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NW IL | I recently had a need to add a third serial port to an Ag Leader 6500. Ag Leader technically only supports two serial connections on the 6500 (referred to as Serial A and Serial B on the Ag Leader harness). NovAtel (who is the manufacturer and OEM supplier of 6500) has their own version of receiver called the Smart6-L. The Smart6-L supports three serial connections. The steps to add a third serial connection to an Ag Leader 6500 are more or less as follows:
(1) Download the user manual for Novatel Smart6-L : http://lefebure.com/products/files/Novatel-Smart6-L-User-Manual.pdf
Familiarize yourself with the connector pinouts in the manual. Note the pins associated with COM3 ( Pin 8 = COM3TxD ; Pin 13 = COM3RxD). See attached photo for diagram from Smart6-L manual.
(2) Add a DB9 serial connector to your existing Ag Leader 6500 harness.
Serial Pin 2 RX = 6500 Pin 13
Serial Pin 3 TX = 6500 Pin 8
Serial Pin 5 Ground = 6500 Pin 9
On the Ag Leader 6500 harness that I had, serial A, serial B, and radar speed ground wires all connected to Pin 9 of the 6500. I spliced a ground wire into the existing wire coming out of pin 9 and connected that to Pin 5 of my additional serial connection. For Pins 13 and 8 I physically had to add pins to the connector since Ag Leader is not currently using these pins. Ironically I already had a spare broken 6500 cable that I was able to rob pins and a serial connection from.
(3) Download and install configuration utility for Novatel : http://lefebure.com/software/novatelconfig/
(4) Connect Ag Leader 6500 to PC with serial connection. If your PC does not have a serial connection, invest in a USB serial port adapter ($15-$20 on Amazon). You can connect the 6500 with any serial connection to the utility program however you will have to manually specify the baud rate on the program. Default baud rate for serial com 3 is 9600. The baud rates for serial com 1 and serial com 2 will be whatever you last set them to via your Ag Leader screen. You may have to add a null modem cable if your PC serial connection and 6500 fail to communicate.
(5) Run the Novatel config software. Configure and set up Serial Com 3 with appropriate NMEA messages for your respective application.
Reason I needed to add a 3rd serial port: On our farm we run a 6500 RTK. Serial A is connected to the Ag Leader display harness (InCommand 1200 and SteerCommand), and Serial B is connected to a third party cell modem for RTK corrections. I needed a third serial connection to feed NMEA to a John Deere GS3. I tried sending NMEA out of SteerCommand, however SteerCommmand does not offer GSA. Deere needs GGA, GSA, and RMC. https://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=701860&posts=6...
After adding the serial connection and running the utility, we planted for about a week and so far serial com 3 out of Ag Leader 6500 has worked flawlessly.
Special thanks to mx270a (Lance Lefbure) for answering several of my questions, for providing the Novatel Config utility, and documentation on Smart 6-L.
Edited by swenzel 4/29/2017 17:41
 (Smart6-L connector.png)
Attachments
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 Smart6-L connector.png (60KB - 507 downloads)
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Adding 3rd serial port to Ag Leader 6500
