WELCOME to VALHALLA’s MaxSea 10.3.2.1

INSTALLATION GUIDE (rev 1 Jan 09)

(for USE of the program see “MaxSea

10.3.2.1 Tutorial)

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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 boat’s 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

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.

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.

a. Uninstall the old program using 'Control Panel/Add or remove Programs'.b. Then uninstall the 'Sentinel System Driver' program (you will reinstall it later along

with the program) found further down the list.c. Then ... PLEASE DO THIS CAREFULLY. In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\

Program Files. Right-click on the folder 'I&M'and select 'Delete'. Still in Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows. Select the folder 'WINDOWS' by clicking on it (the word 'WINDOWS' will be backlighted). Click on 'Search' at the top of the screen. Select 'All files and folders'. In the box titled 'All or part of the file name:', enter "sea". (It should already say 'Look in: WINDOWS') Click on 'Search'. You should get a list with a folder "MaxSea' and a list of other files beginning with 'Max' or 'Sea'. Click on 'Edit/Select all'. Now all of the folders and files you found should be highlighted. If any of the files found DO NOT begin with either 'Max' or 'Sea' (such as 'AdvSearch') you de-select that file by holding down the 'Ctl' key and clicking on it. Right-click on the remaining highlighted folder and files then click on 'Delete'.

d. You have now cleaned out most of the extraneous files left over from removing the previous version. A problem which sometimes prevents a successful installation stems from the entries in the computer ‘Registry’. There are three programs that I find will do a good job of cleaning the Registry. These programs are located in the ‘Pirates Chest’ folder in the folder “Cleaning Programs”. The READ ME file describes installation of the three programs. From the Desktop run these three programs using the ‘Registry’ feature of them. When any program finds problem files in the Registry they can be safely deleted (CCleaner asks if you want to save a backup of the registry which really isn’t necessary). After running these programs restart the computer and return to these instructions.

NOW FOR THE INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:

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

2. Open the folder "PiratesChest" by double clicking on it.

3. In the ‘Pirates Chest’ folder double click on the registry editor

“MS10.3.2.1_ProRouting_AIS_...”.

When asked, click on ‘Yes’,

Then click on ‘OK’ after notice of successful installation,

4. Install the emulator by double clicking on the folder "SENTEMUL".

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 (Valhalla’s 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 FOLDERS SIZE ON DISK

0-40N 02100000-02701020 183 MB

40N-80N 03300000-04501020 1.07 GB

0-40S 01500000-01501020 65.8 MB

40S-80S 00300000-00901020 32.7 MB

7. Start MaxSea from the desktop using the MaxSea ion 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 Valhalla’s 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 it’s

correct position on the chart!

8. GPS INSTALLATION

From MaxSea:

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 Signal Information

2 Data reception Rx Connection to GPS

3 Data transmission

Tx

Connection to automatic

pilot

5 Ground GND

From VALHALLA:

1.) You need to establish the com port that the GPS is using for connection to the computer.

a. If you are

connecting

the 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 with a com port number in brackets ( ).

c. In my case there is a built

in communications port

(COM1) and also a USB-

serial 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’.

If the adapter is not listed, it’s 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.

a. Press the F4 key or go to

‘Utilities/Data Input Output settings.. F4’

and double click on that line.

b. On the 'Boat' page you should see a line checked as 'active', a com port number, and

'NMEA'.

c.. The

com

port

number probably doesn't match. Click on that line to select it and then click on 'Remove

Instrument'.

. You

will get

this screen … Click on 'Yes'.

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.

e. Click

on 'Next' twice then 'Finish'.

f. The

‘Active’ line

should now

read the new

com port

number.

g. Turn on

the GPS and

click on the

page 'Check

data'.

h. You

should see

a stream of

data lines

beginning

with

$GP...... If

so then

close the

'Data Input

Output

settings'

window by

clicking

‘OK’.

I. If you don't see the data strings then the cabling isn't right between the GPS or the output

from the GPS is not set for a 4800 baud NMEA string.

j. HOWEVER … you may see a data stream but your position is not displayed on the chart!

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 line

shown as

‘POSITION’ under the ‘Data’ column, if the entry is other than ‘RMC’ then click on RMC in the

drop down window.

Click ‘OK’ twice and you should see the position. If not, try other sentence labels in this

window.

8. VIRTUAL NULL MODEM

Within the Pirates Chest is a folder ‘Virtual Null Modem’. Double click on this folder.

The contents are:

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.

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

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