Humble Raspberry Pi does so much

[GHA]

Works though- & without any electrics:encouragement:

Not very well though.

Generally missed on forums, but you are allowed both. I can see very accurate battery voltage /engine temp/barometer etc for any minute in the past 6 months *and* have a compass /sextant onboard.

Sextant cost a lot more than the electronics and will likely never be used in anger but is a lovely piece of engineering

 

[ShinyShoe]

From an electronics point of view, having a mast on open water ocean is akin to shooting rockets trailing a wire into the clouds. The problem being that even not being hit by a direct strike. Close proximity may be enough to kill electronics with the static discharge.

Yes I get that - although the incidence of strikes is pretty small in reality.

I was thinking of having really something in a faraday protected storm case to be able to deploy on a jiffy. I have not yet delved into anything else then the idea I must admit. It’s one of “those” that I have a post it on my monitor and it keeps falling because the glue is getting old.

Yes I got that too. So in a biscuit tin (do you still get tins these days...?) with its own power supply and everything you "need" to do the basics.
My point was if you had a main nav station that runs Open CPN, with a direct clone on a backup unit in the tin it will all be familiar. There may be options to plug-in bits that may or may not have been fried once the initial issue is over...

However, I could also be tempted to buy a £70 tablet with GPS and install OpenCPN on it. Chuck it in the tin with a LiPo battery pack.

For coastal "stuff" that would all be fine.

For 2000 miles off shore... ...the battery requirement will be an issue. So now your redundancy needs a power generation method... as you can't be sure what ever you will have has not been cooked either. I had a LiPo pack with a solar panel on it. No way it would charge enough to give constant Pi running.

I dunno about others, but at 71 years of age & with a few thousand miles of sailing under my belt I can get the gist of most of the posts on this forum. But this thread has me totally lost from the Op's post onwards.

The last time I had a raspberry pie it had custard on it !!!

I'm sure you are being sarcastic but...

^^ is a Pi (no E)

^^ is a pie

Putting custard on the first is not recommended...

Generally missed on forums, but you are allowed both. I can see very accurate battery voltage /engine temp/barometer etc for any minute in the past 6 months *and* have a compass /sextant onboard.

WHAT - surely the electronics interfere with the mirrors and warp things? ;-)

 

[TonyMS]

What do you guys do for a screen? And if the answer is a tablet, why not do everything on that?

 

[ShinyShoe]

There are people using a tablet in the cockpit using a VNC connection to the Pi.

Options for the "chart table":

- Tablet (see below why its not completely idiotic)
- Small TV / Monitor running on 12V. Has potential use as a TV too if the desire exists. IME - quite power hungry
- A recycled Laptop Screen (removed from inside a laptop)
- Dedicated Pi Screen. You can pick up some very tidy small solutions for minimal money - but probably of minimal use for Nav - but would fit Greg's biscuit Tin.

So why not just use a tablet...

...Simple answer is connectivity. If you ONLY want OpenCPN with GPS - a tablet can do the job quite nicely. There may be some "user-friendly" issues with not having keyboards (although can Bluetooth) and mice, but the main reason is you can connect more "stuff"...

...AIS on the plotter... can be done by feeding AIS to a WiFi and into a tablet... but seems like hassle... If you don't have AIS you can almost certainly set it up FAR cheaper on a Pi than a stand alone box and a WiFi feed for the tablet.

...Multiplexing data in and out - again possible with separate kit - but not through a tablet.

...Engine Temp, Water level sensors etc. Either displayed on the screen - or fed back to you remotely. Tablet wont do any of that. You could do it with Arduino boards and WiFi to a web page on the tablet - but again the Pi will be simpler

...Depends what else you have on board to get data from or send data to. EchoSounder with NMEA...?

...OpenCPN on Android - don't think it is supported by the new low cost vector charts

 

[Hoolie]

.OpenCPN on Android - don't think it is supported by the new low cost vector charts

Low cost eSENC vector charts do work on the paid-for Android version of OpenCPN. The free version is so old now it's not worth even trying it.