Raspberry PI remote boat monitor

nimbusgb said:
Fine if you have a permanent shore power connection but useless for my situation where the boat is disconnected from the mains for long periods, regardless of large solar panels. The drain is just too big.
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The Pi you can get down to 200mA if you you replace the onboard regulators.

http://www.bitwizard.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Reducing_power_consumption_of_a_raspberry_Pi

Arduino Yun similar, though maybe possible to drastically reduce that if the leonardo board could switch on and off the linux chip to uploard every 10 minutes or whatever.
 
mlines said:
Before I re-invent the wheel, does anyone know of a documented pre-coded solution?
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I did a YAPP one that monitored Seatalk (but could also do NMEA-0183 easily enough) from the instruments and communicated remotely via SMS using a cheapo 2G GSM modem. I used a STM32 based processor board - much more power efficient than a RPi which is overkill and uses too much juice for a non-mains powered device. My average power consumption was 10mA at 12V. I started to port it to a 18F PIC processor to get the power consumption (I like to aim for microAmps or even nanoAmps because I'm stingy :)) and price down even more, but then sort of lost interest and went and polished my bananas or something instead. The STM32 version was software complete but had no custom hardware or enclosure. The PIC version was mostly ported but again no hardware design done.

I could kick it back into life it there is enough interest and people would be prepared to cover my costs. It would be a typical YAPP project - small numbers, not CE approved or EMC tested. The GSM modem would have all the necessary approvals though.

Here's the original fred...

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?332443-YAPP-boat-tracker-and-anchor-watcher
 
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I kind of want this just for the geek value, but with the boat on a pontoon berth I'm not sure I really need it :)

The boat's not going to break loose and drift away like it might from a mooring, and I'm not worried about taking on water. My main concern is fenders popping out (or just popping) or a line breaking such that she moves into an awkward position against a pontoon or another boat. - and I can't really see a simple monitor helping with that, it would need CCTV. Breakins are a concern as well, but again NMEA/Seatalk and GSM aren't all that helpful. With GPIO pins I could wire up an alert for the hatch being opened, but what do I do then? They'll be long gone by the time I can get there.

I guess a remote anchor alarm could be handy, when we leave the boat at anchor and go exploring ashore in places like the Channel Islands. But (have I told you about my enormous Spade? :) ) I don't really worry all that much as it is.

Pete
 
prv said:
I kind of want this just for the geek value, but with the boat on a pontoon berth I'm not sure I really need it :)

The boat's not going to break loose and drift away like it might from a mooring, and I'm not worried about taking on water. My main concern is fenders popping out (or just popping) or a line breaking such that she moves into an awkward position against a pontoon or another boat. - and I can't really see a simple monitor helping with that, it would need CCTV. Breakins are a concern as well, but again NMEA/Seatalk and GSM aren't all that helpful. With GPIO pins I could wire up an alert for the hatch being opened, but what do I do then? They'll be long gone by the time I can get there.

I guess a remote anchor alarm could be handy, when we leave the boat at anchor and go exploring ashore in places like the Channel Islands. But (have I told you about my enormous Spade? :) ) I don't really worry all that much as it is.

Pete
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I'm the same Pete, but happy to let the geek value override any other considerations! :D
 
It rather depends what you mean by "boat monitoring". Penny (pragmatist) lent me a pre release version of their boat security system a few weeks ago. It alerted me (by sms message) when the brats from the boat next door used my cockpit as a refuse dump. I believe they are working to extend the system to cover monitoring and control of on board systems.

I believe the system is called skippersmate - p.m. pragmatist perhaps?
 
prv said:
With GPIO pins I could wire up an alert for the hatch being opened, but what do I do then?
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Play a sound file from a speaker in a cabin with a closed door saying words to the effect of "oi! who's there?" in a particularly gruff sounding voice? Or a pit bull barking? Or crocodiles?
 
laika said:
Play a sound file from a speaker in a cabin with a closed door saying words to the effect of "oi! who's there?" in a particularly gruff sounding voice? Or a pit bull barking? Or crocodiles?
Click to expand...

What noise do crocodiles make??!!
 
Thanks to pandroid for pointing out that we do have a free Open Source Raspberry Pi security system. We released it early as so many people seemed keen on the wifi hotspot side of it but plan to release the first full version by the end of this month (Oct '14). Currently it includes motion detection (camera-operated), movement detection (GPS), SMS and email alerts, live access to your boat via 3G dongle or wifi, stored footage and data. It will shortly be including a series of sensors and then controls. It comes with online help and PDF documentation.

We are on a mooring and it works happily off a solar panel. Certainly gives us peace of mind.
 
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