Openplotter

[Sailoog]

Sailoog
I think GHA is already working with you in the Cruisers Forum under a different name.

Your blog page seems empty so which forum is your main Q&A
(I am tracking this forum/thread and the Cruisers forum thread) !

Bye the way - congratulations on a great project. I'm lovin it
Steve

Thanks Steve

Our blog is intended just to announce releases and important news. The best places to Q&A by language are: http://www.sailoog.com/en/blog/openplotter-community
Now, the most active is Cruisers forum thread but if you feel more comfortable writing here, do it. I will try to follow all of them. The more we are, the sooner we will publish the final stable release.

If no major issues are reported I will publish v0.6.0 stable version ASAP in order to start working on documentation and the last step of development (analog sensors interface, remote panel instruments...).

Thanks again.

P.S. Yes, GHA revealed me his secret personalities

 

[Boo2]

I have one of these latest PIPO offerings on order to play around with this winter.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PIPO-X9-M...236857?hash=item4d3c7beef9:g:-S4AAOSwhcJWMDQP

They look great and very well priced.

AAMOI, can you tell me whether it is possible to invert the graphics display ? On W7 this is done by going into the Windows control panel as follows : Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display\Screen Resolution and selecting "Landscape (flipped)" from the Orientation drop down selector, I assume it's the same in W10.

Thanks,

Boo2

 

[TSB240]

They look great and very well priced.

AAMOI, can you tell me whether it is possible to invert the graphics display ? On W7 this is done by going into the Windows control panel as follows : Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display\Screen Resolution and selecting "Landscape (flipped)" from the Orientation drop down selector, I assume it's the same in W10.

Thanks,

Boo2

I am on the pipo unit now and the screen automatically adjusts to which ever way you rotate.

So if you capzise and invert you wont have to stand on your head.��

 

[Harry Brown]

Can someone please point me in the right direction regarding information on connecting multiple sensors to a Raspberry Pi 2?

I can see how 1 or 2 would be wired but not multiple sensors i.e. IMU, pressure, humidity, PIR, switches etc etc. There could be 10 or more!

There are only so many pins on the pie so how ever do all these things get wired, I am assuming that some pins are shared!?

Also, what other parts do I need to buy to wire all these together? Boards, wires etc? GHA explained in post #54 but now I've got more sensors to fit, I'm at a bit of a loss!

Thanks in advance.

 

[GHA]

Can someone please point me in the right direction regarding information on connecting multiple sensors to a Raspberry Pi 2?

I can see how 1 or 2 would be wired but not multiple sensors i.e. IMU, pressure, humidity, PIR, switches etc etc. There could be 10 or more!

There are only so many pins on the pie so how ever do all these things get wired, I am assuming that some pins are shared!?

Also, what other parts do I need to buy to wire all these together? Boards, wires etc? GHA explained in post #54 but now I've got more sensors to fit, I'm at a bit of a loss!

Thanks in advance.

The documentation is not all there yet but there's a lot of hard work going on putting it all together.
https://www.gitbook.com/book/sailoog/openplotter-documentation/details

The IMU compass, pressure & temperature sensors all use the same 2 pins on the Pi, called the I2C (usually pronounced eye two cee) . These each have their own address so they can talk to the Pi down the same wires. Temperature the excellent DS18B20 thermometers can be daisy chained into one pin as well. So that's most catered for with just 3 pins, switches and the PIR sensor need a pin each, but if you do run out then there are I2C multiplex boards available which will give you more.
Wiring up - I've soldered up some little breakout boards but if you don't want to dig out the soldering iron then wago connectors might be the easiest way to go, with some pre made patch wires.
http://www.wago.ltd.uk/installer_products.html
Wago do 5 way connectors which could be handy for breaking out the I2C wires & power.

Breadboard patch leads are very handy as well.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...d+patch+.TRS0&_nkw=breadboard+patch+&_sacat=0

Also, I've had a few days saiing using openplotter for real and it's been very well behaved, data beamed over wifi to a sony xperia tablet in the cockpit. gps/ais into opencpn and wind data viewed in a webpage broadcast from signalK. Never had wind data before in the cockpit SignalK calculates apparent/true from gps data.
The wifi connection dropped out a couple of times but think that's the tablet, seems to be solid now after tweaking some settings.

 

[GHA]

Raspberry pi 3 is coming!
Inbuilt WiFi, Bluetooth and a 1. 2ghz 64 bit chip. The pi2 is fast enough already but this must be dead zippy
http://liliputing.com/2016/02/raspberry-pi-3-to-feature-on-board-wifi-bluetooth.html

 

[Sailoog]

Can someone please point me in the right direction regarding information on connecting multiple sensors to a Raspberry Pi 2?

I can see how 1 or 2 would be wired but not multiple sensors i.e. IMU, pressure, humidity, PIR, switches etc etc. There could be 10 or more!

There are only so many pins on the pie so how ever do all these things get wired, I am assuming that some pins are shared!?

Also, what other parts do I need to buy to wire all these together? Boards, wires etc? GHA explained in post #54 but now I've got more sensors to fit, I'm at a bit of a loss!

Thanks in advance.

All will be in documentation site. We are working on it...

wiring multiple DS18B20
https://sailoog.gitbooks.io/openplotter-documentation/content/en/DS18B20.html

I2c sensors share pins SDA, SCL, GND and PWR according this diagram. PWR pin might be 3.3v or 5v depending your sensor needs, no mistake here, could kill your sensor.
https://sailoog.gitbooks.io/openplotter-documentation/content/en/sensors.html

For common switches and special switches (PIR, door...) I will try to write some draft as soon as possible.

And you are right, there are too much to connect and pins to share. Pins are not the best way. You can acquire some board (hat) with screw connectors that makes easy wiring multiple sensors to the same pins. Last week I have been testing some hats and next week I will recommend some boards. Search on google by "prototype shield", raspberry prototype hat"...

 

[GHA]

Pi 3 is here!
Wonder how much power it needs.

http://hackaday.com/2016/02/28/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-3/

 

[laika]

Wonder how much power it needs.

Recommends a bigger 2.5A supply for "power-hungry USB devices"
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-on-sale/

This review suggests it's the same 3.8W as the Pi 2 under load, but clocks down for a lower 2.5W at idle:
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/pcs/1404450/raspberry-pi-3-review-hands-on-benchmarks-and-price

...and also suggests that it's better at supplying power to external devices which I've certainly found to be a problem with a high-power external wifi device on the pi 1 and 2.

 

[RobbieW]

...and also suggests that it's better at supplying power to external devices which I've certainly found to be a problem with a high-power external wifi device on the pi 1 and 2.

If needing to supply power to external USB devices its also worth reviewing the cabling used. The 'ebay' microUSB cables are often very thin and can fail to adequately supply devices, this has been seen on one or two of the 3/4G dongles (E3276 for one) that can take 2+ amps in some phases of the connection cycle. The usual result is that the dongle reboots leading to an endless cycle of reboot and no connection. Looking for cables that are described as 28/24 or even 24/20 should fix the problem, the numbers refer to cable AWG with the second one being the power pair.

 

[GHA]

Found some more power data..
At idle it's not much more than a Pi2, so maybe not too bad onboard running openplotter & Opencpn not doing too much most of the time. I have a 5a current sensor waiting at argos so it will be interesting to log a few hours to see what the Pi2 actually pulls with wifi & usb/serial dongles running.
Even with a bit more power (bearing in mind those numbers are at 5v) for the cost running openplotter it really does look like top of the pile for onboard computers at the moment.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/raspberry-pi-3-specs-benchmarks

 

[GHA]

If needing to supply power to external USB devices its also worth reviewing the cabling used. The 'ebay' microUSB cables are often very thin and can fail to adequately supply devices, this has been seen on one or two of the 3/4G dongles (E3276 for one) that can take 2+ amps in some phases of the connection cycle. The usual result is that the dongle reboots leading to an endless cycle of reboot and no connection. Looking for cables that are described as 28/24 or even 24/20 should fix the problem, the numbers refer to cable AWG with the second one being the power pair.

Big +1.
Also applies for charging, you can loose a lot of power down a cheapo usb lead, suddenly your supposed 2.1A supply takes a lot longer to charge a tablet.

 

[GHA]

...... so it will be interesting to log a few hours to see what the Pi2 actually pulls with wifi & usb/serial dongles running.

OK, Raspberry Pi 2 with keyboard, mouse, 1 x twin usb/serial adapter, wifi dongle, HDMI-VGA adapter & a signalink sound card attached the current draw is about 180/190mA with the batteries sitting at 13.8V.
And this goes down to more like 80/90mA with the screen turned off, which it will be most of the time anyway.

very , a powerful navigation / boat monitoring computer for round about 0.1A and 30 odd quid .

Hopefully I'll have a Pi 3 to play with tomorrow.

 

[gregcope]

Found any decent cases?

 

[GHA]

Found any decent cases?

Just using one of these. Though there's a steel enclosure mounted under the chart table from back in the day trying to get a low power pc system working so the power supply and Pi slip into that nicely.

 

[gregcope]

What this is begging for is a semi-dry case with outputs for cables.

Another version would have a clear bit for the rpi touch screen to work.

Ie a plotter box!

 

[GHA]

Pi 3!! Zippy!

It's hard to tell if it uses more power than the Pi 2 at such low amps, maybe a fraction more if anything. Wifi and bluetooth built in. set up was swap the leads and SD card, then the same system but faster

Maplins are doing them for £34.95 , mine took 3 days for click and collect.

 

[Steve_N]

Mine is waiting at the Post Office as I missed the postie today. £31.94 delivered from New-IT (official reseller). Play time tomorrow..

 

[rgarside]

OK, Raspberry Pi 2 with keyboard, mouse, 1 x twin usb/serial adapter, wifi dongle, HDMI-VGA adapter & a signalink sound card attached the current draw is about 180/190mA with the batteries sitting at 13.8V.
And this goes down to more like 80/90mA with the screen turned off, which it will be most of the time anyway.

very , a powerful navigation / boat monitoring computer for round about 0.1A and 30 odd quid .

Hopefully I'll have a Pi 3 to play with tomorrow.

Pretty good! What screen are you using, and do the figures given include the power for the screen itself?

 

[GHA]

Pretty good! What screen are you using, and do the figures given include the power for the screen itself?

The figures don't include the screen, it's a samsung 19" VGA monitor running straight off 12v. Think it pulls round about an Amp, but spends most of it's life turned off, on passage anyway.

Have a look... just a few weeks ago it was a Pi2 with no hardware video acceleration or openGL, what a difference! The video driver is still experimental beta so there's occasional glitches on the screen but nothing too bad.