Simulated Usage Environment PC/basic questions

[FreshStartMA]

Hello,

This message is a tangent to ALROCHARARI's message of several days ago (#43). For reference, a portion of his diagram is included:

I am just starting and would like to setup an environment on my windows machine that allows me to get my feet wet with Signal K in a way similar to what I envision on my boat. This diagram is exactly what I've been imagining and I just want to clarify that I'm on the right track. First a sanity check:

It is true that Signal K, given a NMEA 2K data source, can bi-directionally convert the NMEA2K data to Signal K representation? I read a few things that made me doubt this in regard to requiring a NMEA/SignalK gateway. My current understanding is that the 'gateway' is part of Signal K's capabilities and I think that the diagram above supports that this is correct. Please let me know.

On the boat, I'm planning on a NMEA2K to ethernet gateway that goes into a router. My PC will be on that network (either wired or wirelessly) and running Signal K. Signal K would interact with that NMEA 2K data (read/write) available on the network. In the above diagram, the NMEA/ethernet gateway would live in the box where the NMEA Simulator is shown. For my current learning purposes, I'd like to replicate what ALROCHARARI seems to have done and simulate the NMEA data source (proving that I can get Signal K to work, and it can read/write to the NMEA network). Can someone, perhaps ALROCHARAR, let me know where to find a NMEA Simulator suitable for this purpose. Also, can the box labelled 'HHD Virtual Serial Port Tools' be eliminated, or said another way can Signal K interface with such a Simulator either directly or via the network (I could run the simulator on another machine).

I know this is very basic, but at this point so am I. Let me know if anything I think I know is off.

Thanks,
--Howie

[tkurki]

I don't know what you read that made you doubt things, but bidirectional integration between Signal K and NMEA2000 is a core use case. For example on my boat I have a N2K backbone, but some of the data comes in NMEA 0183 format (wind) and custom sensors (some temperatures). You just need to install signalk-to-nmea2000 plugin and configure the PGNs you want to be sending to the bus.

All of the supported NMEA2000 connection types are bi-directional.

What you need is hardware that provides access to the NMEA 2000 CAN bus. For Windows I would pick either one of the USB adapters or one connected to your network (accessible via TCP or UDP). See https://github.com/SignalK/signalk-server/wiki/FAQ:-Frequently-Asked-Questions#how-do-i-integrate-with-nmea2000-can-bus for more details.

The easiest way to get your feet wet is to run your server and instruct it to playback a sample NMEA2000 data file. I am not a Windows user myself, but there's a installer for Windows. I think you can use SignalK-CLI to run the server from the command line with the sample file via signalk-server --sample-n2k-data.

Using real, recorded data from the sample file is much less tricky than simulating data, unless you'd like to simulate something specific, data or a scenario, that the the sample files don't contain.

You can also try out conversion to NMEA2000 by using the sample NMEA 0183 as input and configure a virtual N2K over udp connection, activate the plugin and enable debug loggin in Server Log for NMEA 2000 out data. This way you can see the generated NMEA 2000 data.

[FreshStartMA]

Thanks a lot, especially for playback file vs simulator comments. Playback would be just fine (I didn't know about it) and I'll think about what you are describing at the bottom for testing out conversion-out to NMEA2K. At this point I have enough of and idea of what I want to do, that I'll install and start playing around with it. The plugin for nmea 2K/SK was something I was wondering about as well, so thanks for clarifying. Can you point me somewhere to find NMEA 2K log files to use for input?

Appreciate your reply.
--Howie

[cmotelet]

Small update to running a NMEA 2K log file on Windows.

• Stop the server if running in service mode
• Open a Signalk-CLI console
• Run the command signalk-server.cmd --sample-n2k-data
  The server will replay automaticaly the log file.
  And you will see where located the log file in the console.
  

[FreshStartMA]

Thank you. Are there pre-existing log files available?

[cmotelet]

yes it is embedded with the server installation in the samples folder

[cmotelet]

running command signalk-server.cmd --sample-n2k-data will configure the server and choose the right file to replay

[FreshStartMA]

Thank you for giving me a bit of springboard. Very clueless. Will start messing around now.

[cmotelet]

I am the maintainer of the installer on Windows and I am interested in your feedback on Windows 11.
I have not yet had the time to validate it under this OS version