Anchor Alarm - At last!

G

Gypsy

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Sydney and Australian East Coast
www.tech-x.com.au
Over the past few years of reading and occasionally contributing to these fora I have seen questions regarding the availability of a remote anchor alarm. Whilst most instruments have internal alarms they are for localised use only and very few systems offer external remote alarm connection so as to wake someone sleeping.

Having cruised as a live-aboard in the Med for 5 seasons I am very aware of the angst and dangers of dragging anchor so I set my mind to a solution – at least initially for some skippers, those using Raymarine ST40/50/60 instruments.

I have developed a "black box" (it is actually grey) which connects to the Seatalk bus and monitors the signals. If it sees a depth alarm from an STxx depth instrument it will close a relay to activate one of the many inexpensive high acoustic level alarms available from electronic suppliers or the security industry, which will wake the dead! The alarm can be located anywhere on the boat, it does not have to be near the STxx instrument or my black box.

This IS NOT a commercial product….not yet anyway. I bring it to the forum to gauge interest in the project. This unit has a certain sophistication which allows other models to grow from it, but is only suitable for STxx instruments at this stage. I can develop a similar unit to read NMEA data from other instruments if the demand appears to be there. If put into production I would expect the cost of this, the simplest model to be about Eu100 or GBP75.

Please let me have your views.

Excuse the double posting, I don’t want to miss potential interest.
Ray
 
Sorry Ray, but can't see the difference with the setting of depth alarm on the std ST60. This is just what I do, plus the fact that I set the alarm(alarms, including high wind) on the autopilot remote control which I keep under MY pillow, so I wake up and don't bother the crew unless necessary
What is escaping me?
 
This is for those who want the alarm repeated near to where they sleep. You are already doing it with your Remote Autopilot but not everyone has one of those. Yes there are other ways of doing this when you have more smart devices. This hopes to provide a simple and inexpensive solution.
Thanks for your input.
Ray
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have developed a "black box" (it is actually grey) which connects to the Seatalk bus and monitors the signals.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interested that you managed to reverse engineer Raymarines seatalk. I thought this was proprietary?

Both my tiller pilot and GPS have a pin at the plug to drive an external alarm. I've often thought of making a simple device that would make use of these. Perhaps a different sound for each input. How about a spoken message!?
 
Slightly off-subject, but my main problem is that there are so many alarms on various bits of kit these days that when one goes off, the first thing I have to do is work out which one it is! All the Raymarine alarms are the same - too shallow, too deep, wind too strong, anchor drag, radar target, AIS target, AIS lost, MARPA target lost etc. It would be a great idea to have a spoken addition to this. So, for example, you get the normal alarm sound immediately followed by (and alternating with until cancelled) the verbal spoken confirmation of alarm source - "Warning - shallow depth", or "Warning - dangerous AIS target" etc.

Maybe I'll raise a "feature request" on Raymarine's website!

Jerry
 
[ QUOTE ]

"When in trouble, when in doubt -
Sail in circles, scream and shout!" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

A gazillion years ago I worked on voice alert devices (AVADs) for civilian and military aircraft. When triggered by the radar altimeter they would emit the message "PULL UP!" in a female voice with increasing levels of authority. I was at the studio when the messages were recorded. She was one scary woman...
 
Yes Seatalk is Raymarine's code and it is not RS232 either, but there are folk out there who have come to understand it. I have poked a bit deeper into the depth area of the code.

If you have alarm contacts on your autopilot or GPS which you can get to, then that is the best approach. My box is for those who can't get to such facilities. You could easily find two different alarms at electronics suppliers such as Maplins to differentiate the message.

A spoken alarm is easy technology these days so it could be done and as you have the "trip" contacts would not be too hard BUT, and there is always a but, you have to consider why you want the alarm. My goal is to wake occupants from sleep when at anchor so a talking alarm is not enough, even if I got it to SHOUT!
Ray
 
My bet is there is someone in the back room at Raymarine who already has this kind of thing developed and ready to go but they have not yet decided which model to introduce it to and how much they can charge. The alarm signals are there and the technology is no longer expensive. Wait and see.

BTW I have no inside info or connection with Raymarine, just a gut feeling from knowing what fertile minds will have at the side of their test bench waiting for someone to take an interest.
Ray
 
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