Central Alarm System

[Danbury]

I have an idea for a central alarm system that would monitor all alarms on the boat (as far as possible) such as Bilge Alarm, Fire Alarm, GPS Alarm, Exhaust Alarm etc. etc. The system would be controlled by a cheap PIC mcu, using minimum power and would provide the following outputs should an alarm be activated;

-Small LCD display telling you what alarm has activated
-Play a WAV file (or similar) telling you what alarm has been activated (and sound a buzzer ??)

The system would continue to sound/display the alarm until it is cleared, but there would be a mute option (button) so as not to overly annoy the off-watch crew.

It would also be a bonus if it could monitor all NMEA (and Seatalk CANBus) alarms such as depth etc.

Does anyone know of such a system, or indeed does Mr Yapp have something up his sleeve ?

Apologies if there's already a thread all about this... I did look for one, promise !

 

[prv]

The idea has come up before. It's a good one in theory - Ariam has so many things that can beep and it's not always obvious what it is this time or how urgent. Although it sounds a bit geeky, I think a recorded voice saying "Waypoint reached" or "Shallow!" would be genuinely useful.

The problem is how you take an input from this wide range of devices. Most of them are sealed boxes which I wouldn't really want to open, in most cases probably with a piezo sounder soldered directly to the PCB. Even if we accept opening up all the expensive electronics and soldering onto tiny surface-mount pads, in many cases the same speaker is used for multiple different alarms. My Vesper Watchmate, for instance, produces alarms both for AIS and anchor-drag (or, more usually, us departing in the morning forgetting to turn the alarm off). The Raymarine buzzer covers a huge variety of alarms from imminent grounding to arrival at a waypoint. To be useful, a Master Caution system (which is what this effectively is) needs to be able to distinguish between them.

Pete

 

[Danbury]

The idea has come up before. It's a good one in theory - Ariam has so many things that can beep and it's not always obvious what it is this time or how urgent. Although it sounds a bit geeky, I think a recorded voice saying "Waypoint reached" or "Shallow!" would be genuinely useful.

The problem is how you take an input from this wide range of devices. Most of them are sealed boxes which I wouldn't really want to open, in most cases probably with a piezo sounder soldered directly to the PCB. Even if we accept opening up all the expensive electronics and soldering onto tiny surface-mount pads, in many cases the same speaker is used for multiple different alarms. My Vesper Watchmate, for instance, produces alarms both for AIS and anchor-drag (or, more usually, us departing in the morning forgetting to turn the alarm off). The Raymarine buzzer covers a huge variety of alarms from imminent grounding to arrival at a waypoint. To be useful, a Master Caution system (which is what this effectively is) needs to be able to distinguish between them.

Pete

Yes... it would be great if it could cover all that you mention, but I accept that it can't. I was proposing something that could cover as much as possible... certainly anything that is already able to generate an external alarm... In the case of the Vespar Watchmate, just using the external alarm centrally rather than a separate buzzer would be an improvement. This could simply say "AIS alarm" rather than a more detailed definition. You never know, future models may provide this additional functionality ?

I'll keep thinking about it...

 

[cooperwood]

hi... I am not an expert but i think if you want such monitor than you to use a gps system connected with the microcontroller and an alarm system connect with that.

 

[Danbury]

hi... I am not an expert but i think if you want such monitor than you to use a gps system connected with the microcontroller and an alarm system connect with that.

Yeah... that was the idea... and to centralise as many alarms as possible into one system... I was really looking for anyone who could tell me I'm wasting my time... or that it's very possible... or even that they've already done something similar...

 

[William_H]

A friend bought a boat a while back which has such a system. It included a mobile phone and the ability to SMS a message to the owner. All very well but incredibly complicated and false alarms were prevailent. I ended up pulling it all out for him. Simple is good. olewill

 

[GHA]

Yeah... that was the idea... and to centralise as many alarms as possible into one system... I was really looking for anyone who could tell me I'm wasting my time... or that it's very possible... or even that they've already done something similar...

Should certainly be feasible, but unlikely to be anything off the shelf. Pic i don't know much about but arduinos are cheap, robust, low power and very easy to integrate all sorts of sensors into. Also easy to log all that lovely data onto an sd card. Really not as complicated as some would make out, the only thing might be how do you get the alarms from the existing electronics into your new unit.

 

[laika]

A couple of weeks ago I was checking out the range of sensors available to "hobbyists" from people like sparkfun now for very little money. I was thinking of wiring up an LPG sensor and CO2 sensor to my raspberry pi. Maybe not industrial strength safety but probably better than the nothing I currently have.

I was hoping to get a usb geiger counter for my birthday but it didn't happen :-(

 

[SiteSurfer]

I've been playing for ages with an Arduino with the following sensors:
GPS, Compass, Smoke, CO2, Sound,Temperature - linked to a stupidly cheap WiFi breakout board (ESP2866) which then communicates to a web page.
It will probably never make it to the boat - but its certainly do-able.

 

[laika]

We have a C-pod alarm which monitors GPS position, water in the bilge(our big worry for our timber hulled GB36), fire etc. as well as usual intruder alarm stuff. With text alert and mobile app it gives us peace of mind while we are 100 miles away doing the day job! :disgust:

The C-pod alarm seem to be sold by the same company as the wireless anemometer you recommended and posted a link for in your other post. The registrant of that company's domain seems to be called Dec too. Any relation?

[Edit]: Ah I see you've now edited your post to include the link to your website for this product too.