to Ethernet, reducing the amount
of net users and traffic the pipe could ultimately handle. Then there is
the question of physical pipe length and noise
susceptibility. Ethernet has it all covered, but Meidert and I have had
this discussion a while back and I didn't convince him
then. Maybe today, he's older now.

And you still cannot convince me of the idea that an ethernet interface can
be as cheap as an RS-422 interface. The canned solutions you talk about
still cost considerably more than a simple Rs-422 tranceiver chip. Of course
I could have taken an ethernet version of the controller I use in my
multiplexers, but I still would have to add a transformer and at minimum a
UDP stack and, if you want the ease of ethernet, the complete DCHP stuff to
the existing software. You simply cannot compare a dedicated non-mass market
device to mass market PC stuff which cost next to nothing for two purposes:
1) a huge market and 2) a complete multi megabyte OS to support the dumb and
cheap hardware.

This is the same discussion as with Bluetooth. You can buy BT dongels for a
couple of dollars/euros but these rely on Windows to operate. The modules I
use cost 20 times that much because 1) the volume is much lower and 2) they
contain a complete processing system to do what windows would otherwise have
done.

Meindert