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Yacht Devices YDVR-04 User Manual

Voyage recorder
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User Manual
Voyage Recorder YDVR-04
also covers models
YDVR-04R, YDVR-04N
Firmware version
1.11
2025

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Summary of Contents for Yacht Devices YDVR-04

  • Page 1 User Manual Voyage Recorder YDVR-04 also covers models YDVR-04R, YDVR-04N Firmware version 1.11 2025...

  • Page 2: Package Contents

    NMEA 2000 drop cable not supplied Note: Device can be connected to the network backbone directly, without an NMEA 2000 drop cable. © 2018-2025 Yacht Devices Ltd. Document YDVR04-003. February 12, 2025. Web: http://www.yachtd.com/ Yacht Devices Voyage Recorder YDVR-04 is certified by the National Marine Electronics Association.

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Contents Introduction Warranty and Technical Support I. Product Specification II. Device Connection, Installation and Testing III. LED Signals IV. Choice of MicroSD Cards and Working with Cards V. Formatting MicroSD Cards VI. Files and Folders on the Card VII. Device Configuration with a MicroSD Card VIII.

  • Page 4: Introduction

    Introduction The Voyage Recorder YDVR-04 (hereinafter Recorder or Device) is designed to record all data received from CAN buses, for example, from the NMEA 2000 network of the vessel a MicroSD memory card. Absolutely all NMEA 2000 / CAN bus traffic...
  • Page 5 Data files contain internal links to the audio files, and the software places links to audio files at the geographical points in the GPX file where they were recorded. In this way, you can select a point on your track, check what the weather was, and, for example, find the file with the weather forecast recorded from VHF at the same time.
  • Page 6 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? Or maybe you need to investigate an incident? There are many instances where only a Recorder can help you get all the details right.

  • Page 7: Warranty And Technical Support

    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, the sale receipt may be requested when applying for a warranty claim. 2. The Device warranty is terminated in case of violation of the instructions in this Manual, case integrity breach, or repair or modification of the Device without the manufacturer’s written permission.

  • Page 8: Product Specification

    I. Product Specification Figure 1. Drawing of YDVR-04R and YDVR-04N models of the Recorder — 8 —...
  • Page 9 Device parameter Value Unit Operating voltage (from an NMEA 2000 network) (1) 10.5..16 Average current consumption Load Equivalency Number Operating temperature range −25..+85 °С Weight without MicroSD card Recommended MicroSD card class (2) Class 10 — Audio input connector type and size (3) Class —...
  • Page 10 Note: (4) When audio Band-pass filter mode is ON (refer to Section VII, FILTER setting). Yacht Devices Ltd declares that this product is compliant with the essential requirements of EMC directive 2004/108/EC. Dispose of this product in compliance with the WEEE Directive or local regulations.

  • Page 11: Device Connection, Installation And Testing

    II. Device Connection, Installation and Testing All connections should be made when the NMEA 2000 and/or audio source power is completely cut OFF at the circuit breaker. This will protect against accidental short circuits during installation. The Device requires no maintenance. When deciding where to install the Device, choose a dry mounting location.
  • Page 12 NMEA 2000 power voltage considerations. The Device constantly monitors the NMEA 2000 power voltage. When NMEA 2000 is powered ON, the Device will wait for NMEA 2000 power voltage to become higher than V (default 10.5 Volt) and then will start card operations. When NMEA TRIP HI 2000 is powered OFF, the Device will wait for NMEA 2000 power voltage to become lower than V...
  • Page 13 2. Connection to audio source The Device can be connected to the speaker output in most cases for VHF, but with great caution. Connection to the speaker output of car audio will damage the Device. Be sure that peak power of speaker output is 5W or less and intended for 4 Ohm speakers.
  • Page 14 over 15 V (30 Volt peak-to-peak) may damage the Device. Therefore, we recommend to use a Line Out Converter to lower the audio power amplifier output down to line level. Line Out Converters are widely used in automotive industry, prefer models with adjustable signal attenuation (so you can adjust its output signal to standard line-in voltage levels).

  • Page 15: Led Signals

    III. LED Signals Table 1. Signals during normal operation Signal Meaning One second The Device has created a file on the MicroSD card and is ready long GREEN to record data. flash on power up or card insertion Three short The Device has received the first message from the CAN bus.
  • Page 16 Table continued Constant Normal mode: recording is in progress, no audio clipping GREEN flashes detected. Amount and length of flashes depends on bus load of varying and audio signal presence. length Constant RED Same as above, but audio clipping is detected. Adjust audio flashes of signal level or lower Device’s GAIN setting.

  • Page 17: Choice Of Microsd Cards And Working With Cards

    IV. 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 confident 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 smartphones.
  • Page 18 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.

  • Page 19: Formatting Microsd Cards

    V. Formatting MicroSD Cards The Device supports MicroSD memory cards of all sizes and classes, but has performance requirements for cards (see IV.6). The MicroSD card must be formatted on a personal computer before use in the Recorder. The Recorder supports the following file systems: FAT (FAT12, FAT16, MS-DOS) and FAT32.

  • Page 20: Files And Folders On The Card

    VI. Files and Folders on the Card To store files, 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 files named «ddddnnnn.DAT» and «ddddnnnn.WAV», where dddd is the folder number where the file is stored, and nnnn is the file sequence number in the folder, from 0001 to 0300.

  • Page 21: Device Configuration With A Microsd Card

    VII. Device Configuration with a MicroSD Card To configure the Device, a text file with the configuration should be created and named YDVR.TXT in the root folder of the MicroSD card. Note that the previous model (YDVR-03) uses the file named YDVR.CFG. A sample configuration file with factory settings is in Appendix A.
  • Page 22 up the device boot process a bit. Note that device supports «incremental» configuration — put only those settings that you need to change into YDVR.TXT file, all other settings will be left intact. 1. CFGSAVE This is the only keyword (it has no value, see example in the Appendix A) and can be placed anywhere in the file.

  • Page 23: Ais=On|Off

    Use DAT format if you are mainly interested in recording and reconstructing/ analyzing your vessel trip data already correctly available on the NMEA 2000 network. Use CAN format if you want to record more comprehensive data, for example, to capture malformed «fast-packet» and detect «fast-packet» loss issues, this mode is recommended if you use the Device as a black box for incident investigation.
  • Page 24 6. FILTERTYPE=BLACK|WHITE Defines the type of filter for received CAN messages. BLACK — blocking filter, messages that match filter settings below will not be recorded. WHITE — pass filter, only those messages that match filter settings below will be recorded. Factory default filter settings are BLACK with empty filter settings (block none or record everything).
  • Page 25 List can contain decimal or hexadecimal values (start with an 0x prefix). Up to 32 addresses can be listed. Factory default: empty string (with default FILTERTYPE=BLACK means «record from all addresses»). 9. FILTERMASK=[msgid1 mask1 [,msgid2 mask2 [,…]]] Allows blocking of specific CAN messages from specific CAN devices. Each setting entry contains a pair of CAN frame ID and a bitmask, separated by space, and each pair is separated from another pair by comma.

  • Page 26: Audio On/Off

    FILTERMASK=0x1FD0601 0x1FFFFFF, 0x1FD0700 0x1FFFFFC For example, to record only from device with address 0x12, use the following setting FILTERTYPE=WHITE FILTERADDR=0x12 10. AUDIO=ON|OFF Enables or disables audio recording feature. Factory default: ON (audio recording enabled). 11. COMPRESSION=ON|OFF Enables or disables ADPCM audio compression. One minute of compressed audio takes 0.35 MB on the card, and uncompressed audio takes 1.4 MB.
  • Page 27 Figure 2. Normal and over amplified signal The factory gain setting of 2.70 corresponds to the normal level of audio line-in signal, 0.894 Vpp (peak-to-peak amplitude, Volts) used in consumer audio. The gain value is a multiplication, 0.894 Vpp will be amplified 2.7 times to 2.4 Vpp. The maximal peak-to-peak voltage of the amplified signal should not exceed 3 V (or the signal will be clipped), the best recording quality is attained when the amplified signal is about 70 –...
  • Page 28 Note, that some VHFs (for example, Raymarine Ray218E) has powerful output for a fog horn (30W or above). Connection to this output may damage the Device. Figure 3. Check recorded audio signal amplitude in Audacity software. — 28 —...
  • Page 29 To check if GAIN setting is fine, open the recorded audio in the software, where you can visually check the recording level. We can recommend Audacity free software; it runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (https://www.audacityteam.org/). On Figure 3 you can see that GAIN is too small (only 50% of maximal amplitude, when 70–80 is recommended).

  • Page 30: Loop=On|Off

    It is typical for there to be a significant amount of silence in VHF and crew communications. Therefore, the Device can be configured to record audio only when the signal level exceeds the set threshold value for a minimum of several milliseconds. It is recommended that you adjust this setting to suit your requirements by experimenting with the value until you achieve the desired result.

  • Page 31: Silent=On|Off

    18. SILENT=ON|OFF Factory setting: OFF. For the DAT file format (see VII.3), this setting blocks the sending of Device information (NMEA 2000 message with PGN 126996). The Device will not appear in the list of devices on the chartplotter (see Section IX). This setting is designed for covert installation.
  • Page 32 ON value enables Device to send telemetry via PGN 130831 with default repeat interval of 60 seconds. You can also set desired PGN 130831 repeat interval with integer setting x (range 1..59, value in seconds). OFF or 0 value disables the Device to send PGN 130831. Contact our Technical Support to get details on PGN 130831 structure.
  • Page 33 Table 2. Device’s basic telemetry flags available via PGN 127501 and corresponding actions DS Switch Get current mode: read PGN 127501. Switch status = 1 number (ON) indicates: Device CAN bus transceiver is in «error passive» state. Too much CAN bus errors. Device may go offline soon. Check the backbone wiring integrity, bus power distribution and CAN bus termination.
  • Page 34 Table continued Device power voltage is too low, card operation stopped, but Device is still online, waiting for power voltage to raise above the safe threshold to resume recording. Possible issues with bus power distribution. Check bus voltage at the Device’s connection point (refer to Section II.1).
  • Page 35 Figure 4. Simrad NSX series MFD shows Device basic telemetry status on a «Switches» panel. Observe that Device reports «Low Voltage» status flag. If your NMEA 2000 display device supports controlling the switches via standard NMEA 2000 Digital Switching PGN 127502 «Switch Bank Control», you can even clear the status flags.
  • Page 36 23. POWERDOWN=x Where x – decimal number from 7.00 to 16.00. Adjusts V threshold in Volts. Refer to Section II.1. Use values lower than 10.5 TRIP LOW with caution, too low setting may lead to card file system issues! Make sure to set in tandem with POWERDOWN setting to allow for at least 0.3 Volt hysteresis! Factory default: 10.30, note that if set to default value, this settings will not be shown in YDVRSAVE.TXT file.

  • Page 37: Processing Data On Computer

    VIII. Processing Data on Computer To process the data, files 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 specific reasons to do so (see IV.7).

  • Page 38: Firmware Updates

    IX. Firmware Updates Download an actual version of the firmware file from our site: https://www.yachtd. com/downloads/ Extract the YUPDATE.BIN file from the archive. Prepare a MicroSD card with FAT or FAT32 file system, and copy YUPDATE.BIN file to the root folder. Power down the Device, insert card and power up the Device with card inserted.
  • Page 39 Figure 5. Raymarine c125 MFD «Device List» showing YDVR-04 unit. — 39 —...

  • Page 40: Player Mode

    X. Player Mode This mode is intended for demonstration, emulation or testing of marine equipment. Use this mode at your own risk. This mode may affect operation of other equipment and possibly damage it. The player mode is activated by the setting PLAYER=ON in the configuration file (see VII.16).
  • Page 41 by a recording device (RX) or transmitted (TX). The Device will play back to the bus all messages marked with an RX flag, regardless of what interface (CAN0 or CAN1) they were received from during recording. The Device supports 11-bit and 29-bit messages with variable payload data length (DLC, can be from 1 to 8 bytes).

  • Page 42: Appendix А. Example Of Configuration File

    Appendix А. Example of Configuration File All parameter values listed below correspond to factory settings. # Voyage Recorder YDVR-04 (www.yachtd.com), serial number: 99999999 # Firmware version: 1.10 02/10/2024 # Settings in this file match the settings in device’s EEPROM # SAVE TO EEPROM # To save settings, rename this file to YDVR.TXT and remove # symbol...
  • Page 43 GAIN=2.70 DELAY=30.0 FILTER=ON THRESHOLD=2.50 # LOG & NMEA 2000 STATUS STATUS=OFF BIN_FLAGS=OFF BIN_BANK=2 # PLAYER MODE (disables recording when ON) PLAYER=OFF LOOP=OFF MAX_DELAY=OFF # End of file — 43 —...

  • Page 44: Appendix B. Troubleshooting

    Appendix B. Troubleshooting Situation Possible cause and required actions 1. No power supply on the bus. Check if the bus No startup LED indication (short power is supplied (NMEA 2000 network requires GREEN flash, three a separate power connection and cannot be powered by GREEN flashes) after a plotter or another Device connected to the network).
  • Page 45 Table continued 1. Connectivity issue in the NMEA 2000 / CAN Device normal bus network. The network segment is not connected recording mode, card is inserted, but there is to the chart plotter or there are missing terminators no three GREEN LED in the network.
  • Page 46 Table continued 1. Audio signal level is too high. Adjust audio Device normal recording mode, card is source volume or Device’s GAIN setting. inserted, audio signal is present, audio recording is enabled, but constant flashes of varying length sometimes or always are RED instead of GREEN 1.
  • Page 47 Table continued 1. Audio source volume too low. Increase audio Audio signal is too quiet source volume or Device’s gain, Refer to Section III, GAIN setting. 1. Audio source volume too high. Decrease audio Audio signal is clipped source volume or Device’s gain, Refer to Section III, GAIN setting.

  • Page 48: Appendix C. Nmea 2000 Messages Supported By The Device

    Appendix C. NMEA 2000 Messages Supported by the Device Name Receive Transmit Mandatory NMEA 2000 Service Layer support 59392 ISO Acknowledgment 59904 ISO Request Yes (1) 60160 ISO Transport Protocol (DT) 60416 ISO Transport Protocol (CM) 60928 ISO Address Claim 65240 ISO Commanded Address 126208...
  • Page 49 The Device sends PGN 126996 (Product Information) request to all equipment present on the network once every 60 minutes, so you can later track which devices are on-bus; rather high interval was chosen in order to avoid excessive bus load. (2) Transmission of this message can be turned off with SILENT setting (see VII.17) for the purpose of running the Device in covert mode.

  • Page 50: Appendix D. Data File Format (.Dat Files)

    Appendix D. Data File Format (.DAT Files) This section is intended for those who plan to develop a custom data extraction and processing software or integrate such features into their own software. DAT file format is open and free for commercial or non-commercial use. Each DAT file contains a set of records of variable length.
  • Page 51 6. s – Sequence number (sequence counter used to distinguish separate fast- packet frames of the same PGN), used for those PGNs: PGNs: 65240, 126208, 126464, 126720, 126983-126988, 126996, 126998, 127233, 127237, 127489, 127496-127498, 127503, 127504, 127506, 127507, 127509-127514, 128275, 128520, 129029, 129038-129041, 129044, 129045, 129284, 129285, 129301, 129302, 129538, 129540-129542, 129545, 129547, 129549, 129551, 129556, 129792-129810, 130052-130054, 130060,130061,130064-130074, 130320-...
  • Page 52 d) ‘Y’,‘W’,FR,FE,TT – record with the link to the audio file. FR – folder number (unsigned 16-bit integer), FE – file number (for example, if FR is 1 and FE is 2, the record pointing to the file YDVR0001\00010002.WAV). The highest bit of TT is set if the file is already closed (otherwise, it is still recording);...

  • Page 53: Appendix Е. Device Connectors

    Appendix Е. Device Connectors Figure 1. NMEA 2000 connectors of the YDVR-04R (left) and YDVR-04N (right) — 53 —...
  • Page 54 NOTES — 54 —...
  • Page 55 NOTES — 55 —...

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