Home made chart plotter

I've set up an online wiki at: http://yachtix.wikispaces.com/Base+System

Plan for the moment is to concentrate on Intel i386 32bit Live CD.

I've based the CD on Lubuntu - http://lubuntu.net/ - an LXDE based Ubuntu distro (because it still works with Remastersys) a list of the included software is shown at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Applications

Anyone can add comments to the wiki pages (Go to Discusions on top of the page of interest and hit New Post)

Idea at present is to:
1) Get a list of software that people would want on this liveCD
2) Write an install script for each piece of software

In the future:
3) Look at customisations to the UI
4) Scripts for things like weekly antivirus scans, auto encoding of video files etc.
 
Target hardware for an ARM version?

This looks like a very nice piece of kit for an ARM-based distribution!

http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/efika

Less than 5W power consumption. No moving parts. 512Mb Memory, 8Gb SSD, VGA&HDMI, Ethernet, USB, graphics accelerator, 720p video decode accelerator, SDHC card slot for storage expansion. Ships with Ubuntu Jaunty.

Not available in the UK as far as I can see, but US price into sterling works out about £160.
 
Posieden Linux

has alot of features can be made live cd or usb bootable
gis
gps
just need to add opencpn
and noaa charts
 
What about the android/ipad approach? Isn't that an easier way to go these days? I can see that you need to integrate other devices and data streams, but bluetooth or wireless should work? Not an expert ... just interested in reasoning behind different approaches.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
However, it also runs on Linux, and there are small low powered quite cheap Single Board Computers with lots of goodies on that run Linux, for example the Hawkboard (which I use at work) for £65...

http://www.hawkboard.org/

This comes with a built in serial port (for NMEA input), a VGA output (for the display), a SD card reader (for the charts) and USB (for extra input).
Click to expand...
Have you heard of the Raspberry Pi, Angus ? This also has Video and SD Card readers built in, afaik no serial ports but USB2 is provided so a cheap USB to serial adaptor could be used. They are slated to be available from eo January and are a snip at $35 (predicted).

Boo2
 
Over the last couple of years I've heard numerous discussions along these lines, but the fly in the ointment is always the current draw of the screen. I'd suggest you solve that one first, before getting caught up in solid state hardware or operating system issues ...

If a suitable screen cannot be found - I'd suggest this as a worthwhile project:
s/h laptop screens can readily be sourced, but driving them directly from a vga output is impossible. If memory serves (I looked into this a year or two back) there are a couple of bi-directional chips which transfer info in coded form to the screen at a blistering speed. If someone could come up with a gizmo to interface a standard vga output to a detached laptop screen, now that would be something really useful, and would be to a lot of people.

My ThinkPad 600's are something like 13 years old now, but their 13.3" screens (1024x768) only draw 0.5A, and that includes backlight - and I'm sure far more energy efficient screens have been produced during the last decade.

The idea of having an ex-laptop repeater display (perhaps fitted with a visor) near the helm, with the main box in the cabin, would be quite a nifty configuration.
 
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AngusMcDoon said:
Android apps are written in Java whereas OpenCPN is C based. The porting effort would be significant, but I expect it will be done sooner or later.
Click to expand...

MX Mariner is an android chart plotter based on OpenCPN, developed by a Cruiser & Sailing Forum member.
The app is available from the Market but is using NOAA charts which are free for download in the US.
If only it could run CM93 charts...
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Android apps are written in Java whereas OpenCPN is C based. The porting effort would be significant, but I expect it will be done sooner or later.
Click to expand...

I suppose I was thinking along the lines of the Java Native Interface where c code can be run within Java. Never used it, though, so no idea about effectiveness. My software expertise is pretty dated ...
 
AngusMcDoon said:
Thanks for the information and links. I gave up on this when the Hawkboard was no longer being made. Seems like there were some problems with it and TI would no longer supply the L138 processors to the manufacturer.
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I saw in a previous post that you managed to get a mobile phone? screen showing "stuff" Do you know how to put data in to a laptop or flat screen bypassing the vga, i have quite a few gash screens now that still work. Would be interesting?
Stu
 
skipper_stu said:
I saw in a previous post that you managed to get a mobile phone? screen showing "stuff" Do you know how to put data in to a laptop or flat screen bypassing the vga?Stu
Click to expand...

It would require identifying the display driver chip and writing a driver using information from its datasheet, which are often translated Chinese and poor quality. Not a trivial thing to do. I did that at work last year and it took a couple of months.

The smaller cheap QVGA sized screens (as used in my YAPPs) are simpler as there is much less data to transfer and they run more slowly.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
It would require identifying the display driver chip and writing a driver using information from its datasheet, which are often translated Chinese and poor quality. Not a trivial thing to do. I did that at work last year and it took a couple of months.

The smaller cheap QVGA sized screens (as used in my YAPPs) are simpler as there is much less data to transfer and they run more slowly.
Click to expand...
OK, I was thinking of getting an aIS radio, then putting the nmea to a screen to get a bigger pic than is on the vhf screen
Stu
 
elton said:
Plus you could check the tides and the weather, browse the web, watch videos, listen to music, and everything else you can do on your home pc. As you say, the only difficulty is getting a waterproof display.
Click to expand...

We have two water proof Raymarine displays running off the pc downstairs
 
Raspberry Pi

I suppose that the Raspberry Pi will be an excellent candidate for this project.

Next we should find out how to interface a radar scanner.
 
Ideas

Hi,

Just found this tread and have been having similar ideas......

O so we have taken an old laptop apart, installed it into a hermetically sealed box that I got free from a supply company as a 'sample'. That has a clear lid too. Screen mounted inside the lid. Dremmel taken to the motherboard to make it fit. :-) and the addition of a CF adaptor to make the whole thing solid state. Now as a BT GPS and put the 12v laptop adaptor in the box with the bits and you have a waterproof laptop running of 12v that can run Navitonix. :-)

Everything you need and comes with a 13" screen to boot.

Now on the other hand has anyone played with the Ainol Elf or similar? £80 to £150 (for the beefier model) and you get a 7" touch screen tablet that you can run Linux on, I'm just not sure if openCPN will work?

If it does then it could be the perfect solution!!!! Just add a USB micro Bluetooth dongle and you have GPS on something you can put anywhere. Even in your pocket!! :-))
 
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