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1 INSTALLATION GUIDE (rev 1 Jan 09) (for USE of the program see MaxSea 10.3.2.1 Tutorial)
AS A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE, I SUGGEST YOU SAVE THIS INSTALLATION GUIDE TO THE DESKTOP ON YOUR COMPUTER. DURING INSTALLATION YOU WILL NEED TO RESTART THE COMPUTER AND HAVING THE INSTALLATION GUIDE ON THE DESKTOP MAKES IT EASY TO RE-OPEN THIS INSTALLATION GUIDE. Once the program is installed you will probably want to delete it from the desktop. .
This installation guide is written for the Microsoft XP operating system. It is also applicable to the Microsoft Vista operating system although there are interruptions along the way asking for permissions, etc. In each case allow or continue with the installation, assuming you have administrator privileges. The biggest problem with installing on a Vista machine is getting the boats position displayed on the screen. The problem has been traced to the GPS drivers which need the Vista version. In the folder Pirates Chest is the folder USB GPS DRIVERS. In this folder are three folders containing drivers for the USB GPS BU-353 (Globalsat), the USB GPS GR-213 (Hollux), and the Prolific USB-RS232 adapter. The USB GPS folders contain drivers for both XP and Vista. The appropriate driver should be installed prior to connecting the GPS. Anyone finding additional Vista drivers, please contact me, Terry, at skipper@yachtvalhalla.net .
BEFORE YOU GO FURTHER: If you now have or have in the past had a prior version of MaxSea installed on your computer there are steps you should take to minimize problems when installing this newer version.
1. Install the Max Sea program by double clicking on the folder Launch (the one with the
purple icon). When asked, continue with each step during the installation by answering all questions in the affirmative.
The following screens will appear and should be selected as shown by the red arrow:
BEFORE CLICKING ON THE FINISH BOX YOU MUST UNCHECK THE BOX ASKING TO LAUNCH THE PROGRAM
!!! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO START THE PROGRAM WHEN INSTALLATION IS COMPLETE BUT RETURN TO THESE INSTRUCTIONS
3. In
the
Pirates
Chest
folder
double
click
on
the
registry
editor
MS10.3.2.1_ProRouting_AIS_....
When asked, check the box for automatic start with Windows. PLEASE REMEMBER TO DO THIS!
5. You will be asked to restart the computer. Do so and then reopen this MaxSea
Installation Guide and return here. YOU HAVE COMPLETED INSTALLATION OF THE MaxSea PROGRAM! BUT NOW YOU NEED TO INSTALL CHARTS AND, IF DESIRED, THE GPS
6.
CMAP CHARTS. Included on this DVD (Valhallas Favorites) is a folder labeled CM93 (rev2007). These are the second edition of the cm93 charts released in 2005 with updates through 31 Jan 2007.
Click on the file CM93 (rev2007) to display the contents as shown below. Double-click on the file READ ME to obtain the installation instructions.
SAVING HARD DISK SPACE If you are limited in the amount of space on your hard drive, you can select regions of the world, based on latitude, to be displayed by the program. To do this you must delete (or move to another location) the folders under cm93 for those regions you do not want to be displayed. In the cm93 folder there are some small overhead files (452KB) that must be in that folder. The regions are as follows: LATITUDE RANGE 0-40N 40N-80N 0-40S 40S-80S FOLDERS 02100000-02701020 03300000-04501020 01500000-01501020 00300000-00901020 SIZE ON DISK 183 MB 1.07 GB 65.8 MB 32.7 MB
icon;
You may encounter the following screen in which case select Keep blocking.
Wait for the program to finish loading. (You may want to elect to NOT see the Warning and Help files each time). The program should search your drive for charts and present a window where you should select 'C:\ Cm93' then hit OK. If you have the Valhallas Favorites DVD in the computer the program will find the charts on the DVD and display them in this window. Please ignore that selection.
NOTE:
If you have an older (2002 or earlier) version of the cm 93 files and have
upgraded to the 2005/2007 version, you may experience the situation where MaxSea does not automatically give you this window. If so, select File/Open/ then navigate to the folder C:\cm93, look at the end of the folder to find the file limits.txt and double click on it. That should fix the problem.
When MaxSea first starts (without a GPS connected) this is what you should see as the initial location at 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude.
But the most useful way to run MaxSea is to see your boat in its correct position on the chart!
Connection Details If you have a newer computer especially a notebook or tablet PC it may not include a serial port. One can be added with the use of a serial-to-USB adapter cable. (See below for information on using an adapter) The PC's serial port (RS 232 type input/output port on COM1) is used for data acquisition. Connect your GPS to this port using the appropriate cable. This serial port must comply with RS 232 type electrical characteristics, a standard compatible with most marine electronics. The connection of a GPS to the computer is generally limited to a 2-wire connection with a NMEA 183 output from the GPS to input (RxD) and ground (Gnd) pins of the computer. Connections at serial port of the computer ( 9 Pin Type D Connector) Pin 2 3 5 Signal Data Rx reception Information Connection to GPS Connection automatic pilot to
From VALHALLA: 1.) You need to establish the com port that the GPS is using for connection to the computer.
a. If
the
you
are
connecting GPS directly to the computer with a cable you would be making the connection to a com port (9-pin), usually designated as COM 1. But that's probably not the case for later model computers, especially laptops. For these you need a USB-serial (RS232) adapter.
b. If you are using a USB-serial adapter, when it was installed, the computer made an
assignment of a com port number to this device. To find out the com port number look under Control panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager. Click on the '+' beside the line 'Ports (COM&LPT)' which displays a list of the com and printer ports. The adapter should be listed
If the adapter is not listed, its possible it has not been correctly identified by Windows. Since it is a serial device, Windows may have identified it as a serial mouse. If so, it will be listed in Device Manager under Human Interface Devices. Microsoft says: To work around this problem, allow the device to be detected incorrectly, use Device Manager to disable the device that is not the port to which the device is attached, and then reboot your computer. When you do this, the port works correctly and the incorrectly detected device is disabled.
c. In my case there is a built in communications port (COM1) and also a USBserial adapter (EdgePort) which has been assigned COM2. This is the one we will use in this example. This assignment CAN be changed, however. For a tutorial on how to change this assignment, connect to the Internet and go to http://yachtvalhalla.net/projects/wink/wink/htm
2.) Ensure the output setting of the GPS is on NMEA, 4800 baud. 3.) Start MaxSea. Click on Utilities.
a.
b. On the 'Boat' page you should see a line checked as 'active', a com port number, and 'NMEA'.
probably doesn't match. Click on that line to select it and then click on 'Remove Instrument'.
You
will get
d. Click on 'Add Instrument'. On the next screen change the com port number in the box to match what you learned in 1.a. above by clicking on that com port number.
Click
f. The Active line should now read the new com port number.
h. stream data with $GP...... so close 'Data Output settings' window clicking OK.
You of lines
should see a
by
I. j.
If you don't see the data strings then the cabling isn't right between the GPS or the output HOWEVER you may see a data stream but your position is not displayed on the chart!
from the GPS is not set for a 4800 baud NMEA string.
A possible cause is an incorrect setting for the NMEA sentence being sent by the GPS. In the MaxSea program, go to Utilities/Data Input-Output Settings and click on the Advanced settings box. This brings up the screen shown below. On shown under Data column, other click if the entry is than on RMC then RMC in the drop down window. Click twice see not, other sentence labels in this window. OK and the try line as the
POSITION
I have included a program that creates a pair of virtual null modems. This program allows the output (in RS232 format) from one program to be sent to the input of another program. I use this program to link the output of my radar-style AIS display program (Yacht-AIS Pro) to the AIS input of the MaxSea 10.3.2.1 program. See SECTION 8: AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (AIS) in the MaxSea 10.3.2.1 Tutorial for information on the AIS feature. 8. VIRTUAL NULL MODEM
Within the Pirates Chest is a folder Virtual Null Modem. Double click on this folder.
The setup program is vnullmod20, the registration is Terrence-Sargent and an update is vnullmod250b8update. I will leave the detailed installation and settings to your capable hands. The Help files are quite good.
I hope this Installation Guide has been useful. If you have any questions or problems I might be able to help you with, please email me at skipper@yachtvalhalla.net Terry Sargent Yacht VALHALLA Back to the top