Wiring details

If you have an older Airconsole adapter, such as the Airconsole Mini or Airconsole Pro, it can be connected as described below. You can wire it yourself or enlist an electrician.

NOTE: Both devices are compatible with iPhone. Airconsole Pro does not work with Android. Airconsole Mini may work with Android but has not been tested. The newer Airconsole LE DB9 works with both iPhone and Android - see Appendix D of the User Guide.

You will need:

· AirConsole Mini or Pro

· AirConsole crossover connector

· USB car charger

· Cigarette lighter socket, female

· Cable from device (e.g. chartplotter/fishfinder/GPS) manufacturer that plugs into their NMEA-0183 output socket

· Multimeter to measure voltage

· Pliers

· Cable ties

· DB9 (aka DE-9) connector, male

· Soldering iron and solder

· Wire-stripping tool

· Electrical insulating tape

Connections

Power

With the 12V supply turned off, connect one of the two wires coming out of the back of the cigarette lighter socket to 12V (ideally beyond the chartplotter’s fuse) and the other to ground, taking care to ensure the correct polarity and avoid any short-circuit. The center pole at the rear must be positive and the cylindrical metal shell must be negative.

NMEA-0183 signal

The objective here to feed the NMEA-0183 signal from the external device into the AirConsole’s brown crossover connector, which has a female DB9 connector for input. This is a 9-pin connector.

Your device should have an NMEA-0183 serial output socket (often the same socket for power and NMEA), and you should obtain the manufacturer’s NMEA cable for it.

o Cut off and discard the plug on the end of the cable furthest from the external device.

o From the manual, find out the colour coding for the NMEA out and ground wires in the cable. (Typically, ground is black.) In conjunction with this, you might need to use a multi-meter to confirm connectivity between pins at the device end of the cable and wires at the other end.

o Solder a male DB9 connector to the NMEA and ground wires – NMEA to pin 3 and ground to pin 5. (If cabling via a patch panel, shielded twisted pair is suggested, to minimise interference.)

o Normally it will be necessary to jumper pin 7 (Request to Send) to pin 8 (Clear to Send) – you may need to try it with and without. Solder is suggested.

o Screw on the DB9’s protective cover, making sure that cable tension won’t strain the solder joints.

Finally, connect the components as shown in the photo above, and use cable ties to securely fasten the components and cables, bearing in mind the severe effect of vibration and the direction of gravity.

Software setup

The following setup is required only once.

1. In Behayve’s settings, enable the ExternalInstruments, WaterDepthRecording and WaterTemperatureRecordingsettings.

2. On the external device’s setup menu, look up the current NMEA transmission speed and, if possible, change it to 4800 baud.

3. In Behayve’s settings, verify the following settings (assuming 4800 baud):

SETTING

VALUE

SerialAdapterBaudRate0

4800

SerialAdapterBaudRate1

4800

SerialAdapterDataBits0

Databits8

SerialAdapterDataBits1

Databits8

SerialAdapterFlowControl0

None

SerialAdapterFlowControl1

SerialAdapterStopBits0

SerialAdapterStopBits1

None

StopBits1

4. In iPhoneAndroid Settings check that Bluetooth is On ., then scroll down to Behayve and click on it. Ensure that Location is set to While Using and that Bluetooth is on.

5. Establish a Wi-Fi connection to the AirConsole from a laptop using the passcode 12345678. Browse to http://192.168.10.1/ with username admin and password admin, to access the AirConsole settings. On the Serial tab, select the following settings (assuming 4800 baud) then click Apply:

SETTING

VALUE

Baud rate

4800 Baud

Data bits

8 Bits

Stop bits

1 Stop Bit

Parity

None

Flow control

No Flow Control

6. Refrain from making changes to the Wireless tab.

Operation

Power on the AirConsole. If it has a power switch, slide it to ‘R’, nor ‘C’. Wait until the Bluetooth module begins to flash. You may then start a Behayve session on your device. Automatic recording of data, such as water depth/temperature or GPS, will begin when a session starts. To confirm it’s working, look for the water depth and temperature or an External GPS status on the My Position page (Me button). Allow 60 seconds for them to first appear.

Power off or disconnect power when not in use.

Please contact Behayve support if any issues.

Wireless connection to other equipment

If you have other gear, for example a weather station, that you would like to connect wirelessly, let us know and we’ll look into what can be done software-wise. The equipment would need to have serial output (but not necessarily NMEA protocol), so as to allow connection of a serial-to-wireless adapter.

NOTE: While Bluetooth traditionally is fairly short-range, be aware that long-range Bluetooth transmitters are commercially available.