AIS transponder to A034 multiplexer—solved by seting proper baud rate(ProAIS)

[Anonymous]

Greetings,
I am installing your QK-A034 NMEA 0183 multiplexer and so far everything from the NMEA2000 network works. My problem is in connecting the AIS to the nmea0183 ports. I have attached the manual for the AIS transponder that I use.
On the cable assembly page(see image) and I have also attached a screenshot of this page:
The orange wire is labelled RS422 TXA (-) and
the black wire is labelled RS422 TXB (+).
I have tried to connect both the orange to IN3 + and the black to the IN3 – and the other way around. The LED is not blinking nor is there any AIS data coming over the network. The configuration was left at default with IN3 set at 38400 baud rate and other nmea2000 data is coming in normally but I do not have any other nmea0183 inputs at the moment. Could you offer any advice? Am I wiring things as they should be in the manuals?

[Quark Elec]

Thank you for the information.
Can you check the following points please:
1, Make sure your AIS transponder output AIS messages via RS422 port(some devices need to enable this…)
2, Make sure the baud rate on both devices are the same(you need install the configuration tool to check this). More details about the configuration tool can be found from the manual(chapter 4):
https://www.quark-elec.com/doc/QK-A034_manual.pdf
3, Please make sure your A034 has the latest firmware:
The latest version can be download from: https://www.quark-elec.com/downloads/drivers/
Hope above helps.
Let us know if you need further helps.

[Anonymous]

there is no configuration possible for the user of the AIS unit. The data should already be output on both the rs422 and rs232 ports at 38400 baud rate, no parity. I already ran the configuration tool for the multiplexer and checked that IN3 port, which I am using, is in 38400 baud rate.

I updated the firmware, restarted and tried the same two configurations again and the led is still not blinking.

[Quark Elec]

One more thing, can you try to swap two NMEA output wires please?

[Anonymous]

I just solved the issue. Thanks for continuing to try and help. The problem was with the AIS unit configuration. While the manual states that the user cannot configure anything in the software this appears to not be so. After installing the ProAIS software and managing to connect to the device, I found out I can actually change baud rates on the device. Interestingly, the baud rate of the rs422 was set to 4800 and as soon as I set it to 38400, everything started working. The wire colours for this particular unit were black in the + and orange in the -, even though the manual seems to confuse the TXA with – and TXB with +. I don’t know why the baud rate was set up wrong on the unit because the user shouldn’t have to or even be able to configure anything.

All working like a charm now with your multiplexer. Thanks for the quick response and a good product.

[Author]

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