DIY ammeter - dead cool

[GHA]

Another thought about all this...
Wouldn't it be nice to have a little PCB and just plug the esp & INA219 into some headers with maybe a 5v power supply as well?

You can get them delivered from the likes os https://jlcpcb.com/ for next to nothing, draw it up in something like https://easyeda.com

I've no idea about designing PCBs though, a few little bits round the boat would certainty benefit - LED anchor light regulator, dusk to dawn auto switch and a few other esp/arduino things.

Anyone good at this and maybe feel like a bit of a collaborate for the greater good? Might be an interesting yacht club project, order some boards and make a battery volt/amp logger of a load of anchor lights. Think there's Chinese one stop shops to order all the components.

 

[greeny]

Another thought about all this...
Wouldn't it be nice to have a little PCB and just plug the esp & INA219 into some headers with maybe a 5v power supply as well?

You can get them delivered from the likes os https://jlcpcb.com/ for next to nothing, draw it up in something like https://easyeda.com

I've no idea about designing PCBs though, a few little bits round the boat would certainty benefit - LED anchor light regulator, dusk to dawn auto switch and a few other esp/arduino things.

Anyone good at this and maybe feel like a bit of a collaborate for the greater good? Might be an interesting yacht club project, order some boards and make a battery volt/amp logger of a load of anchor lights. Think there's Chinese one stop shops to order all the components.

Nice idea and I would certainly be interested in partaking in the collaboration, implementation and cost sharing where I can.
But will the "collaboration" bit work and will we ever get to an implementable design given all the opinions on these forums.
Very happy to give it a go though.
Greeny

 

[GHA]

Nice idea and I would certainly be interested in partaking in the collaboration, implementation and cost sharing where I can.
But will the "collaboration" bit work and will we ever get to an implementable design given all the opinions on these forums.
Very happy to give it a go though.
Greeny

Be worth a go anyway, should all be opensource so anyone can copy and alter if they want so long as it's kept free

Can anyone get into this to edit?
https://easyeda.com/paddyb/Anchor_Light-1a1d51d805944547a7da58b27d6b1afd

That was just playaround as much as anything to see how the site worked rather than any kind of finished circuits, though the reg & auto on/off circuits are as built and should work.



(PS Greeny, heading to the music jam tomorrow if you're up that way, great singer in town and coming up)

 

[Robin]

Isn't this rather sad? Is this what boating has become?

Yep and soon there will be an 'app' for it too so you can check it whilst engaging in tiffin with whoever 100 miles away

 

[gregcope]

There is a sense resister on the ina219 which should get removed.

Sorry - can you expand? Which one, and why? Links useful.

 

[gregcope]

Can anyone get into this to edit?
https://easyeda.com/paddyb/Anchor_Light-1a1d51d805944547a7da58b27d6b1afd

Think so. Changed the title on the schematic on NEW_PCB to "New Schematic II"

 

[greeny]

Be worth a go anyway, should all be opensource so anyone can copy and alter if they want so long as it's kept free

Can anyone get into this to edit?
https://easyeda.com/paddyb/Anchor_Light-1a1d51d805944547a7da58b27d6b1afd

That was just playaround as much as anything to see how the site worked rather than any kind of finished circuits, though the reg & auto on/off circuits are as built and should work.



(PS Greeny, heading to the music jam tomorrow if you're up that way, great singer in town and coming up)

Just got into it ok and managed to change some things but didn't save anything but looks as if i could ok.

p.s. can't make it tomorrow - up North near Porto at the moment, should be back for next weekend though. I'll let the other guys know, they'll probably be going anyway. Thanks.

 

[stu9000]

Isn't this rather sad? Is this what boating has become?

Rude!

 

[Keith-i]

GHA, can you think of any reason I couldn't take your circuit and adjust it to piggy back off my fuel sender so that I could then get fuel level onto my N2K network. I'd like to keep my analogue gauge in place and reckon the INA219 could sense the voltage difference across the fuel sender resistive scale without imposing any load on the sender and thereby affecting the reading on the existing gauge.

 

[GHA]

GHA, can you think of any reason I couldn't take your circuit and adjust it to piggy back off my fuel sender so that I could then get fuel level onto my N2K network. I'd like to keep my analogue gauge in place and reckon the INA219 could sense the voltage difference across the fuel sender resistive scale without imposing any load on the sender and thereby affecting the reading on the existing gauge.

Dunno, maybe. The ESP32 has a canbus port on the spec but getting something in N2K working on the esp might be a bit of a challenge with nmea being so secret squirral with the spec, plus the canbus will likely have no opto isolation so could be a bit dodgy. Easier but more power would be a raspberry pi, think opto isolated canbus/usb are about 50quid, or a couple of quid for cheapo ones.https://www.ebay.com/itm/MCP2515-CA...533771&hash=item58cbb863fb:g:VfQAAOSwKJhbQwbY, http://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=1478&pid=7210#pid7210 openplotteron the pi can create a n2k message. Apparently,, Never tried it, n2k is for them rich folks Advantage of the pi route is it does so much, easy to add thermometers, battery voltage, barometer and spit it all out over wifi as signalk & nmea0183 for all to see. No monitor required, view over a tablet of laptop. Another option would be an esp8266 or 32 and have that publish a little web site on a wifi network of create a network of it's own , not as convenient to view but would cost little.

 

[vas]

Dunno, maybe. The ESP32 has a canbus port on the spec but getting something in N2K working on the esp might be a bit of a challenge with nmea being so secret squirral with the spec, plus the canbus will likely have no opto isolation so could be a bit dodgy. Easier but more power would be a raspberry pi, think opto isolated canbus/usb are about 50quid, or a couple of quid for cheapo ones.https://www.ebay.com/itm/MCP2515-CA...533771&hash=item58cbb863fb:g:VfQAAOSwKJhbQwbY, http://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=1478&pid=7210#pid7210 openplotteron the pi can create a n2k message. Apparently,, Never tried it, n2k is for them rich folks Advantage of the pi route is it does so much, easy to add thermometers, battery voltage, barometer and spit it all out over wifi as signalk & nmea0183 for all to see. No monitor required, view over a tablet of laptop. Another option would be an esp8266 or 32 and have that publish a little web site on a wifi network of create a network of it's own , not as convenient to view but would cost little.

not quite sure you're right GHA!
Timo's NMEA2000 lib supports ESP32. You probably only need a tranceiver chip MCPsomething rather (1euro a piece and two resistors)
Using his libs, it's a walk in the park to have all sorts of odd things pumped into the NMEA2000 bus.
check
https://github.com/ttlappalainen/NMEA2000

cheers

V.

 

[GHA]

not quite sure you're right GHA!Timo's NMEA2000 lib supports ESP32. You probably only need a tranceiver chip MCPsomething rather (1euro a piece and two resistors)Using his libs, it's a walk in the park to have all sorts of odd things pumped into the NMEA2000 bus.checkhttps://github.com/ttlappalainen/NMEA2000cheersV.

Ah look at that! Glad I said Dunno as the first word.. The fun you rich folks with N2K have

 

[vas]

Ah look at that! Glad I said Dunno as the first word.. The fun you rich folks with N2K have

good thing I was v.polite (I hope!) in my reply, else you'd probably dress "rich" (which I aint!) with something else

serious, having played with NMEA0183 for a couple of years, I can definitely say that having lots of toys, N2K is the only way to do it and keep your hair in place.
Yes it's more expensive, but I've bought everything s/h and all (bar the garmin a/p compass thing) is working fine.
Even there, I'm about to get the heading from a 2euro 9DOF chip (as a byproduct of using the gyro for the fin stabilisers) and bypass the garmin compass for radar heading

Always happy to help anyone having a go with N2K and post my coding attempts (they do work, probably not v.nice programmingwise though)

cheers

V.

 

[GHA]

Hopefully obvious that the "rick folks with N2K" was 100% in jest

For getting toys talking signalk is just great , and seems to get better every day

Next on the horizon here is an autopilot for a few quid, just got a motor controller off ebay and some kind soul left an ancient raymarine wheel pilot with motor by the shower block so here's hoping a bit of fabrication will see a bracket welded in for that in the lazarette and some dyneema up to the tiller - all the code is in Openplotter already so fingers crossed

 

[Keith-i]

I'm no longer rich; certainly not after buying a couple of N2K connectors!
I am however quite happy to be on the N2K bandwagon, particularly so as I am motorboating rather than sailing where having all the data on the MFD and a simple backbone network is the simpler option. Timo's N2K code opens up a world of possibilities to customise the little bits and pieces on my boat at a modest cost. I don't have any need for data over wifi and whilst Openplotter is clearly vey good it doesn't suit my needs on board.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Thks for that

I met sean d'epagnier several years ago in Richards Bay where he gave a presentation on OpenCPN using his RPi

Details of how he drives the wind screen motor would be interesting as I use lots of car wiper motors to drive various items.

 

[vas]

I'm no longer rich; certainly not after buying a couple of N2K connectors!
I am however quite happy to be on the N2K bandwagon, particularly so as I am motorboating rather than sailing where having all the data on the MFD and a simple backbone network is the simpler option. Timo's N2K code opens up a world of possibilities to customise the little bits and pieces on my boat at a modest cost. I don't have any need for data over wifi and whilst Openplotter is clearly vey good it doesn't suit my needs on board.

mind it's easy to convert NASA 0183 wind monitor or tank level monitors or even an old analogue rudder sensor to N2K.
you need to get cheap connectors though (not tees - I usually get them off ebay) but connectors male/female to fit on the boxes you built with the arduinos et al. M12 5pin, around a fiver each iirc. Got to check the source though somewhere in Poland I think

cheers

PS GHA: I know, but it's nice to tease ppl

 

[GHA]

Thks for that

I met sean d'epagnier several years ago in Richards Bay where he gave a presentation on OpenCPN using his RPi

Details of how he drives the wind screen motor would be interesting as I use lots of car wiper motors to drive various items.

Thks for that


I met sean d'epagnier several years ago in Richards Bay where he gave a presentation on OpenCPN using his RPi


Details of how he drives the wind screen motor would be interesting as I use lots of car wiper motors to drive various items.

Well works so far...


Just had the motor from what looks like one of these going backwards and forwards with speed control , seems pretty pokey but nothing coming back out of the current sensor pin yet, a clamp meter shows about 8A as the motor just stalls, trying to rip my hand apart as it does so

Just using an arduino nano and this sketch >
https://www.instructables.com/id/Tutorial-for-VNH2SP30-Monster-Motor-Module-Single-/

Driver is this one off ebay >
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30A-Mini...850156&hash=item33d4fdaace:g:Iz8AAOSwUMxZlm4p

So since there I've numerous Nanos sitting around and plenty wiring, welder & some scrap stainless to make brackets etc it might just be possible to get waht looks like a better programmed autopilot than many commercial offerings for just over a fiver..
If it works and if I get round to it

And a video, seems like loads of friction when the belt is engaged, maybe why it was thrown out in the first place. Might investigate a beefier windscreen motor though - might be easier to sort out gearing & string to drive the tiller.

 

[Heckler]

Isn't "basic seamanship" about ensuring the navigability of your vessel and the safety of its crew? If the boat you sail has an alternator and batteries, nav lights powered by electricity and/or electronic nav instruments (sounder, log, never mind plotters) then why on earth would the fashioning of a tool to monitor health of and diagnose problems with your electrical system be anything other than good seamanship?

Indeed, good on Paddy!

 

[saab]

"The battery isn't connected yet but it will allow the unit to run without being plugged in. "

A wireless battery, whatever next lol


ps just kidding