NMEA0183 - 1623 to Lowrance HDS Gen3 - Possible?

A

Anonymous

Guest
Spent a few hours on my boat this past weekend trying to get the NMEA 0183 hookup between my new GPS unit, a Lowrance HDS Gen 3, and my older Furuno 1623 radar.

The 1623 has the NMEA out cable installed and was previously integrated to my Garmin GPSMap 182c with no issues. I've had no success trying to get it to work with the HDS, though. A Standard Horizon radio with NMEA0183 support worked without incident.

I tried both the yellow and green pair as well as the blue and white pair. Am I trying in vain? Is there a correct way (or something that needs to be configured in software on either/both ends) to get these two to communicate?
 
Brooklyn Greenhorn,

Have you looked in the manual for the HDS Gen3 NMEA 0183 wires?
It states that on the Lowrance, TD-A is Yellow, TD-B is Blue, RX-A is Orange, and RX-B is Green.

What color wires are you connecting to the Furuno 1623?
Lowrance Yellow to Furuno Yellow?
Lowrance Blue to Furuno Green?
 
Lowrance Yellow (Transmit A) to Furuno Yellow (RD2-H, which I'm assuming was Receive B), Lowrance Blue (Transmit B) to Furuno Green (RD2-C).

That's exactly what I did - I went through the manuals several times, to no avail. Tried changing sequence as well, to use the B channel on the Lowrance also with no success.
 
Seems like they are connected correctly. However, the Lowrance could may not be set up to output 0183 sentences which would mean no data on the 1623.

Have you successfully tried to output 0183 data to any other device from the Lowrance to verify that the Lowrance unit is in fact outputting good NMEA 0183 data?

I recommend to verify any type of NMEA 0183 output settings on the Lowrance unit. It may be as simple as an "on" or "off" setting or selecting outputting sentences.

Please contact Lowrance with any further questions you may have on outputting 0183 sentences from your HDS Gen3.
 
No, the Lowrance has NMEA0183 output enabled and it's working with my Standard Horizon VHF radio. I double checked to see if there were additional sentences that might be required, but based on some other hits I've seen for the same radar unit integrating to other GPS units it seems that I'm properly configured.

At this point, my only guess is based on the wiring diagram in the 1623 manual, that the second NMEA channel can be configured to either TX or RX, and it's not set to RX. That wouldn't explain why it wouldn't work with the yellow and green wires though.

Pretty sure this won't fly as it's differential signaling, but I'm desperate; is there any way to check the voltage on those lines to see if I'm at least on the right ones on the Furuno side?
 
The only settings on 1623 for 0183 data is to either configure the port to have two input ports (in/in), or to have one port that will revive and output 0183 data (in/out). That being said if the yellow and green wires are connected properly on the 1623 (no matter what setting the port is set to, in/in or in/out) then it should be receiving data.
However, verify on the Lowrance that the BAUD rate is set to 4800 and it's critical to verify that the protocol is set to RS-422.
If set to RS-232 then the VHF will most likely get data but the Furuno 1623 will only accept RS-422.
 
Back
Top