2019-04-17, 06:02 PM
I'm afraid not. Old SeaTalk is a 9-bit proprietary bus protocol. Thomas Knauf did a great job of reverse engineering the original SeaTalk several years ago. Here it is: http://www.thomasknauf.de/rap/seatalk2.htm.
Some people have created devices that emulate SeaTalk, for example, to replace an AutoHelm control head. There are a few SeaTalk to NMEA converters out there that are single direction, SeaTalk -> NMEA, and one or two that actually go two ways. Unfortunately, these protocol converters take many of the SeaTalk command strings and encapsulate them in a unique NMEA 0183 string, as there isn't a corresponding NMEA string for many of the commands that are on the SeaTalk bus.
I have an old ST-60 for depth and speed. In my case, I got one of the Quark-Elec SeaTalk to NMEA converters. It has wireless and USB output, as well as excellent AIS and GPS receivers. I figured the $120 or so I spent for that was a good deal compared to the time for me to build and troubleshoot all of the above, and it powers itself from the SeaTalk network. I'm in the process of adding an ultrasonic wind transducer, which I'll put directly into my RPI, and bring out NMEA to a Clipper Tactical Wind System display.
If you want a dedicated display/control for your autohelm, you'll probably end up creating it yourself. As I said before, one of those little 433Mhz keychain remotes would be very easy to interface with a PI, which would give you four buttons that could be mapped to autopilot control. Something like this (but you won't need the relays) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CCSG2ZY.
Some people have created devices that emulate SeaTalk, for example, to replace an AutoHelm control head. There are a few SeaTalk to NMEA converters out there that are single direction, SeaTalk -> NMEA, and one or two that actually go two ways. Unfortunately, these protocol converters take many of the SeaTalk command strings and encapsulate them in a unique NMEA 0183 string, as there isn't a corresponding NMEA string for many of the commands that are on the SeaTalk bus.
I have an old ST-60 for depth and speed. In my case, I got one of the Quark-Elec SeaTalk to NMEA converters. It has wireless and USB output, as well as excellent AIS and GPS receivers. I figured the $120 or so I spent for that was a good deal compared to the time for me to build and troubleshoot all of the above, and it powers itself from the SeaTalk network. I'm in the process of adding an ultrasonic wind transducer, which I'll put directly into my RPI, and bring out NMEA to a Clipper Tactical Wind System display.
If you want a dedicated display/control for your autohelm, you'll probably end up creating it yourself. As I said before, one of those little 433Mhz keychain remotes would be very easy to interface with a PI, which would give you four buttons that could be mapped to autopilot control. Something like this (but you won't need the relays) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CCSG2ZY.