monkfish24
Well-Known Member
Woop Woop!
I have managed it! OpenCPN on Debian LDE
Now to see if it works......
I have managed it! OpenCPN on Debian LDE
Now to see if it works......
YAPP: A Sailing Raspberry Pi
- Thread starter st599
- Start date
Razorfish
Well-Known Member
How did you get on??
cozzykim
Well-Known Member
Woop Woop!
I have managed it! OpenCPN on Debian LDE
Now to see if it works......
Not to detract from the achievement in any way.
Bear in mind this isn't the ARM version, it's running in VBox on an (presumably) x86
As far as I can tell by searching, this is a first (unless I've missed something elsewhere, please correct me if so
) which quite a few people will be interested in, have you posted it in the Pi forums etc?st599
Well-Known Member
Jabamusic
Well-Known Member
Very interested
I just wanted to keep this topic live as it is of great interest to me (and possibly lots of others as well).
The idea of an affordable and low power computer for on-board use is very appealing and the Pi certainly fits the bill as long as it is possible to get the likes of opencpn or seaclear running on it. The rest like music, video is certainly very easy and the options beyond that quite unlimited.
I know from previous threads (on other forums) that the biggest hurdle for an on-board computer is the display. In the past 6-8 months one thread looked like it was going to take off, but unfortunately died a death. I suspect that without a suitable monitor ie waterproofed, non-reflective and touchscreen then no such computer will have a chance at displacing OEM chartplotters?
Anyway, am always happy to help if I can -although my programming skills are certainly at the developmental stage!
I just wanted to keep this topic live as it is of great interest to me (and possibly lots of others as well).
The idea of an affordable and low power computer for on-board use is very appealing and the Pi certainly fits the bill as long as it is possible to get the likes of opencpn or seaclear running on it. The rest like music, video is certainly very easy and the options beyond that quite unlimited.
I know from previous threads (on other forums) that the biggest hurdle for an on-board computer is the display. In the past 6-8 months one thread looked like it was going to take off, but unfortunately died a death. I suspect that without a suitable monitor ie waterproofed, non-reflective and touchscreen then no such computer will have a chance at displacing OEM chartplotters?
Anyway, am always happy to help if I can -although my programming skills are certainly at the developmental stage!
monkfish24
Well-Known Member
agurney
Well-Known Member
I'm using a 12V 10" touch sensitive screen. Works brilliantly with a laptop, and the display works well with the RasPi. I started to have some success with the touch screen before my pi died, hopefully #2 is on its way.
There are a couple of limiting things I've come across:
- no audio input, so I won't be able to use the discriminator output on an old VHF for AIS.
- the USB ports are 100ma max, so I doubt I'll be able to use my bluetooth dongle for GPS
agurney
Well-Known Member
I haven't looked into the power yet, I'm simply assuming that RF will be more than 100ma .. I might be pleasantly surprised.
I'm looking for a cheap YAPP using stuff I've got kicking around, I don't want to start buying in lots of stuff otherwise I might as well have bought an Android tablet.
cozzykim
Well-Known Member
ha ha yes, i understand that, however, you can't run before you can walk.
No offence intended
In fact the ARM ports of Linux are likely to blossom pretty rapidly IMO, Android is after all running on top of a Linux kernel on many ARM powered phones and tablets, and MS is also courting the concept of ARM for future OSs.
At the moment getting a fully functioning ARM distro to work in such a small headroom device is showing up some problems, probably surmountable when the gurus get to work on it.
cozzykim
Well-Known Member
According to Wiki, the 100M Class 1 devices are 100mW, so you might have a good chance even with the higher power devices.
Class 2 devices are 10M/2.5mW
Class 3 5M/1mW
One of the benefits of Bluetooth is that it also turns off the radio when not actually transmitting data.
Understood, this wouldn't break the bank though USB Sound dongle
P.S. Not many of us have 10" touchscreens laying around for 'YAPP', so you have a head start
jdc
Well-Known Member
bluetooth dongle power consumption
Almost no BT dongles use BT class 1, ie +20dBm output. 95% use class 2, which is ~4dBm output power.
A modern BT chip from a good manufacturer, for instance CSR, used in class 2 mode draws <45mA at 1.3V while the radio is on. The chips also usually have a built-in switching step down converter from the +5V supplied by the USB socket, so that ~45mA may be reduced to <20mA. And that's when on 100%, which it certainly isn't, more like 10% when connected as a slave device to a single master (the PC).
So almost certainly your BT dongle will be fine on a RPi USB. If it isn't, find a better dongle because as I said, good ones will be <<100mA.
To show what's possible, the average consumption of a Bluetooth chip in a phone, when on and both page-scanning (ie ready to accept a connection) and inquiry scanning (ie discoverable) is about 300uA. It's even less when connected, eg to a car-kit. It's only about 12mA when in a phone call. All this at 1.3V.
The GSM part of the phone draws about 400mA at 3V during a phone call.
Almost no BT dongles use BT class 1, ie +20dBm output. 95% use class 2, which is ~4dBm output power.
A modern BT chip from a good manufacturer, for instance CSR, used in class 2 mode draws <45mA at 1.3V while the radio is on. The chips also usually have a built-in switching step down converter from the +5V supplied by the USB socket, so that ~45mA may be reduced to <20mA. And that's when on 100%, which it certainly isn't, more like 10% when connected as a slave device to a single master (the PC).
So almost certainly your BT dongle will be fine on a RPi USB. If it isn't, find a better dongle because as I said, good ones will be <<100mA.
To show what's possible, the average consumption of a Bluetooth chip in a phone, when on and both page-scanning (ie ready to accept a connection) and inquiry scanning (ie discoverable) is about 300uA. It's even less when connected, eg to a car-kit. It's only about 12mA when in a phone call. All this at 1.3V.
The GSM part of the phone draws about 400mA at 3V during a phone call.
st599
Well-Known Member
Okay,
Got OpenCPN 3.0.0 to compile with extra optimisation commands on a fresh Debian install.
Had to switch swap on as the compiler ran out of memory.
Runs ok, not fast but usable. Doubt quilting will work.
Need to re-install zyGrib and java to run Jtides, Jnx and Jwx.
What else does a sailing computer need? So far we have charts, gribs, weather fax, navtex and tides.
I reckon:
Basic web and email
A SIP client
Messenger software
Simple spreadsheet
Simple document editor.
Got OpenCPN 3.0.0 to compile with extra optimisation commands on a fresh Debian install.
Had to switch swap on as the compiler ran out of memory.
Runs ok, not fast but usable. Doubt quilting will work.
Need to re-install zyGrib and java to run Jtides, Jnx and Jwx.
What else does a sailing computer need? So far we have charts, gribs, weather fax, navtex and tides.
I reckon:
Basic web and email
A SIP client
Messenger software
Simple spreadsheet
Simple document editor.
Conachair
Guest
Spider solitaire!!
For those night watches. Maybe something to watch videos off a usb hard drive. For a cruising boat anyway.
Thanks again for sharing, you the first!
st599
Well-Known Member
Anyone know how email over satphone/hf works? Is that specialist software, or could a stripped down client like Claws or Alpine work?
Conachair
Guest
Hmm, think it´s a dialup type connection, here´s mailasails destructions-
http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Iridium-Manual-Setup-On-PC
agurney
Well-Known Member
I'd go for Stellarium, the GPU should do a decent job.
Pinch some ideas from Navigatrix http://navigatrix.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=260
jackh
Active Member
As far as I can tell by searching, this is a first (unless I've missed something elsewhere, please correct me if so
I haven't yet posted on the RP forum -- the pi I used was borrowed, and I only got to play with it for the afternoon, just long enough to install and fire it up for a couple of minutes. I'm hoping my own Pi turns up in the next few days (I was invited to order about 2 weeks ago, with an expected 3 week lead time) and when I've got a better handle on what works/doesn't work, I'll certainly write something up (if someone hasn't already).
I also bought (in a moment of excitement) one of these -- http://liliputing.com/2012/03/mele-a1000-is-a-70-hackable-linux-friendly-arm-based-pc.html -- which should have a fair bit more CPU clout. We'll see how OpenCPN does with that board when it finds its way here from China.
jackh
Active Member
Do you mean the "cmake -DCFLAGS="-O2 -march=native" ../" options mentioned on the OpenCPN site, or are there other options available?
Cheers,
Jack
jackh
Active Member
Hmmm. Don't really know what to say. I just did "sudo apt-get install libtinyxml-dev" and all was good. I started with a vanilla debian6-19-04-2012 install from the RPi website...