NMEA 2000 is a standard for digital communication networks specifically designed for pleasure craft, according to an industry standard and published by the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA).
The purpose of the standard NMEA2000 is to meet the needs of many manufacturers and owners due to the significant increase of electronic components of its vessels and the need to communicate these with control and navigation applications. It also aims to interconnect equipment from different manufacturers and brands, allowing boat builders and end users greater freedom in choosing navigation instruments. NMEA2000 thus allows interoperability and secure exchange of information between different electronic devices installed on recreational craft.
To this end FlexiDAQ born. It is an electronic module that acts as an interface between different types of analog sensors and digital communication protocol NMEA 2000 based on CAN bus.
FlexiDAQ is ideal for use on recreational craft, when you want to convert signals from analog sensors available in the boat, digital information transmitted via the CAN bus, using the standard NMEA2000 protocol. Thus, these can communicate with the analog sensor monitoring system of the boat (HMI) as active sensor if communication capabilities it were NMEA2000®
The versatility of the device can be seen thanks to the high number of signals that it can be connected: it is capable of monitoring 12 sensors at the same time (6 voltage output and 6 other that can be configured for measurements in voltage or resistive, regardless ). Additionally, it is possible to measure the charging / battery consumption through a shunt sensor; a temperature sensor using a type PTC1000 and speeds (rpms) from two engines. It also has two digital outputs on or off by relays, pumps, lights, sirens, etc.
Nowadays technology has been licensed to a leading Spanish company developing electronics for the nautical sector. (More info here).