Sarah [7252]#DuckDuckFedi #sailing #radar #reverseengineering #Navionics
Did ever someone reverse the protocol of the analog Raymarine rd218 radar?
Signals are:
- Video
- Tx Trigger
- Data I/O
- Azimuth
Any hints, ideas, projects?
Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar@Exilsarahl That's a Pathfinder series radar, quite old now. The service manuals have luckily been thoroughly leaked and can be found online, including circuit diagrams for radome and display unit and description of pinouts and signals. Raytheon era designs were very high quality and well documented, although you can expect no help from the modern Raymarine corpo drones.
We had a Pathfinder, although the display unit still worked. From what I remember, the video is a simple analogue video output (monochrome) equivalent of composite video (no chrominance).
The ship heading is an _analogue_ input from the display unit to the radome so it can align itself with a supplied heading (or north).
Data is RS485 and carries mostly MARPA information.
@Exilsarahl The modern digital Ethernet radomes are well supported by OpenCPN radar plugins, but I'm not aware of anyone having done very much with the Pathfinder series, or at least not when I looked. Mostly due to them being quite power hungry for a sailboat! :)
@yngmar thanks a lot. I didn't expect video on the coax cable. My guess was something like TOF for the echo and intensity somehow modulated into one signal. Video makes it easier.
Our idea is to develop an interface from analog to something OpenCPN can understand.
Our idea is to develop an interface from analog to something OpenCPN can understand.