NMEA2000 Broadcasting - overloading network

DIY
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m after a bit of support/advice around NMEA data broadcasting via the Cerbo-GX. Our local marine sparkies are happy to install gear and setup general NMEA equipment, but when it comes to this level of troubleshooting I haven’t been able to find much in the way of local support.

I’m running a Raymarine Axiom network with several NMEA based devices connected (radios, stereos, GPS, etc..), 4 MFDs and an i70S.

I have Actisense EMUs for engine data and a W2K for mobile app use (gateway). All of this works fine, but just painting a complete picture.

I have the Cerbo connected as well to present battery information as well as tank data (fuel/water).

I’ve had this working well for a while now, but after a few changes to the boat (too many to list) and updates, I’ve now got a gremlin I can’t work out.

Essentially, when looking at the MFD I have all my key data present - the battery voltage will dissapear/blank and then the whole MFD locks up for 2-3 seconds (all other data, not just the battery data freezes), then the battery data comes back and everything works again for a minute or two before it happens again.

In talking to Raymarine - they are saying that is happening because the NMEA network is being bombarded with bad or high volume data which I tend to agree with - looking at the battery configuration screen on the MFD’s there is about 30 different batteries list, but I can’t delete or config any of them as they drop in an out before I can tap on them.

If I disconnect the VE.Can > STNG cable, the whole network starts working normally and no issues occur - so its definitely something coming from the Cerbo.

I made my own cables to patch into the NMEA network (no 12V feed), so I’ve ordered genuine cables to rule that out, but not sure that is related given it was working previously.

The Cerbo NMEA status does show 2 warnings, but I have no way to see what they are via the cerbo and my Actisense USB Sniffer doesn’t show any issues.

Errors
Errors1996×1158 128 KB

VECan
VECan1928×1138 188 KB


IMG_4574
IMG_45742048×1536 423 KB

2

Hey, does this also happen since running v3.60 ?

And, can you post a video showing the Raymarine that shows the many msg-es / batteries on the network?

3

Hi there, I only just saw this (been away for a long time), yes it probably has only started happening with v3.60 onwards. But I’m not convinced it is also something on the Raymarine side - their recent updates have been really average.

I have just paid a small fortune for two marine electricians who know their way around this stuff to go over everything and rewire anything of concern. Things we have done:

  • Confirmed existing NMEA network is good, resistance is correct and terminated correctly - no improvements.
  • Both raymarine and victron all running latest firmware - no improvements.
  • Replaced with genuine cables - no improvements.
  • Using Actisense NGT sniffer on network, load is consistently around 10%, spikes to 20% sometimes - no concerns there in theory.
  • Installed a CZone NMEA Network bridge - this effectively splits NMEA network in to two networks, Raymarine on one and victron on the secondary. The idea here was that we thought the Raymarine couldn’t deal with all the sensor info coming from victron and overloading/locking the network (known issue on the raymarine side). The network bridge filters out any bad data and if the victron side of the network crashes, it doesn’t lock the raymarine network. We did this despite the load showing low as I was out of ideas. - This definitely improved things, but issue still happens (now maybe once every 15 minutes rather than once every 5 minutes).

I’ll try and get some footage of the additional battery information and loop back.