Just an observation - you will have well over a boat-buck in the parts and pieces to get and convert the J1939.Thanks for the input and guidance Tom and Henry. Looks like I'm close to getting where I need to be. I would like to avoid for now running the Backbone all the way from the engine room if I can tie into the helm harness. I still have the original version of Smart Craft DV.
Cheers CD
The Smartcraft to NMEA 2000 converters are not cheap either....
Maybe time to change the DV to VV??
The only down side is that change will loose CAN 3 (Mercury deleted support for CAN 3 when VV came out) which is your generator's data if your boat has that option.