Another post to while away some winter hours, and incidentally to keep the boats documentation up to date.
Updated after installation was complete.
I use an iPhone and iPad, everything here should also apply to Android devices but I am not familiar with them, research indicates that the the Kingston Hub would not have the problems with Android that I had trying to use it with an iPhone.
I have had a powered USB hub on the boat from the beginning, the reason for the upgrade is my increased use of the PC on the internet. For reasons of economy I have generally restricted my internet use to the unlimited (but "throttled") data only sim in my iPad occasionally using the laptop through its wi-fi hot spot, this year with prices dropping I put a meaningful amount of data onto the iPhone account (and that is from now on also unlimited), the problem then became the wi-fi connection drooping when briefly inactive which was a pain in the neck.
To solve that through 2024 I tethered the laptop to the phone using a USB cable which works well and also gives easier data sharing between the laptop, phone and chart plotter, the problem is then remembering to reconnect the phone to its USB charging point or, without power from the PC, the battery will run down, that only happened once but that is one time to many so to sort that the phone needs to connect to an always on powered USB hub that can also provide charging.
I was also using an unpowered hub daisy chained to the 4 port powered one and there were lots of wires in inconvenient places. It was time to upgrade.
Installation should have been straight forward although choosing and getting power to the hub needs some thought and research but Windows 11 threw some curve balls at me as did my choice of the Kingston 7 port hub and I had to redesign on the fly.
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The final configuration, click to view. |
Connections and Services
For a lot more detail on integration see SV Sancerre: Wi-Fi networking and application integration on Sancerre remembering this was written before the upgrade to a 7 port device, tethering the phone etc.
iPhone (or any smart phone)
- Connects the PC to the internet when a 3 or 4G connection is available.
- Using Garmin Active Captain and wi-fi, transfers routes from the navigation software plus software updates and community notes from Garmin to the plotter.
- Smart notifications such as SMS texts, Facebook notifications, etc. are transferred to the plotter by Bluetooth.
AIS
The Garmin AIS unit only puts AIS information onto the NMEA 2000 network and keeps its GPS data to itself which is annoying as with its external antenna it has the most reliable GPS position on the boat (although the internal aerial in the plotter has not lost a signal yet).
However there is a USB port for set up and diagnostics and when I installed it I suspected that it would use standard NMEA 0183 protocols; why invent new ones when standard ones exist and you already have code for dealing with them? And so it proved, so the USB cable is permanently connected to the hub, the Garmin USB driver presents a logical COM port to applications and those that are capable can use the differential GPS / EGNOS fix (& Glonass), I use mainly use GPS with SeaPro 3000 and Memory-Map but it can also be useful for Google Earth and other applications.
GPS
As backup I have a USB GPS device (they are less than £10 with support for GPS, GLONASS, WAAS/EGNOS, etc.), that allows the PC systems to take over position fixing if the plotter and NMEA2000 network should fail. It is also occasionally useful when switching between SeaPro and Memory-Map, perhaps to use the Antares charts or to check a route on the standard Admiralty raster charts. The AIS com port can not be shared between applications and even if you close one application down the PC is likely to think the port is still potentially active and the newly launched software gives an error.
I set Memory-map to use the USB GPS and SeaPro to use the AIS output and I can then have both active at the same time or switch between them without problems. In the event of a failure I can easily change the configuration to allow SeaPro to use a USB GPS or Memory-map to display AIS.
GND
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Some of the many re-sizable windows available on a connected PC with Nexus. They can be moved around to fit with or on top of other windows. |
Is a bridge between the wind instruments and NMEA200 but also runs as a NX2 server for Nexus software providing most of the information from the NMEA 2000 network down a USB connection, unfortunately that is not usable by SeaPro or Memory-Map but free software allows you to display it on the PC. I can't remember when I last used it but it is free so it might as well be connected.
NAVTEX
I now rarely use it as the met office forecasts are readily available on their website and navigation warnings from the Admiralty website and they are also broadcast by the coastguard but venturing further afield it is a useful backup or replacement for IridiumGo (which does not carry the nav warnings).
USB-3 connections
This can be used to connect various ancillaries that benefit from a fast transfer rate such as a card reader (not included on my new laptop) or DVD or to plug in an iPad. This is also a powered port so will do a better job of supporting an iPad.
Power
This might be the tricky bit. Powered hubs are intended to run from the mains, using an inverter, even if you have one installed, does not make a lot of sense - converting 12V DC to 240V AC and back to whatever DC voltage the hub uses.
However all is not lost, over the years makers have been standardising many PC related items to run off of 5V DC as used by USB devices, even my latest lap top when on mains uses a 3 Amp 5V supply connected to the PC by a USB-C plug (for some reason the car 12V lead and converter to 5V uses a different socket).
My original 4 port hub came with a 240V 13Amp USB charging plug and a USB-A to centre pin lead, I just replaced the 13A plug with an off the shelf 12V to USB socket available from the chandlers and elsewhere.
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The 7 port powered hub. Preferred to others as it is small and does not have unwanted switches or lights. It is USB-3 so fast and 2 ports will provide additional power with automatic detection. The voltage is marked by the socket on the end. Not as it turned out a good choice if connecting an iPhone. |
This time I could not find one like that and online suppliers don't seem to specify the intermediate voltage of there units, but if they have a detachable lead the voltage should be noted beside the socket and it should also be on the power supply; usually in almost microscopic lettering with the rest of the spec. So the trick is to expand photos to read the info from there. I found that the Kingston units were definitely 5V, the power cable is captive to the power supply so in a worst case I would cut the cable and splice it to a USB cable, fabricate from scratch (but there is an easier route, see below) or look for one, but the cable on my old hub does the trick.
As it turned out it would not work with the iPhone so it was relegated to be a passive hub and the topology changed. Fortunately the 4 port hub I had been using as a passive hub could be powered and was USB3 compatible so that was promoted to be the powered hub. Connecting the power was straight forward using a USB A to USB C cable.
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12V to 5.1V step down unit with fast charge. |
Using an off the shelf USB socket for the power source does have a down side, all of the ones I have seen working from 12 volts deliver 2 Amps, useable but not that good for recharging a phone or iPad and would be marginal if an iPad and phone were connected a the same time. The solution is a step down unit, these are readily available on eBay and elsewhere, most deliver 3 Amps for 15 Watts nominal costing £5.89 including postage and is available with USB or bare wire output that would be easy to connect to the power lead that comes with a hub. I found one that delivers 5 Amps through up to 4 female USB-a sockets @ £6.91. Whilst not as fast charging as a good mains powered charging station I'll settle for a potential improvement of 2.5 times over standard.
There are 4 outputs from the unit so one powers the hub (and phone) the other has a male to female USB A cable for charging other devices, in my case, several lights, lighters for the gas, battery charger for the camera and iPads if I should let them run down.
I prefer things fused and switched so the step down unit has both, getting power from the low power switched bus behind the electrical panel. It will normally be left switched on at the panel and will go off when the master switch is off, but if I am a long time at anchor (quite likely) and short of power (unlikely) I can switch it off to save the small parasitic current it uses.
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The nav station with recently updated electrical panel and the PC connected to the internet via the iPhone and USB and running Memory-map with a GPS fix from the dongle, and Nexus Race software showing 3 virtual instruments at the top of the screen, iirc heading from the Raymarine autopilot sensor plus wind speed and direction from the Garmin sensors |
Windows 11 Issues
These were very frustrating and together with the problem with the Kingstone hub took several hours to resolve, particularly as the Windows issues made fault finding difficult and more prolonged as I had to keep rebooting because of the first issue.
Com Ports:
First Windows 11 consistently allocated COM3 to a newly added USB virtual serial port connection even when it had previously allocated COM3 to another device, this did not happen under Windows 10. This confused the applications as the COM port can only support one at a time. Google AI says this does not happen, but it can and deeper research after I had worked round the issue confirms this and gives some of the reasons why. I did not follow though with that as its now working but there were references to changing registry settings as a fix.
To fix this I first identified which of the two "COM3s" was the newly added one (IIRC it was always the 2nd on the list) then I changed the COM Port number manually and rebooted and it would work, fortunately as it is a new PC I knew the highest com port already allocated.
I don't have a device at home that uses a virtual COM port so I can't give precise instructions on how to do this but you start by right clicking on windows start, select device manage, select COM Ports (the devices have to be connected to see them), then the one you want to change, then look for something along the lines of "settings" where there will be an "advanced option" where you can change the port number, it will give an error message that the port is in use, ignore this as it is the first COM3. Then reboot, selecting scan for hardware changes might work but I would want to reboot to check that the fix had taken so there is not much point.
Garmin drives and security settings:
The Garmin drivers for virtual Com Ports for AIS and GND units are not compatible with a particular security feature of Windows 11 (these drivers are also implicated in the COM port issue but they are the latest available), the error message gives the necessary info to turn this off (it may be an option I opted into that defaults off but I can't be certain, the PC is not that new).