Yacht Devices YDVR-03R User manual

User Manual
Voyage Recorder YDVR-03
also covers models
YDVR-03R, YDVR-03N
Firmware version
1.20
2016

© 2016 Yacht Devices Ltd. Document YDVR03-007. October 24, 2016.
Web: http://www.yachtd.com/
NMEA 2000® is a registered trademark of the National Marine Electronics
Association. SeaTalk NG is a registered trademark of Raymarine UK Limited. Garmin®
is a registered trademark of Garmin Ltd. Microsoft is the registered trademark of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac and OS X are
trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Contents
Introduction 4
Warranty and Technical Support 6
I. Product Specication 7
II. Device Connection and Testing 9
III. Choice of MicroSD Cards and Working with Cards 11
IV. Formatting MicroSD Cards 14
V. Organization of Files on the Card 15
VI. Conguration of the Device (YDVR.CFG File) 17
VII. Processing Data on Computer 19
VIII. Firmware Updates 20
IX. Player mode 22
Appendix А. LED Signals of the Device 24
Appendix B. Troubleshooting 26
Appendix C. NMEA 2000 Messages 27
Appendix D. Data File Format (.DAT Files) 28
Package Contents
Device 1 pc.
This Manual 1 pc.
MicroSD card with adapter optional

— 4 —
Introduction
This Manual contains information on how to install, congure and operate Voyage
Recorder YDVR-03 (hereinafter Recorder or Device) intended for use on pleasure
crafts.
The Recorder is intended for storing data from the onboard network of the vessel on
a MicroSD memory card. The onboard network of a typical cruise yacht has data about
the position, course, speed, depth, water temperature, log, wind speed and direction,
and AIS data of nearby vessels. Digital data from the motor, water and fuel tanks,
battery level, etc. may also be available.
The Recorder writes all network data into the memory card. It does not analyze
the data, leaving that work for the software application that runs on personal computer.
Because of that, the Recorder supports all message types broadcasted through
the network by any other equipment present on the vessel’s network.
The software that comes with the Recorder is installed on a desktop computer and
allows GPX les to be generated with the vessel’s track and extensive information
about the sailing conditions, including weather, depth, engine, and even tracks
of nearby vessels with AIS. These les can be viewed in Google Earth, Garmin
MapSource and other applications. They can also be loaded into newer models
of Garmin and Raymarine chartplotters. This software lets you generate a log book
with the collected data automatically.
On average, one second of recording requires 1000-1500 bytes on the memory
card, and the average 16 GB card is enough for 100 days of sailing. The Device
does not require conguration, and automatic deletion of old data means you do not have
to worry about running out of space. Plug the Device into your onboard network, insert

— 5 —
the card, and you can forget about it until you need the data.
Did you accidentally erase your track from the plotter? Are you writing about a storm
that you were caught in? Do you rent out your yacht? There are many instances where
only a Recorder can help you get all the details right.
The Recorder is designed for operating in an NMEA 2000 network and is compatible
with a wide range of equipment supporting this protocol. Raymarine SeaTalk NG,
Simrad SimNet and Furuno CAN networks are branded versions of NMEA 2000 and
differ only in the type of connectors. In its devices, Garmin uses the NMEA 2000 Micro
connector that is compatible with the DeviceNet Micro connector. Our Recorders
are supplied with different types of connectors, making it possible to connect them
to networks of different manufacturers without any adapters. The Device model
is shown on the case.
The model YDVR-03R has a connector similar to Raymarine SeaTalk NG Female.
The model YDVR-03N has a connector similar to NMEA 2000 Micro Male,
DeviceNet Micro Male and Garmin NMEA 2000 Male (see Appendix E).
To connect to other types of NMEA 2000 networks, a cable adapter is required
(it is not supplied with the Device and must be purchased separately).
Note that Recorder is not compatible with the NMEA 0183 protocol.
We thank you for purchasing our Devices and wish you happy voyages!

— 6 —
Warranty and Technical Support
1. The Device warranty is valid for two years from the date of purchase. If a Device
was purchased in a retail store, when applying under a warranty case, the sale
receipt may be requested.
2. The Device warranty is terminated in case of violating the instructions of this
Manual, case integrity breach, repair or modification of the Device without
manufacturer’s written permission.
3. If a warranty request is accepted, the defective Device must be sent
to the manufacturer.
4. The warranty liabilities include repair and replacement of the goods and
do not include the cost of equipment installation and configuration,
as well as shipping the defective Device to the manufacturer.
5. Responsibility of the manufacturer in case of any damage as a consequence
of the Device operation or installation is limited to the Device cost.
6. The manufacturer is not responsible for any errors and inaccuracies in guides
and instructions of other companies.
7. The Device requires no maintenance. The Device’s case is non-dismountable.
8. If the event of a failure, please refer to Appendix A. before contacting
the technical support.
9. The manufacturer accepts applications under the warranty and provides
technical support only via e-mail or from authorized dealers.
10. Contact details of the manufacturer and a list of the authorized dealers
are published on the website: http://www.yachtd.com/.

— 7 —
I. Product Specification
Figure 1. Drawing of YDVR-03R and YDVR-03N models of Recorder

— 8 —
Device parameter Value Unit
Operating voltage (from an NMEA 2000 network) 10.5..16 V
Protection against reverse polarity Yes —
Average current consumption 23 mA
Load Equivalency Number 1 LEN
Operating temperature range -25..+85 °С
Weight without MicroSD card 15 g
Recommended MicroSD card class Class 10 —
Recommended MicroSD card size 16-32 GB
Compatibility of MicroSD card (1) Unlimited —
Estimated recording capacity for 16 GB (2) 100..200 days
Automatic overwrite of old data (3) Yes, by default —
Recording of data from bus, not less than (4) 99.5 %
Notes:
(1) The Device can work with cards of any size and class, but there are requirements
concerning the performance of the cards (see III.6-III.8)
(2) This value is an estimate based on the real load on the data bus in modern
cruise yachts
(3) This can be turned off in the settings (see VI.)
(4) This value is an estimation obtained by trial using recommended cards from
various manufacturers.

— 9 —
II. Device Connection and Testing
The Device requires no maintenance. When deciding where to install the Device,
choose a dry mounting location. Avoid places where the Device can be ooded with
water, this can damage it.
The Device is directly connected to the network backbone without a drop cable. Before
connecting the Device, turn off the bus power supply. Refer to the manufacturer’s
documentation if you have any questions regarding the use of connectors:
• SeaTalk NG Reference Manual (81300-1) for Raymarine networks
• Technical Reference for Garmin NMEA 2000 Products (190-00891-00)
for Garmin networks
After connecting the Device, close the lock on the connection to ensure its water
resistance and reliability.
To operate properly, the Device requires a MicroSD card with FAT or FAT32
formatting. If you are not sure what le system your card uses, reformat it on
a personal computer (see IV.).
Carefully place the card into the Device’s slot and carefully push the card inward until
it clicks. Slowly withdraw your nger. To remove the card, push inward until a click
is heard and then withdraw your nger (see drawing at I.).

— 10 —
The Device slot has a ‘push-push’ mechanism that works on a spring
and ensures proper card xation. Improper loading or unloading
(withdrawing your nger to quickly or not waiting for the click) can
result in the card being propelled out of the Device up to 5 meters.
To avoid possible eye injury, loss of or damage to the card, and other hazards, insert
and remove the card with caution.
The Device has an LED which ashes red or green. After the Device is connected
to power, you may see the following signals:
1. Three green signals with a period of 0.5 seconds – this means that the Device
has received the rst message from the onboard network of the vessel. This
signal occurs once after the Device is powered on to indicate that it is properly
installed.
2. One green signal of a full second duration means that the Device has created
a le on the MicroSD card and is ready to record data. This signal shows one
time after the Device is powered on or if the card is changed.
3. Constant, random ashing green signals indicate that data recording
on the MicroSD card is in progress. The intensity of the ashing indicates the load
on the onboard network. This signal indicates normal functioning of the Device.
4. A red signal with a period of 0.5 seconds indicate that the Device cannot create
a le on the MicroSD card or that there is no card in the Device.
A full list of signals is attached in Appendix A.

— 11 —
III. Choice of MicroSD Cards and Working with Cards
We ask that you to familiarize yourself closely with this section. By observing these
simple rules, you can be condent that your data is saved and safe.
1. MicroSD cards have a limited number of data rewrites, so do not use old cards.
It is highly recommended not to use cards that have been used in mobile
telephones.
2. Use MicroSD cards from a known manufacturer and purchase from a reputable
retailer. Some well-known manufacturers offer their own cards with a lifetime
warranty. For an additional level of assurance, use cards made with SLC
technology, as they allow ten times the number of data rewrites of regular cards.
There are also MicroSD cards made for industrial use.
3. MicroSD card is a complex electronic device. Keep cards away from static
electrical elds and try not to handle the contacts of the card. Do not deform
or bend the cards or leave them exposed to sunlight. We do not recommend
removing the card when the Recorder is powered on – this could result in a logic
error in the le system.
4. The internal controller of MicroSD cards has a complex algorithm for caching,
maintaining data integrity and replacing corrupted memory blocks with
reserved blocks on the y. The Recorder works with the card in such a way as
to avoid premature deterioration. A 16 GB card lls up over the course
of 100-200 days of sailing. A regular MicroSD card generally claims to function
for 10,000 data rewrites, which means that a single card is adequate for a few
decades of uninterrupted work. For this reason, we generally recommend
regular MicroSD cards.

— 12 —
5. Winter storage of the card and Device can be on board the vessel. Note
the temperature tolerance of the card – most have a range of -40 to +85° C,
and a working temperature range of -25 to 85° C.
6. The Recorder is sensitive to the response time and write time, so cards
of MicroSD Class 10 or higher are recommended for use with the Device.
In our testing, regular cards (non-professional models) allowed recording
of not less than 99.5% of network messages.
7. Network messages such as position, course, speed, depth, and wind have
a frequency of not less than once per second. Speed and wind direction,
for example, are sent ten times per second. For this reason, with 30 seconds
of data sampling (which is more than adequate for cruise sailing) even 10% data
loss is insignicant in most cases. Cards from obscure manufacturers or of lower
Class did occasionally show differing results. Some cards demonstrated a very
long response time – as much as 500 milliseconds – whereas Class 10 cards from
well-known manufacturers averaged response time of less than 5 milliseconds.
This delay could produce signicant data loss. Low-speed cards might be
adequate for amateur photo cameras, but are not adequate for capturing
real-time data.
8. The Device has an embedded capacitor, the power from which is used to shut
down the le system safely after the power from the network is turned off.
If a card of lower than Class 10 is use, this Device might not managed
to complete the shutdown of the le system. When the network power is turned
off, the red LED will conrm that work with the le system has been shut down
properly.

— 13 —
9. During system shutdown, the Device tries to minimize the work with the le
system, indicating the correct le size, but without releasing the cluster chain
reserved for it. This behavior is correct, but some disc checkers will try to correct
this by increasing the le size to the end of the cluster chain. This will result
in ‘garbage’ at the end of the le. The Recorder’s software can handle such
‘corrections’, but it is not desirable.
10. At the rst sign of physical problems such as extended time needed for
reading the data from the card or errors in reading, do not try to ‘x’ the card,
but immediately replace it. The probability is very high that such cards will soon
stop functioning altogether, resulting in loss of all data on the card.
In conclusion, new cards from reputable manufacturers are extremely reliable,
and with proper care you can be condent that your voyage data is safe and sound.

— 14 —
IV. Formatting MicroSD Cards
The Recorder supports MicroSD memory cards of all sizes and classes, but
has performance requirements for cards (see III.6-III.8). The MicroSD card must
be formatted on a personal computer before use in the Recorder. The Recorder
supports the following le systems: FAT (FAT12, FAT16, MS-DOS) and FAT32.
It does not support exFAT, NTFS, or any other le systems.
When formatting, use a cluster size of 65,536 bytes (64K) or the maximum available
for your card. This will improve the performance of the Recorder and extend the life
of the card. During operation, the Recorder produces les of up to 20 clusters, which
totals 1.3MB with a cluster size of 64K. Such les typically hold 15-25 minutes of data
recording. If a smaller cluster size is used, the Recorder will have to create new les
more often, increasing the number of calls to the le system.
The FAT32 le system can be used on disks up to 2048 GB. Microsoft Windows,
Linux and Mac OS X do not restrict work with les on memory cards of any size
with the FAT32 le system.
However, in Microsoft Windows, there is an articial restriction, so you cannot select
the FAT32 le system for memory cards of 64 GB or more in the formatting program
supplied with the operating system. This limitation is the consequence of Microsoft’s
promotion of its new exFAT le system. So, to format large cards in Windows,
you will need to use a third-party freeware formatting program, like the one supplied
by Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd:
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/guiformat.htm
In Linux or Mac OS X operating systems, there is no such limitation, and you can use
the OS utility to format cards of any size.

— 15 —
V. Organization of Files on the Card
To store les, the Recorder creates folders named “YDVRdddd” in the root directory,
where dddd is the serial number of the folder from 0001 to 9999. In the folder,
the Recorder creates les named “ddddnnnn.DAT”, where dddd is the folder
number where the le is stored, and nnnn is the le sequence number in the folder,
from 0001 to 0300.
The Recorder tries not to store more than 100 les in a single folder, and never stores
more than 300 les together. The Recorder never creates more than 500 folders at one
time. The exact number of folders used and the maximum number of les in a folder
depends on the size of the card. The Recorder cannot fully utilize the available space
on memory cards larger than 200 GB. When cards of this size become commonly used,
we will test them with the Recorder and release updated rmware to support them.
If the number of the last le in the folder exceeds the maximum number of les in
a folder for this card, the Recorder creates a new folder with the next serial number.
The Recorder erases the folder with the lowest serial number and its contents, if:
• the number of folders created by the Recorder has reached the maximum value
for the card;
• the free space available on the card is not enough for 20 Recorder les.
After completing data collection in a folder named YDVR9999, the Recorder renames
all folders on the card, giving them new numbers starting with 1. The les inside
the folder are not renamed.
In this way, you do not have to worry about the amount of space left on the card,

— 16 —
as the Recorder will automatically delete the oldest recordings when more space
is needed (see the description for the parameter DELETE=NO at VI.).
We recommend that you use a separate memory card for the Recorder, and do not
store other data on it.

— 17 —
VI. Configuration of the Device (YDVR.CFG File)
The Device settings are dened in the optional YDVR.CFG text le, which must be
located in the root folder of the MicroSD.
Between the parameters and the values there should be no other characters except
the equal sign. All parameters and values should be written in capital letters. Each
parameter must be placed on a separate line. The # symbol at the beginning of the line
indicates that the line contains a comment.
Example le YDVR.CFG:
# This is a sample YDVR.CFG le
SILENT=ON
AIS=OFF
DELETE=NO
IGNOREPGN=130814
IGNOREPGN=129029
IGNOREPGN=129540
IGNOREADDR=5
IGNOREADDR=26
PLAYER=ON
Description of the settings:
SILENT=ON
This setting blocks the sending of Device information (message with PGN 126996).
The Device will not appear in the list of devices on the chartplotter (see VIII.).

— 18 —
This setting is designed for covert installation.
AIS=OFF
Disable AIS messages in the data le. In areas of intense navigation, the majority of
messages in the onboard network can come from AIS.
DELETE=NO
This prevents the Device from erasing les and rename folders on the MicroSD card. In
this case, you need to keep track of the available space on the card (see V.).
IGNOREPGN=xxxxxx
This setting can be used up to ve times. The xxxxxx is a decimal number with the
PGN of an NMEA 2000 message. In this way, you can block up to ve different types
of messages from being recorded in the le.
IGNOREADDR=yyy
This setting can be used up to ve times. The yyy is a decimal number with the address
of a device on the NMEA 2000 network. Thus, with this setting, messages from up to
ve different devices can be ignored by the Recorder – the data will not be written to
the le.
PLAYER=ON
The “ON” value activates the “player” mode intended for marine installers
and developers. The Device will play the contents of the PLAYNOW.CAN or
PLAY.CAN les on the network if these les are present in the root folder
of the MicroSD card. Please see Section IX. for details.

— 19 —
VII. Processing Data on Computer
To process the data, they must be copied or moved from the memory card
to the computer in any convenient manner.
If the operating system offers to execute a scan on the card, you should refuse this offer,
unless you have specic reasons to do so (see III.9). Scanning the card is recommend
only after transferring the data to the computer.
The software for data processing is available free at www.yachtd.com and works
on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X:
• YDVR Converter software (also known as PC Software for Voyage Recorder)
allows generation of tracks in GPX format with extended sailing data (including
tracks of other vessels with AIS, weather conditions, detailed data about engine
operation, etc.), and can export data to a spreadsheet application and convert
les with recordings to other formats.
• CAN Log Viewer is a free viewer, player and converter of les in .CAN format.
This format is used in the player mode of Voyage Recorder (see IX.).
Documentation for the software is available in electronic form along with the software
download.

— 20 —
VIII. Firmware Updates
In the root folder of the MicroSD card with FAT or FAT32 le system, copy
YUPDATE.BIN, which contains the rmware update of the Recorder. Insert the card
into the Device and turn on the power.
From 5-15 seconds after powering on, the LED will light up and change color from
green to red and back for 15 seconds. This indicates that the rmware update
is successfully completed.
If the Recorder already is using the given version of the rmware, or if the Device
cannot open the le or the le is corrupted, the boot loader immediately transfers
control to the main program. This is done without visual cues.
The Device information including the rmware version is displayed in the list of NMEA
2000 devices (SeaTalk NG, SimNet, Furuno CAN) or in the common list of external
devices on the chartplotter (see third line at Figure 1 on the next page). Usually,
access to this list is in the Diagnostics, External Interfaces or External devices menu
of the chartplotter.