Furuno FE-700 Quick start guide

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DATA RECORDING SOFTWARE FOR PC
This application software is used for collecting data of date, time, depth, draft, latitude,
longitude, speed and course from the Navigational Echo Sounder FE-700.
The interconnection between the FE-700 and PC is as follows.
DISPLAY
UNIT
FE-701
DISTRIBUTION
BOX FE-702
EIA232-TD
EIA232-RD
GND
4
5
6
PC*
Connect to COM port.
(Either port will do)
*: Local supply
FE-700
TB1 Cable * < <
<2< RXD
<3< TXD
<5< GND
< <
COM
Figure 1 Interconnection between FE-700 and PC
1. INSTALLATION
1.1 Installing the program
System Requirements
The DATARECORDING SOFTWARE FOR PC runs under Windows 95/98/ME or Windows
NT4.0/2000, and also 64 MB and more of RAM are recommended.
Procedure
1. Insert the program floppy disk supplied with the DATA RECORDING SOFTWARE FOR
PC kit into your floppy disk drive.
2. Double-click the floppy disk drive icon to display files in the floppy disk.
3. Double-click the Setup.exe icon. The installation program starts and guides you through
the installation process.
4. Follow the instructions displayed on the screen. DATA RECORDING SOFTWARE FOR
PC will be installed in the folder /Program Files/Fe700/Fe700 on default.
5. Keep your original floppy disk in a safe place.
(FE-700 Optional Kit)

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1.2 Setting up the program
1. Click the START button on the Windows to open the Start menu.
2. Move the mouse pointer on the PROGRAM option to open the Program menu.
3. Move the mouse pointer on the Fe700 option. The application menu opens.
4. Move the mouse pointer on the application program icon Fe700 and click it. The DATA
RECORDING SOFTWARE FOR PC will start up. The following screen appears.
Figure 2 Start-up Display
1.3 Setting the serial port
1. Select Setting-Serial port from the menu bar.
2. Select the port (COM 1 to COM 6) which has been connected to the PC.
3. Press OK button.
2. OPERATION PROCEDURES
Note: If you open the system menu 1, 2 or 3 of the FE-700 during downloading,
“Communication error!” will appear. Press the OK button and repeat from beginning.

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2.1 Downloading data
To download real time data (1 second intervals data) from the FE-700, press the Start
button on the toolbar, or select Download - Start from the menu bar. Also, pressing F9
key on your keyboard downloads real time data. The data is downloaded at 1 second
intervals and displayed in log (Log mode) or graph (Graph mode) form.
Ver4.0
Figure 3 Log Mode (text screen)
Line (green)
Figure 4 Graph Mode (graphic screen)

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To change the mode, press the Log or Graph button on the toolbar or select
Mode - Log / Graph from the menu bar.Also, pressing F7 key or F8 key on your keyboard
changes the mode to log mode or graph mode, respectively.
To inscribe line (s) on the graphic screen, click the Mark button on the toolbar, or select
Option-Mark from the menu bar (or F1 key) at the moment you want to pay attention. M
mark is displayed on the text screen.
To stop downloading at any time, press the Stop button on the toolbar or select
Download - Stop from the menu bar.Also, pressing F10 key on your keyboard stops
downloading.
2.2 Downloading RAM data in the FE-700
To download one hour of data (1 second intervals data) or 24 hours of data (5 seconds
intervals data) in the RAM of the FE-700 (accumulated at the Echo Sounder FE-700), select
Download - Loading Option - 1h Data or 24h Data. The Download dialog box appears,
showing "Now downloading" and indicating data volume. You can cancel downloading at
any time by selecting Cancel.
Figure 5 Download dialog box
When downloading is completed, "Download Completed" is shown. Click the OK button.
The downloaded data is saved at a file named after date of the moment you just start
downloading. For example, 1 hour data file is named as “20000717_1h.dat”. (This file has
created at July 17, 2000.) When you open the file from the FILE menu, you can observe the
data in the log mode.

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2.3 Setting option items
The Option menu provides various settings for downloading real time data or depicting
graphics.
To open the File dialog box, select Option - Option on the menu bar. Click the File tab if it
is not already selected. The File dialog box appears.
Figure 6 File tab on the Option dialog box
File Saving option
Create new files at 00:00:
New files will be automatically created every day at 00:00. (Initial file is
created when the Start button is pressed.) Files will be named as
“yyyymmdd” (year+month+day).
Create a new file at specific time period (1h - 24h):
Anew file is created and data is saved at a period of specified time (hour).
Set hour(s) between 1 and 24 hours at 1 hour period. If you set 1 hour, for
example only the recent one hour data is saved and old data is overwritten.
The file is named as “userfile.dat”.
Not saving:
Data received from the FE-700 is displayed on the screen, but not saved to
the hard disk of the PC.
Time Interval option
Select time interval to extract received data. Extracted data is displayed on
the text screen or graphic screen.
Auto Printing option
Log: Printing is automatically performed every 60 lines of text data.
Graphic: Printing is automatically performed every graphic page.
Off: No automatic printing.
To change a setting, press appropriate radio buttons or press up/down arrow button.After
setting as desired, press the OK button. The dialog box closes.

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To open the Graphic dialog box, select Option - Option on the menu bar and click the
Graphic tab if it is not already selected. The Graphic dialog box appears.
Figure 7 Graph tab on the Option dialog box
Scale option: Select an appropriate depth scale for graphics, between 5 m to 800 m.
Pixels option: Select appropriate number of pixels to display per one received data from
the dropdown list to depict the contour of the seabed. The choices are 1, 2,
5 and 10 pixels.
Mode option: Select the drawing method for graphics. (Rect: Solid, Line: Outline)
Colors option: Select seabed color for graphics among gray, red and yellow.
Back Color option: Select background color for graphics, between black and white.
To change a setting, press appropriate radio buttons or press down-arrow button.After
setting as desired completed, press the OK button. The dialog box closes.

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2.4 Opening a file
There are two methods to open a file: File option and Time Selection option.
To open a file and display it on the text screen, select the File - Open -File from the menu
bar (or Ctrl +O) or click File Open button .
The normal Windows Open File dialog box appears. Select an appropriate file and click the
Open button. You can observe the data on the text screen or graph screen.
Border line*
*:The border line appears where there is no data.
White: Background color is black.
Black:Background color is white.
Light-blue:There is no data for one day or more.
Figure 8 Graph Mode
To read data from specified start date/time to end date/time and display it on the text or
graphic screen, select File - Open -Time Selection from the menu bar. The Time
Selection dialog box appears. Enter start date/time and end date/time, then click the OK
button. You can display the time selection data on the text screen or graphic screen. (In this
method, the 1h-data file (xxxxxxx-1h.dat), 24h-data file (xxxxxxx-24h.dat) and userfile.dat
can not be opened.)
You can set the from/to period for maximum 11 hours 59 minutes.
Example: From Year 2000/Month 7/Dar 5/Hour 13/Minutes 1
To Year 2000/Month 7/Day 6/Hour 1/Minutes 0
Figure 9 Time Selection dialog box

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2.5 Saving a file
The time selection data specified at previous section can be saved with any name in Excel
format. Select File - Save as from the menu bar or click the FileSave button . The normal
Windows Save as dialog box appears. Type file name, select the location to save and click
the OK button.
2.6 Printing a file
You can print out the time selection data specified at previous section. Select File - Print
from the menu bar(or Ctrl +P) or click Print button The normal Windows Print dialog
box appears. Click the OK button to print out the data.
2.7 Exiting the program
Select File - Exit from the menu bar. The program closes and return to the Windows
screen.
2.8 Error Messages
Below is a list of error messages shown on the screen.
Message Meaning Remedy
Initializing error!: COM Failed initialization of
COM port. For example,
other application uses
COM port.
Match the “serial port”
setting (section 1.3) with
the COM port connection
of the PC.
Communication error! Failed communication
with FE-700. Confirm the connection between FE-700 and
COM port of PC.
Can not open! Could not read or save
data. No data
Not enough memory to
save! There was not enough space on the hard disk on
the PC.
Delete unnecessary files.
Invalid data! Specified time was wrong. Try to specify date/time
again. (less than 12
hours).
Not found the data! There was no data in the
file at specified time. Try to specify date/time again.
PUB. No. OME-23661
FE-700 DATA REC.SOFT
(
YOSH
)
FIRST EDITION : JUL. 2000
E : APR. 1, 2004