YAPP Crew Watcher - 2 testers required

[AngusMcDoon]

The first 2 systems are now ready for some testing by volunteer guinea pigs...

I'm looking for 2 people who originally expressed an interest to test these first 2 to be made. No up front payment is required. These systems may not be the ones you eventually end up with. The 2 made so far have all the options. My intended sea trials have been hampered by almost continual gales out West, so if someone who has a boat in commission in some more sheltered water could take a system out on a boat and do some testing on the water by lobbing a fender overboard and removing a battery from a victim unit (or just push a hardy crew member in the drink ) to see if the return to co-ordinate is working properly, that would be great.

I would like 2 volunteers - 1 with a full Seatalk system including a chart plotter of some kind that can display the MOB alarm and with a Seatalk GPS receiver (so that GPS messages are on the Seatalk bus). I would like the indicated lat/long on my device to be checked against what it should be. The other tester I would like to use the NMEA-0183 interface for the GPS source - so nothing connected to Seatalk. I would like the boats to be at least 10m to allow a realistic separation between the victim units and the receiver, and I would like the system tested with all 4 victim units supplied - walk around the boat a bit, put the victim unit in a pocket in wet waterproofs, typical at sea usage.

In case of any software problems I can supply software upgrades. A PIC programmer is required to do this and some free software downloadable from Microchip. Included in these 2 systems only will be a PIC programmer on loan and a SAE to send it back to me sometime. Re-programming is really quite easy, and I will provide instructions, but I would like the volunteers to be happy to do this. (The programmer is the yellow thing).

So any takers?

 

[duncan99210]

First volunteer here PM sent. Got full sea talk system fitted.

 

[Andrew G]

Hi Angus, I'm happy to assit but I would understand if you wanted somone in the UK. I have 10.25m boat, Seatalk system but GPS is NMEA (as of last week when Raymarine 120 died). I have my own PIC programmer etc. Andrew

 

[Graham_Wright]

Nigel is your man and he is in warm waters at the moment!

 

[pcatterall]

What a player!! Congratulations! Yapper of the year material?
Look forward to the reviews

 

[saltylegs]

Top Man.
I am not in the water until April but as above looking forward to reviews. :encouragement:

 

[nigelmercier]

Nigel is your man and he is in warm waters at the moment!

I'd love to volunteer, but it's going to be a couple of months until I come out again. I also got a growing list of things I can't finish this time

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Put me down to test. Lots of opportunities coming up. Seatalk system, we have the GPS data enter via the S3G which then sends it round the Seatalk system to the RL70C and wireless remote, both of these should receive the MOB alarm if all works correctly.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Hi Angus, I'm happy to assit but I would understand if you wanted somone in the UK. I have 10.25m boat, Seatalk system but GPS is NMEA (as of last week when Raymarine 120 died). I have my own PIC programmer etc. Andrew

Thanks for the offer, but UK is best in case they need to be sent back for fettling.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Put me down to test. Lots of opportunities coming up. Seatalk system, we have the GPS data enter via the S3G which then sends it round the Seatalk system to the RL70C and wireless remote, both of these should receive the MOB alarm if all works correctly.

One shall come winging its way to you tomorrow.

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Roger. I'll get it set up and report back.

 

[Andrew G]

Well done guys. Test it well. In due course it will need to tested in the southern hemisphere because as you all know it is all different down here. As an example, many years ago when I moved to the UK my Silva hand magnetic compass would not work (truely). Can anyone suggest why? Andrew

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Well done guys. Test it well. In due course it will need to tested in the southern hemisphere because as you all know it is all different down here. As an example, many years ago when I moved to the UK my Silva hand magnetic compass would not work (truely). Can anyone suggest why? Andrew

It's to do with the dip. Compasses are compensated for this depending on where they are expected to be used. You had one of these...

http://www.compasspoint-online.co.uk/acatalog/Southern_Hemisphere_Compasses.html

Here's a dippy diagram...

 

[Andrew G]

Yep - spot on. My compass had a weight on the needle, to compensate for the inclination here - but up there, it caused it to drag on the card and hence not rotate. The top physicists at Manchester University, at the time, didn’t get it and didn’t accept the explanation.
Any time you are in Melbourne you can come and collect your prize. Andrew

 

[Cardo]

These look very interesting. I've been contemplating some kind of MOB system on the boat for a while, but the costs of the commercial systems are simply too eye watering. We've stuck with being very careful when only one of us is up during a passage.

If these could be made to work with our STng/nmea-0183 network, that would be awesome. Though, looking at it, I gather the only interface they use is a GPS input? A MOB nmea-0183 out would be useful for plotting the WP on the plotter?

 

[AngusMcDoon]

These look very interesting. I've been contemplating some kind of MOB system on the boat for a while, but the costs of the commercial systems are simply too eye watering. We've stuck with being very careful when only one of us is up during a passage.

If these could be made to work with our STng/nmea-0183 network, that would be awesome. Though, looking at it, I gather the only interface they use is a GPS input? A MOB nmea-0183 out would be useful for plotting the WP on the plotter?

GPS position obtained by either NMEA-0183 or old Seatalk, MOB alert and waypoint sent to whatever is listening by old Seatalk. It won't do anything with SeatalkNG or any type of N2K. There is no NMEA-0183 out.

 

[Cardo]

GPS position obtained by either NMEA-0183 or old Seatalk, MOB alert and waypoint sent to whatever is listening by old Seatalk. It won't do anything with SeatalkNG or any type of N2K. There is no NMEA-0183 out.

Any chance an nmea-0183 out could be added? We've skipped traditional ST and gone straight for STng. However, I also have an nmea-0183 multiplexer for linking up legacy/homebrew stuff.

 

[Cardo]

Any chance an nmea-0183 out could be added? We've skipped traditional ST and gone straight for STng. However, I also have an nmea-0183 multiplexer for linking up legacy/homebrew stuff.

Though, having said that, it doesn't look like our Raymarine plotter understands the MOB nmea-0183 sentence, so wouldn't be much use for us, anyway. We could incorporate it into other devices, but it wouldn't give us much more benefit than in its current form.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Any chance an nmea-0183 out could be added? We've skipped traditional ST and gone straight for STng. However, I also have an nmea-0183 multiplexer for linking up legacy/homebrew stuff.

Not in the near future. New features need a new PCB which cost me £££s. I'm already on version 3. All the earlier ones go in the bin unused.

 

[Cardo]

Not in the near future. New features need a new PCB which cost me £££s. I'm already on version 3. All the earlier ones go in the bin unused.

Does this use the same ST output as the Raymarine Lifetag system? If so, would one of those ST1 - STng converters work? http://www.raymarine.com/view/?id=1597
It would be an added expense, but hopefully still far cheaper than a Lifetag system!