February 17, 2025  Raymarine, your turn!

New firmware 1.11 for Voyage Recorder YDVR-04 adds diagnostic telemetry and improves bus voltage detection. Digital switching integration guide for Simrad published. Update 1.07 for J1708 Engine Gateway adds support for intake manifold temperature for KAD/TAMD and J1708 engines, and Extended Range Engine Oil Pressure for J1708 engines.

YDVR telemetry on Simrad NSX

The Voyage Recorder constantly monitors the NMEA 2000 bus power voltage, and if the voltage drops below 10.5 volts, it will stop MicroSD card operation to prevent damage to the file system.

In the new firmware, we have added a telemetry feature: the Voyage Recorder is now able to report its status (including low voltage, memory card errors, audio recording problems, etc., see VII.22 in the User Manual for details) via the standard NMEA 2000 digital switching PGN 127501 "Switch Bank Status".

Unfortunately, the implementation of this PGN on major MFDs is rather slow, e.g. Maretron DSM series displays supported it out-of-the-box for more than 5 years, Garmin has it only on the latest 8000 and 9000 series, on Simrad NSX series MFDs it is partially broken, and Raymarine MFDs do not support it at all.

To enable YDVR telemetry on Simrad NSX (and possibly on latest B&G and Lowrance MFDs), upload the XML file with the digital switching system layout: go to Settings => Boat Network => Add Device => Add Digital Switch; in the window that appears, select your XML file twice: first in the "Removable Media" list, then in the "Available Configurations" list. Click Next, Next, Finish. After that, you should get a Digital Switching panel on the left side panel (see the screenshot above).

You can download the XML file here, but note that you need to replace the 64-bit unique ID of the Voyage Recorder in line 5 with the number of your own device. You can get it from CAN Log Viewer (see the NAME field in the "Address Claim" section of the "Device Properties" window here). For more details, see "Digital Switching Integration Guide for Simrad NSX", which also describes how to configure our Circuit Control YDCC-04 and Autopilot YDAP-04.

It's a shame that such simple things require so much effort, but it's good that it's finally possible. At least on Simrad. Raymarine, your turn!

In J1708 Engine Gateway, we support all data for J1708 and KAD/TAMD engines that are supported in NMEA 2000 standard. But that doesn't mean we can't make the product better. Although intake manifold temperature is not supported in NMEA 2000, we added INTAKE_MANIFOLD_TEMP setting (works for KAD and J1708 protocols), which allows to display it as one of supported temperature types on NMEA 2000 MFDs. It works the same way as the ambient temperature setting, see this article for details.

We have also added support for J1708 PID 19 "Extended Range Engine Oil Pressure". This data is used when PID 100 "Engine Oil Pressure" data is not available or has a maximum value.

Firmware updates for Voyage Recorder and J1708 Engine Gateway are available on the Downloads page.

 

Next articles:

See also: recent news, all news...