Garmin / Fusion MS-RA770 headunit

[em]

I hadn't updated the firmware on this Fusion MS-RA770 head unit in a while and see there is a new "NMEA 2000 Speed vs Volume" function.

That sounds like an excellent feature.

Boat is 2005 SV211 so there is no NMEA on-board.

Would the easiest way be to setup a simple NMEA backbone with a NMEA 2k to power adapter and a NMEA 2k GPS unit?

I have not experience with NMEA wiring to-date but I'd love to work on this over the winter.

Thanks for any tips!

[srock]

NMEA is about as simple as it gets. Just plug everything into the same powered data backbone, and it will share data. What you will not be able to do as easily is to connect Non-NEMA equipment. I wonder why Nautique and other ski boat manufacturers run on their own platform. How nice it would be to add almost anything to the existing environment.

[jpwhit]

I think it's because most of the technology used in "water sports" boats comes out of the industrial sector with Ennovation Controls being one of the prime suppliers. They got their start with providing technology for farm, trucking, generators, etc.

NMEA's core is fishing and salt water boating and the standards support that very well. NMEA for example doesn't include much for the kind of precision speed control that's implemented by Zero Off for example. Especially the 3-event Zero Off technology. Also doesn't have comprehensive support for ballast and surf systems that is standardized and pre-defined in the spec. Not saying you can't make that stuff work using NMEA 2000, but it doesn't offer a lot of advantages over just doing those systems using straight CAN protocols. NMEA 2000 is just a more specific message structure on top of base CAN protocols.