Garmin Analogue-NMEA2000 Adapters
Known to some of the guys at Garmin as “the pregnant snakes”, the company’s new range of analogue-NMEA2000 adapters could be the solution to a lot of boat-owners’ upgrade problems .
They do
it by taking the analog data supplied by
existing, old-fashioned but perfectly serviceable sensors – such as
rudder
angle indicators or tank gauges that may have been installed ten or
twenty
years ago – and converting it to the digital format that can be
interpreted and
displayed by most of the latest generation of instruments and
multifunction
displays. Of course Garmin hope we’ll all be using their GMI10
instruments to
display the digitized data, but in reality the converters will work
just as
well with any other make or model of display unit that accepts NMEA2000
data.
Each of
the range of five “snakes” (with more to come) consists of a length of
cable,
with bare cores at one end and a plug at the other. The bare wires take
an
analogue signal, such as the changing voltage from a tank level
indicator,
while the plug spits out the same information in the NMEA 2000 digital
format. Between the two is a little
black box, about three inches long and less than an inch thick, that
contains
the electronics that do the converting.
Adapters
already available can handle rudder
angle, Bennett trim tab angle, engine tilt, tank level, and water speed
and temperature, and are all priced at £149. A depth adapter is
due within the
next few months.