Boat monitoring with Android and ebay bits

[GHA]

That's the one! Good news then



Wonderful, thanks for that
Of course, I don't need any of this stuff, but I adore gadgets and the idea of learning something new and if it can provide a useful function at the same time, then why not!
What about something like a bilge pump counter, could something be set up to monitor how frequently a pump is running? I have plenty of ideas for things I'd like to do, multiple temperatures monitoring could actually be very useful for example, and the idea of being able to glance at the engine bay from the comfort of an armchair is very appealing!

Openplotter makes adding sensors so much easier, I have thermometers on the engine head, exhaust and alternator. Proved very useful when the inlet pipe got bunged up below the filter. Bilge pump would be easy to monitor , then get it to send a tweet or email or txt every time it runs. (with a cheap mobile smartphone for web access).
Meanwhile my little 10 quid battery monitor is coming along.. Easy to see when the fridge kicks in

And the thermometers avaialable on any phone or tablet onbord which can view a web page

 

[Murv]

Thanks both, I'm practically salivating now!!

 

[GHA]

Thanks both, I'm practically salivating now!!

probabaly a sensor around to measure that

 

[Murv]

:encouragement:

 

[GHA]

Quick update in case someone is actually interested..

Seems cheerfully stable overnight.

But...

Having problems getting accurate readings. In single ended mode the ads chip measures voltage between one of the 4 inputs and ground, and ground needs to be shared with the ESP board so the[y can talk to each other so suspect there's a mess of ground loops going on, apparently the ESP can draw a biggish spike of current for a moment when sending wifi.
Differential mode which measures the voltage difference between 2 input seems very accurate but means you use 2 inputs for each measuring point - probably not a big deal but would be nice to have all 4.

Anyone know a way round this?

TIA

 

[Murv]

I'm sorry to drift this a bit, and obviously can't answer your question, but can you recommend a temperature sensor? the linked one on the opencpn site is unavailable.
I'd just like to make a start on this project by getting exhaust and engine temperatures to the tablet on the flybridge, which would be extremely useful and probably a relatively simple first challenge

 

[GHA]

DS18b20 waterproof is ideal - cheap as chips and dead easy to set up on openplotter.

Wiring needs a resister but if you got a little waterproof box and some wago connectors you could do that without even touching a soldering iron.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_o...8.TRC1.A0.H0.Xds18.TRS0&_nkw=ds18b20&_sacat=0

 

[Murv]

Perfect, thanks very much!

 

[GHA]

Perfect, thanks very much!

While you're at it, something like this makes life easier and tidier getting at the Pi pins. Cheaper out there, this was just the first to come up..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raspberry...177820?hash=item1c5884ba9c:g:QCwAAOSwu4BV4FQ~

 

[Murv]

While you're at it, something like this makes life easier and tidier getting at the Pi pins. Cheaper out there, this was just the first to come up..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raspberry...177820?hash=item1c5884ba9c:g:QCwAAOSwu4BV4FQ~

Thanks for that, ordered :encouragement:
Another very quick, and last question before I stop pestering you! A 4.7k resistor OK for the thermocouples, something like this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10x-Axial...hash=item1c5a665062:m:mnd-A55rKh7Mo_i5aazgncQ

 

[GHA]

Thanks for that, ordered :encouragement:
Another very quick, and last question before I stop pestering you! A 4.7k resistor OK for the thermocouples, something like this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10x-Axial...hash=item1c5a665062:m:mnd-A55rKh7Mo_i5aazgncQ

Bit cheaper....

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/metal-film-06w-47k-ohm-resistor-m4k7

Pester away

 

[Murv]

Sir, you're a star, thank you!

 

[GHA]

Nuther update in the offchance someone's interested...

Earth loop sorted out so voltage readings matching bang on with the trusty fluke multimeter.

And.. the thinger site has a google maps option as well so you can upload lat and long. So as openplotter running on a raspberry Pi and the ESP8266 are both connected to the same wifi network it *should* be possible for the ESP to read live gps data which openplotter spits out over wifi and display it live on the web.

This is just some values I put in for testing and a little loop to increase them, push pin walks up the map.

Coming along nicely, just need to spend a couple of minutes tidying up the wiring

 

[Murv]

Very impressive!
I spent a couple of hours researching yesterday, it really does seem that the possibilities are endless with these systems..
AIS, engine monitoring, environmental data, chart plotting, auto pilot etc, all seem fairly easily doable and that's without getting into controlling domestic systems on board!
I already have a future vision of one of the helm positions being replaced with a large tablet (probably over the top of the analogue instruments, just in case) with all the info I could ever dream of being displayed electronically.
As a huge fan of gadgetry, I can see myself having a lot of fun with this, provided I can get my head around the basics!