APP or YAPP to Plot Pressure

[Andrew G]

Do any of you know of an application (PC or iPhone/Pad), or a YAPP, that would assist (recording) and plotting barometric pressure and possibly water temperature (and any other useful parameters)?
I’m possibly joining a mate and his wife sailing from Lakes Entrance to New Caledonia in a few weeks. Nice boat, well equipped (he is currently updating to the latest B&G gear) and we are all experienced etc.
We would normally record the data in the log and then plot it on paper - but there are bound to be other options out there. I’d rather not have to run a PC (Excel is one way) and I’m happy to enter the data read off an instrument (although pressure could be logged automatically with the right YAPP). Cheers, Andrew

 

[William_H]

I am guessing that you want to record these parameters simply for the sake of having a complete record.
I think for the sake of weather forecasting for safety you would be better off getting proper ocean weather forecasts.
www.gov.bom.au/marine has all the details of SSB broadcast of ocean weather for Pacific areas. I would strongly suggest you get an SSB receiver and a small recorder so you can refer back (as it all comes out quite quickly for a lot of areas.) As an example 6507 and 8176 are broadcast frequencies given every 2 hours.
Sorry for the fred drift perhaps logging the water temp and baro pressure by hand will give you something to do on passage olewill

 

[Andrew G]

Thanks William (or is it Bill?), we have SSB, Sat Phones with e-mail, etc to access Grib files but the detailed forecasts only go so far (ie will be 2,000+nM trip). We will also be joining in the various SSB Skeds.
It is important to also watch the trends in pressure on your own vessel so that you know where you sit with respect to approaching changes (or for cyclones - which quadrant are we in? - not expecting any now of course).
The water temperature is important for picking the East Australian Current, South setting hot water at up to 4kts or ~100nM per day. We have done the East Coast about a dozen times between us and the EAC is always a factor – even getting to Sydney or Coffs to check out and start the trip to the East (less of an issue when crossing it at its strongest at the 100 fathom line). It can also bend and give you a lift out towards Lord Howe Island. Water temperature is important. (I’ve been down your West coast too so I know you know about South setting currents). Cheers, Andrew

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Do any of you know of an application (PC or iPhone/Pad), or a YAPP, that would assist (recording) and plotting barometric pressure

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?274287-YAPP-Homemade-Seatalk-stuff&highlight=yapp

post 21.

 

[Andrew G]

Hi Angus - Thanks for that - any chance of getting hold of the sauce (source), parts list and schematics (that thread was way before my time - did you get much interest)? Is the circuit likley to be possible on a 1-sided PCB? I think you know my contact details?
My mate doesn't have SeaTalk1 on board but I do have a Raymarine E85001 (NMEA / ST converter) that I won't be using whilst I'm travelling. Cheers Andrew

 

[GHA]

If you have a little electronics and programming experience and some time then there are a lot of cheap sensors available for the arduino microprocessor range. Plus SD card boards to save it all in.

This is my fridge temp every few seconds

 

[alteredoutlook]

My android Samsung Galaxy S3 has its own pressure sensor and with the use of an app from the google playstore records the last 24 hours worth of pressure and displays them on a graph. You can also export readings to a .CSV file that can then be held in a spreadsheet e.g. Microsoft excel.
Its a lot easier than recording the readings manually! But of course prone to the same failures as all electronic instruments.

 

[TSB240]

Have a look at navmon pc this has some data logging facilities for nmea sentences. I use it to monitor and record depth,wind speed.

 

[nigelmercier]

post 21.

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?274287-YAPP-Homemade-Seatalk-stuff&p=2975963#post2975963
I'd forgotten about this, thanks for the reminder.

Did you design a PCB for this, or did it stay on a prototype board? A log of wind speed and direction plus pressure is exactly what I'm looking for.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Don't know if this type of device is what you are looking for

It says the speed is 4800 bps so would assume the message is NMEA 1830 even through there is no defined message format in that standard

http://www.bohlken.net/barobox/barobox_en.htm

 

[Andrew G]

Thanks folks – please keep the suggestions coming. Don’t forget I’m happy to read the data off the instrument(s) and enter it (as William says there will be plenty of time) – Excel on a PC would be fine put I’d prefer a lower power consumption device. I’m checking Apps for my iToys but I was hoping for someone who had used similar . . .
In the mean time I’ve made some graph paper, Y axis 0 to 190 (enter your own units), X axis 2 ½ days worth of ½ hour increments (ACAD and colour printer). I’m happy to post the .dxf file if anyone wants it. Cheers, Andrew

 

[GHA]

Thanks folks – please keep the suggestions coming. Don’t forget I’m happy to read the data off the instrument(s) and enter it (as William says there will be plenty of time) – Excel on a PC would be fine put I’d prefer a lower power consumption device. I’m checking Apps for my iToys but I was hoping for someone who had used similar . . .
In the mean time I’ve made some graph paper, Y axis 0 to 190 (enter your own units), X axis 2 ½ days worth of ½ hour increments (ACAD and colour printer). I’m happy to post the .dxf file if anyone wants it. Cheers, Andrew

If you have a smart phone or tablet with some sort of basic texteditor then you could save the data as.... (for instance)
____
Time, pressure, windspeed, direction
12:00,1013,15,90
12:30,1012,14,90
Etc
____

Then save this as something like "data.csv"

Then excel or lots of other free graph progs can easily import this and create a pretty graph

(sorry if teaching how to suck eggs...)

 

[Andrew G]

Thanks guys (in the gender non-specific sense).
Angus / Nigel: The YAPP looks interesting but I don’t think I have time for this trip – I’ll continue to participate in any development as a YAPP if that is OK?
AlteredOutlook: Yes Samsung are ahead of Apple - there is talk of a pressure sensor in iPhone 6 (“out soon”).
GHA: No problem with constructive feedback / empty eggs. I assume you used Excel to plot your fridge data - on a PC? I'm trying to avoid firing it up – but will if I have to (hence I assume you are suggesting dumping a data file off the iThing to the PC for analysis/plotting??).
I'm looking to find ". . . excel or lots of other free graph progs can easily import this and create a pretty graph" that run on an iPhone/Pad (rather than a PC – or have I misunderstood the need for the PC?). If they are for iThings can you suggest some and I'll look them up - or am I on the right track with the following:
Numbers ($9.99), Graph ($0), DataAnalysis ($0), Graphic Calculator HD ($2.49), QuickGraph($0) - I'm not fussed about the $$ but some of these look a bit clumsy handling dd/mm/yy hh:mm data. I’m always open to suggestions and feed back. Cheers, Andrew.

 

[GHA]

GHA: No problem with constructive feedback / empty eggs. I assume you used Excel to plot your fridge data - on a PC? I'm trying to avoid firing it up – but will if I have to (hence I assume you are suggesting dumping a data file off the iThing to the PC for analysis/plotting??).

As, yes. I was assuming you'd graph it later, I searched Android for something easy but didn't come up with anything so just did it on a laptop. The fridge data was stored on a Sd card using an arduino so easy. Pc prog was this one...
http://www.datplot.com

 

[Graham_Wright]

Nasa Meteoman seems to do what you want.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Did you design a PCB for this, or did it stay on a prototype board? A log of wind speed and direction plus pressure is exactly what I'm looking for.

No PCB.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Hi Angus - Thanks for that - any chance of getting hold of the sauce (source), parts list and schematics (that thread was way before my time - did you get much interest)? Is the circuit likley to be possible on a 1-sided PCB? I think you know my contact details?

I'll send you the source and design when I find it. I don't know if it could be done on 1-sided, but 2-sided is cheap enough from ITead.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Nasa Meteoman seems to do what you want.

It won't do water temp though which was on the original list as a maybe.

 

[Andrew G]

Thanks people (very PC). Keep the comments coming. I've downloaded the iPhone/Pad App "Graph" but haven't mastered it yet - at $0 its a very good price (but ads keep popping up - humph). At GBP120 the Meteoman is a little over priced (I can read one of the ships analogue barometer(s) once an hour and plot it on paper for $0). Angus - I have your wind_logger files are they the ones you are looking for (if so what is the pressure sensor?)? Don't forget that whilst an automatic reading of parameters would be very good I'm happy to read an instrument and enter the data. The reds are kicking in so time to call it quits - thanks for your help, Andrew

 

[Andrew G]

1) Well folks, there is some “requirements creep”. My friend would like the barometric pressure recorded and plotted automatically – preferably over say at least 24hrs but able to look at say 15min time periods if possible (eg when worried by a dip in pressure). He is not in a position to buy commercial kit.
Angus: would it be easy for you to (re-)send your YAPP information and in particular any description of the preferred pressure sensor and display (there is half a chance I could bodgie up something before we hit the high seas).
Any other contributions re s/w and h/w would be most welcome . . .

2) An update on my search for apps to plot manually recorded data:
- “Graph” is a free app which I’ve downloaded to my iPad. It is simple and OK except that dates can only be in mm/dd/yyyy format which is a PITA and likely to lead to errors with 3 people using it;
- “Numbers” (by Apple) is a pretty full-on spreadsheet/graph package that does all I need (and more) and, after a while, OK to learn – the “Help” is not great but I got there. At about Au$11 it is affordable.
Cheers, Andrew