Dometic Q-Logic AC Canbus and J2k100?

[wkearney99]

Apparently Dometic AC controls can have a Canbus board added to them. Each board can be configured with it's own Canbus ID. Which I think means they can share a Canbus.

That and Maretron's J2K100 can be used to bridge that onto an NMEA-2000 bus.

Does anyone know if the J2K100 can bridge for more than one device on the Can-bus? Or is it just one?

And are there any other devices that'll bridge more than one Can-bus device onto an N2K network?

 

[wkearney99]

A response back from Maretron was it's one J2K100 per controller. Which seems a bit much considering these are not high data-rate devices like engines.

I've put out inquiries to Yacht Design and Digital Yacht inquiring about their interfaces.

 

[twistedtree]

I see you got the answer from Maretron. I bumped into this limit on my boat where the engine info and transmission info were different IDs on J1939, and hence required two J2K100s.


I'm actually not aware of any other J1939 to N2K converters, and would be interested if you dredge up any.


Looking at the manual for the J2K100, I see that the N2K PGNs for Dometic HVAC and ice makers are Maretron proprietary PGNs, so they will only work with Maretron displays. I wouldn't be surprised if the J1939 PGNs are Dometic proprietary too since they are not listed along with the other J1939 messages that are translated.


Have you seen anything that documents exactly what info is available for display? I have found the J2K100 to be pretty limited in what it will translate, so I would suggest careful research before spending money on the Dometic and/or Maretron interfaces. I found, for example, that although NorthernLights TSC controllers provide a bunch of generator AC info on J1939, only the most basic data gets translated by the J2K100. It was disappointing.

 

[wkearney99]

I have not seen anything documenting what the Dometic gear emits. Mark from Dometic has been patiently helpful with my barrage of questions. I don't know how much data is available but I'll ask.

I suspect I'm headed into SignalK territory, or at least some fiddling with CanBoat. I've done some sleuthing on Can-Bus in my Porsche (they seem to love proprietary sentences) so I'm not flying completely blind.

I'm likewise curious about what my Onan generator has going on. It has no intelligent display at the helm, just start/stop and then VAC at the meter. That'll be a whole other thread.

But I'm curious what all these J1939 widgets aren't handling more devices. I mean besides the obvious question of selling more interfaces. But then separating various buses is sensible, at least from the perspective of avoiding data problems.

 

[wkearney99]

Who is Micro Air? I ran across this PDF:
http://microair.net/main/products/manuals/AirNet_CAN_Bus_Protocol.pdf

 

[wkearney99]

Had a chance to talk with Roger from Micro Air. Sounds like they've got a viable solution I should be considering. They're a lot more forthcoming with the actual technical info than I'm getting from other suppliers.

Now to see if my AC subcontractor has any info on them.

 

[wkearney99]

An update, using the microair units requires a matching controller on the AC unit. My AC guy is offering to absorb the cost of the Dometic boards in favor of the MicroAir controllers. The boards are apparently worth it as spares for other jobs. So that's a win-win for both of us.

More on it as the install progresses.

 

[Arthurc]

Would love to hear how this goes, one of my next projects is new AC units and the micro air controller is what I was looking at. Hopeful to one day get to control my heating/cooling via Maretron remotely.
They had a pretty good offer/deal on a webasto and micro air controller, and based on my research I'm unconvinced its worth the money to go dometic.
AC