August 21, 2018  Voyage Recorder YDVR-04 firmware and software updates

The Recorder now can work in any CAN network with speeds from 50 kbps to 1 mbps. YDVR Converter supports up to four engines and trim tabs status. The old model YDVR-03 is out of stock and will no longer available for order.

Firmware update 1.04 for YDVR-04 is intended for professional users who are using this product not only in NMEA 2000 and J1939 networks. Now it can record data from any CAN network with 50, 125, 250, 500 or 1000 kbps speed, and 29-bit and 11-bit message identifiers are supported. It can also play recorded files back to a CAN network.

The recording of a CAN bus with speeds other than 250 kbps (used in NMEA 2000 and J1939) is possible using files of .CAN format only. These files can be converted to .DAT format or viewed with the CAN Log Viewer. If a speed other than 250 kbps is used, the Recorder does not send any messages to the CAN bus. In case of a speed of 250 kbps, you can make it silent with the SILENT setting of configuration file. For the .CAN format, SILENT blocks sending of any message, and for .DAT format, it blocks sending of Product Information (PGN 126996) messages only (so the device will communicate properly with other NMEA 2000 devices).

You can specify the required CAN bus speed with the SPEED setting of the configuration file. But you can also specify the AUTO value for this setting. The Recorder will detect the CAN bus speed, but note that the few first CAN messages may be skipped from recording. During the speed detection procedure, the Recorder is invisible for other devices. It does not confirm received messages; it does not generate bus errors for invalid messages.

We also added a service record to the .CAN file format which contains the CAN bus speed. If the SPEED setting is set to AUTO, the Recorder in player mode will set the CAN bus speed according to this service record. If no service record is found, the Recorder will use 250 kbps as the speed. The service record is ignored if the SPEED setting has a value other than AUTO.

What this means practically. You can stealthily record any unknown CAN bus; just connect the Recorder with following settings:

    FORMAT=CAN
    SPEED=AUTO
    SILENT=ON

Open the recording with the CAN Log Viewer (also updated today to Version 1.13), and the speed of the recording will be printed in the status bar.

The YDVR Converter was also updated. We added support of trim tabs status and support of up to four engines (previously only two) to CSV (spreadsheets) and GPX (GPS tracks) formats.

We also inform you that the old model YDVR-03 is no longer available for order. Support for users of this model will be carried out within two years after the end of the warranty period for the product.

Firmware update 1.04 for YDVR-04, CAN Log Viewer v1.13 and YDVR Converter v1.34 are available in the Downloads section.

 

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