Arduino Yun as boat data logger/ internet of things..

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GHA

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Finally got round to having a play with my arduino Yun and getting it to talk to the internet.

For those who have never heard of it a Yun is a small low power microprocessor combined with a small computer on a chip running linux.
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardYun

The microprocessor makes it very easy to attach a multitude of cheap sensors, like accurate temperature, voltage current, read nmea data, light sensors, barometer, PIR etc. Hundreds of ´em.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/arduino-sensor

The linux part has been designed very much with the net in mind. Using temboo
https://www.temboo.com/arduino/yun/getting-started
all sorts of things are possible, you get 1,000 connections per month free, also itś easy to talk the other way, say you have a relay attached to a pin on the board, you can turn it one or off just by typing an ip address in a web browser.

So far I´ve sent one blank text file from the yun to my dropbox account, hich didn take too long to set up dropbox and temboo. 999 temboo calls left this month to do something more interesting :) Real world applications might be bilge alarm, low voltage battery alarm, get sent an email or text if stuff goes wrong. Does obviously need and internet connection.

All this probably be done with raspberry pi, maybe not quite as easily. But big plus for the yun is power - At 5v it seems to be around 200/300 mA so looking like maybe 0.1/ 0.15A on 12V. 55 quid from amazon.

Exciting stuff, no?

For those of you who are about to reply with ¨I go the boat to get away from all that¨, well you can sit in the corner and read a book or something ;)
 
Well, after an evening on google the net side of things seems pretty well catered for. Once you have the data uploaded to dropbox or wherever there are various ways to get at it with funky graphs and the like for free, so the next question....

- what would you like to know about your boat when you´re not there. Or to be able to turn on/off?

I´ve come up with loads but the really useful bits might be..
  • Battery voltage
  • Bilge level/alarm / when the pump has been running
  • intruder alert - email or txt or whatever, with cheap webcam uploading some photos.
  • Inside temp. Not really vital but so easy to do you might as well.

Lots of other bits would be useful, like solar panel amps out and domestic power amps used, live windspeed from nmea windometer etc..

A tricky bit might be getting web access, fine if in a marina with wifi but costs could start adding up if you need an old mobile phone and data sim as a hotspot. Bit more power as well.

Any thoughts?
 
It would be nice to control the heating.
Monitor battery charging.
Monitor position, for those of us with swinging moorings or anchors.
Maybe turn some lights on or off?
 
Hadn´t thought much about position, but looks like gps recievers can be had from china for about a tenner on ebay, I´ve had an arduino talking to the boats nmea gps befre so itś certainly possible. Then display on a google maps page somehow.
I think the Wifi might be a major hurdle for many boats on a swinging mooring and the like, maybe a gsm module and receive txt messages.

Probably beyond a lot of boats toolkits but not that difficult really , Angus does stuff far more cleverer! :)
 
GHA said:
Angus does stuff far more cleverer! :)
Click to expand...

No, I do stuff much simpler using basic components. It's just different.

I think the Wifi might be a major hurdle for many boats on a swinging mooring and the like, maybe a gsm module and receive txt messages.
Click to expand...

I have had a play with that in the past. For basic text messages these are cheaper, lower power and more rugged than a phone. They can be mounted to a bulkhead easily and are dead easy to drive via AT commands...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GSM-Modem...SB_Wi_Fi_Adapters_Dongles&hash=item20e9ee429d
 
AngusMcDoon said:
No, I do stuff much simpler using basic components. It's just different.



I have had a play with that in the past. For basic text messages these are cheaper, lower power and more rugged than a phone. They can be mounted to a bulkhead easily and are dead easy to drive via AT commands...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GSM-Modem...SB_Wi_Fi_Adapters_Dongles&hash=item20e9ee429d
Click to expand...
I've used the wavecomm modules in those things to receive and send text messages, for a machine remote control application a few years ago.
A friend of mine has one to turn the eberspacher on in his landrover.
There are now others around which might have a bit more of an interface.
There are also GSM alarms, some of which have a few bits of IO.

In a previous contract, a colleague had an alarm system that sent a picture message every time an alarm sensor was triggered in her house.
 
I've no idea about the gprs/gsm side, other than eBay comes up with these.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/arduino-gsm

Windspeeds would be nice to have logged though, is there a standard for masthead transducers to output? I'm assuming the cpu/display will do the nmea stuff if it's available so pondering if it would be easy to read straight from the masthead. I've a nasa meteoman, no idea what how it communicates.
 
GHA said:
I've no idea about the gprs/gsm side, other than eBay comes up with these.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/arduino-gsm

Windspeeds would be nice to have logged though, is there a standard for masthead transducers to output? I'm assuming the cpu/display will do the nmea stuff if it's available so pondering if it would be easy to read straight from the masthead. I've a nasa meteoman, no idea what how it communicates.
Click to expand...

Those GSM boards are pretty much the same thing as the Wavecom device but on a Arduino compatible board rather than in a metal box.

Standards for wind transducers will be NMEA-0183, NMEA-2000, or no standard at all, but you could probably figure it out with a voltmeter and oscilloscope.
 
Bluetooth looks quite easy to get running as well, which is good news, I replaced the fridge thermostat with an arduino a while ago when the next mechanical one packed up and use bluetooth to adjust it, so shouldn't be difficult to get all that data uploaded, and turn the fridge up and down from the pub :)
 
And by a happy coincidence a couple of usb power meters turned up this morning from china off ebay.. running and connected to wifi network..

230mA @ 5v, that´s what, about 92mA at 2.5v, less than 0.1A. :cool:

output_zpsowtoa4ee.jpg
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Only if you use a switching regulator. If you use a linear one then it will be 230mA at 12.5V, and get hot.
Click to expand...

Very good point which I completely missed , santa ebay brought a couple of cheap ammeters as well so will have a play around later with a few powering options, see what's going on.
Still shouldn't be much hopefully.
 
Meter shows 130mA, but seems to be reading tiny bit high and batts are low, only 12.1v at the meter, I make it probably round about 115/120mA at 12.5v. Also the yun seems to be pulling 270mA today. Maybe the poor little thing's cold. :), that was using one of these to go down to 5v..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Converter..._Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item2593371558
Seems to be about 90ish percent efficient.

Still, very little power draw, not too bad to leave running all the time. Getting wifi would be the tricky one...
 
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