Sunday, April 15, 2012

Engine NMEA 2000 crap

"Really, that's all I need, just the gateway kit, how much is it? Ouch $250 bucks? Well it is what it is, I guess, and the owner wants to see his engine instruments on his chart plotter." Fast forwarding a week UPS delivers me a box, and I go to the boat. Avidly ripping open the box, I behold the kit before me. There it is in all its glory, a small black box with an LED, and two cables coming out of it. Yep, one of them has a standard NMEA connector, and the other one has a what? It's a nine pin female connector, where the heck does this thing plug into? Wait a minute, it's a kit remember, and in the bottom of the box is another cable, with a nine pin male connector. I plug it in, and then look closely at the other end. Hmmm, it's a male 4 pin connector. Whats this plug into? I can see the entire engine harness, the engine gauges, the control computer, and the device bus, and nowhere is there someplace this four pin connector can go. Rats!