NMEA 2000 Network lowrance to bird

I am new (used) 2014 ranger owner – Boat came with lowrance graphs – ripped those out and put my humminbirds in there. Through all this nonsense of rigging I had a cable left over which I thought was the glassed in through hull transducer but after some google reading it is the NMEA 2000 network cable.

I believe on my old lowrance ( only used it one day ) it would read the engine hours temp rpms ect, and now this has me wondering if I buy the NMEA adapter cable for the bird will it read all that with just a simple plug and play ? The helix 10 g4n has that info on demo mode. NMEA stuff is relatively confusing . Any info here if all I need is the adapter ? I havent really torn off all the panels and what not to see where this cable goes.

Thanks

This was connected to it then to my Lowrance if this helps.

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Yes that is a nema backbone I hooked up a bird to a lowrance nema in the past the problem that I remeber the way that lowrance looks and sends info is different they both work on the backbone but some info will not cross to the bird. I would call humminbird and ask them for more detail.

supercat wrote:

Yes that is a nema backbone I hooked up a bird to a lowrance nema in the past the problem that I remeber the way that lowrance looks and sends info is different they both work on the backbone but some info will not cross to the bird. I would call humminbird and ask them for more detail.

Interesting – so you need to power that back bone to get info off it ? I sold that with the old graph (Doh ! )

You should be good with just the adapter if it worked before, but I’m not seeing where your NMEA drops to your outboard?

Did you take a tee out for the pic? (when you say it was connected to “it” do you mean your outboard gateway?)

You have power to the backbone (the spade connectors in your pic).

What did you sell with the graph? Just a NMEA cord? If so that’s no big deal. If you sold your gateway it would be expensive to replace though lol

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B-man wrote:

You should be good with just the adapter if it worked before, but I’m not seeing where your NMEA drops to your outboard?

Did you take a tee out for the pic? (when you say it was connected to “it” do you mean your outboard gateway?)

You have power to the backbone (the spade connectors in your pic).

What did you sell with the graph? Just a NMEA cord? If so that’s no big deal. If you sold your gateway it would be expensive to replace though lol

Theres a nema cable under my dash that comes out of the gunnel – I disconnected the T that I have pictured with the power and I sold that.

So I would need to buy that T and to power it back up again , and the bird cable correct? Or just the bird cable ?

I took the side panel off and snooped around a minute , I cant see where all this jazz connects ! Wonder how visible it is on the Mercury 150 or what it all came factory with?? Anyone know ?

If you sold what’s in your pic you just need a new backbone and the adapter and maybe another tee depending on what kit you buy comes with. Wouldn’t hurt to get an extension cord too depending on how far away stuff is.

You didn’t sell this with the graph right??

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B-man wrote:

Should just need another tee, the adapter and possibly an extension depending on how far away stuff is.

You didn’t sell this with the graph right??

No extension – its right under the dash 1 foot from my Birds.

Nope did not sell that. Going to go lift the cowl and see if thats in there though !

10-4

Just buy a NMEA 2000 starter kit (if you’re missing tees and power) and you should be good to go. It will probably have some extra parts/cords that you may or may not need.

Brand doesn’t matter, and there’s tons of options out there.

You’ll also need the Humminbird adapter (because Humminbird is gay and makes you pay for more “proprietary” stuff, just like their Zero Lines card instead of a generic blank SD)

Hmmm don’t see the gateway ? Any idea where they hide em ? Maybe I don’t have the smart craft merc stuff on my engine . I would assume they’d go to these dead end plugs on the motor ? This is just a holder . Anyone got any info ? Having a heck of a time tracing this NMEA jumble .

Maybe it’s just for the through hull and water temp and I was mistaken on the engine info ….

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That very well could be.

There’s tons of stuff that can share info through a NMEA 2000 network.

Outboard data, marine radio positioning, fuel flow meters, MFD to MFD info, boat stereos, weather stations, heading sensors, etc.

False alarm – I believe I don’t have the gateway . It should hook into this if my research is right . Very limited info on it . The NMEA cables must be for the through hull transducers . Thanks for the help regardless

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Mercury does not install the NMEA gateways on the engine and their engines do not have NMEA connectors unless your talking electric outboards. It’s a helm accessory that plugs into the junction box and then into the NMEA backbone. The junction box would have multiple connectors that look like the one under the yellow cap in your pic. If there is a NMEA harness running down the gunnel to the back of the boat it would likely be a NMEA fuel sensor or a transducer.