Using a wifi AND 3G connection from a router on a boat.

[GHA]

The main motivation behind this was the midnight phone call from a neighbour to say the bilge alarm was going off on my boat (I was on a non-boating holiday in Lanzarote drinking my Sangria at the time!). So I want to count the times the bilge alarm (and also bilge pumps) have activated.

Once that's done I guess I'll add things as and when. Temperature, both engine room and boat in general (for over winter) would be a good start.

That shouldn't be hard, you could add a float switch as well to keep a check if the bilge pump doesn't run. I've just been having a play around, you can send a MQTT message and openplotter will check if it equals something so you could turn on or off the bilge pump remotely, or heater or fridge , whatever. Just a bit of wiring involved.
BTW, the Pi draws about 0.2/0.3A

 

[agurney]

The main motivation behind this was the midnight phone call from a neighbour to say the bilge alarm was going off on my boat (I was on a non-boating holiday in Lanzarote drinking my Sangria at the time!). So I want to count the times the bilge alarm (and also bilge pumps) have activated.

Once that's done I guess I'll add things as and when. Temperature, both engine room and boat in general (for over winter) would be a good start.

[recycled from another thread ..]
Until I hauled out in October I ran an old Raspberry Pi on my boat with a couple of sensors and a webcam. The sensors sample atmospheric pressure and temperature every fifteen minutes, and upload that to a web server at home whenever it can connect to the local marina wifi. Cost of camera + sensors + wifi was about £6.

So, with that small amount of information: I can see the current and past weather, both visually and from the sensors; I can see pressure trends for the previous few days; I know the boat is still afloat and not been moved; it confirms that my wind generator's providing enough power to run the automatic bilge pump if it's required; it confirms that the marina's intermittent wifi is up and running so I'll be able to work remotely if I drive over.

sample here - http://agurney.myftp.org/aisling/

 

[maby]

...

BTW, the Pi draws about 0.2/0.3A

Indeed it does! Don't make the same expensive mistake that I made - the marina shore power was proving unreliable, so I left a Pi running on the boat, monitoring power to gather some ammunition to complain. For one reason or another, I was kept away from the boat for a few weeks and returned to find that the power had been off since the day after I left - the Pi had dragged the house battery down so low that it was rubbish.

 

[GHA]

Indeed it does! Don't make the same expensive mistake that I made - the marina shore power was proving unreliable, so I left a Pi running on the boat, monitoring power to gather some ammunition to complain. For one reason or another, I was kept away from the boat for a few weeks and returned to find that the power had been off since the day after I left - the Pi had dragged the house battery down so low that it was rubbish.

Sending out MQQT you would have seen it as it happened

 

[maby]

Sending out MQQT you would have seen it as it happened

I certainly would have done - but this was a very early experiment and it was only keeping a local record of the supply voltage. It never occurred to me that such a little board could draw such a lot of current! My new system is built around Atmel AVR devices and designed to minimise power budget...

 

[GHA]

Originally Posted by fergycoolimage: [url]http://www.ybw.com/forums/images/ybw/buttons/viewpost-right.png

[/URL]
It might have diverged somewhat, but I've learnt quite a bit. So keep going ..... ;-)


This might come come in handy for setting up mqtt -
http://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=162
Though I couldn't get the freeboard viewer working and gave up.

 

[pessimist]

There is no problem using a Pi (other than consumption) to monitor and control boat systems over wireless/3/4G. Live feed examples here - http://skippersmate.co.uk/skippersmate/livefeeds.html. This all works over VPN so the problems with carrier grade NAT as used by most of the 3/4G provides are circumscribed. The camera feed shows the main companionway and the entrance to the aft companionway. So not too exciting. I hope!

The software is all free, open source and available from the main website.