OpenPlotter project

[Mwad7]

You should connect as you said but there are some devices that are not following the same conception when labelling connections and you have to reverse polarity connecting NMEA + output to R- on the dongle and NMEA - output to R+ on the dongle. No danger reversing polarity. If this is your case you should see the green led in a weird "dimming" state, reverse polarity and you should see the green led fully flashing when data are flowing right.

Ok - I'm actually on the boat this time and have at least a week to try and get this working!

By default, if I connect either of the two NMEA outputs on our Raymarine auto helm to the usb dongle, the green light remains off. If I reverse the polarity, the green light goes solid.

If I use the 1st NMEA output and just touch the NMEA+ wire to R-, the green light flashes continuously - and at a steady rate (over 10Hz, I'd guess). The flashing stops if I touch the other wire to R+.

The wiring is now as short as it can be and I do have a ferrite suppressor around the wires at the Raymarine end.

Ps - how do you start the Inspector in debug mode - some posts have suggested checking for errors in that way....?

Any ideas?

[conachair]

Hi guys, just a heads up of an easy way which came up on the openplotter forums to save all those lovely numbers

RRDtool - About RRDtool

Tutorials available but it's not too hard to implement. I have it set up with a command set to run every minute in the actions tab which calls a little script. This then saves some data to an rrdtool database and creates a graph of some data which is broadcast on a Web page locally.

Anything which shows up in the inspector can be saved.

[teppokurki]

Originally Posted by conachair

Hi guys, just a heads up of an easy way which came up on the openplotter forums to save all those lovely numbers

FWIW I set up InfluxDB/Grafana combination on my RPI/Signal Node server this summer. The setup was really easy and the resulting graphs proved practical (voltage - alternator charing & discharge process monitoring) and fun (SOG / TWS/TWA graphs). My setup wrote all Signal K numeric values to the db, keyed by Signal K key in camelcase. I added some calculated stuff like true wind direction. The glue code was pretty simple.

Including something like this as an option in OpenPlotter sounds like a really good idea and true value added.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by teppokurki

FWIW I set up InfluxDB/Grafana combination on my RPI/Signal Node server this summer. The setup was really easy and the resulting graphs proved practical (voltage - alternator charing & discharge process monitoring) and fun (SOG / TWS/TWA graphs). My setup wrote all Signal K numeric values to the db, keyed by Signal K key in camelcase. I added some calculated stuff like true wind direction. The glue code was pretty simple.

Including something like this as an option in OpenPlotter sounds like a really good idea and true value added.

V0. 9 openplotter looks very interesting as signalk is much more accessible and better implemented. I'm low down the skills level in all this, rrdtools just worked for me and seems ideal. Having rrdtools as part of openplotter would be a "good thing" imho. Though sailoog might like to do a bit of sailing now and again as well as writing free code for the rest of us

[Littlechay]

New to Openplotter but I just ran it for fun on RPI 3 headless on a transat Cape Town, South Africa, to Stanley, Falkland Islands. I like what I see so far.

I used a GPS HAT and played with accelerator but I need on with a magnetometer. I couldn't get the RPI's clock synced to NMEA perhaps because the GPS acquires after the RPI boots. I'm thinking that a real time clock would be a good addition. Anybody else got ideas on the clock issue.

I've got a 7" touch screen to add plan on installing the lot in a waterproof electrical box.

Nice work and a fun project.

[Mwad7]

I'm back from Corfu with an update on my attempts to get NMEA data in via the serial USB converter.

Cutting the story down, we have Raymarine kit including a Smartpilot auto helm. This is all native Seatalk, but does have two bidirectional NMEA interfaces. We also have an older Garmin gpsmap 292 plotter - and something around 12 years old (ancient mono-display Garmin that was original fitment on the boat).

First success was to take the old GPS out of the loop and get the 292 talking to the autopilot and DSC VHF. At this point, I also managed to get the 292 to talk to the Pi for the first time. The NMEA out from the 292 started the USB receive light flashing when connected to R-minus. Communication failed if I tried to connect anything (ground) to either R-plus or to the common ground connection on the USB.

Flushed with this apparent success, I then successfully received data from the autopilot - again, NMEA-plus out on the autopilot would generate a signal on USB R-minus - and again, only if this was the only connection to the USB dongle.

What I've found, though, is that the Inspector - and OpenCPN itself - appears to be very unstable if the USB is receiving a signal from either the GPS 292 or the Raymarine autopilot. The Inspector, in particular, will run for a few seconds and then hang - totally repeatable. If the USB is not given a signal (but is still powered up by the separate hub), the Inspector and OpenCPN are as stable as ever.

I've pared the hub connections down to the minimum (GPS dongle removed and an unused Bluetooth 4 dongle ditto) and this makes no difference - so I suspect power is not the problem. As far as I can recall (I only started to make progress in the last few days of the trip) OpenPlotter is still running in the background as we have other devices that pick up the NMEA feed over wifi...

Won't be back to the boat until April/May next year, but suggestions on a post-card please....!

[chrhartz]

Hi I am Chris and new to this forum.

I am using OpenPlotter since a couple of months and I love it!

This is a thread to my "home" Forum where you can find a
detailed description on how I have build my System:

Das Neptun 22 Forum - Technik, Infos und mehr • Thema anzeigen - Kartenplotter mit Raspberry Pi für 150 EUR

Sorry for german language only. But i think the pictures speak
for themselves.

As you can see I have integrated a GPS Module and a step down
converter 12 -> 5 V to the enclosure. This works very well.

Now i am thinking about integrating some sensors, magnetic compass,
humidity, temperature and so on. And I want a uninterruptable power
supply with shut down functionality to shut down the Raspberry.

The idea is to integrate everything needed to a custom pcb that
fits to the 40 pin GPIO Header of the Raspberry.

What do you think about this? What should be integrated to the pcb?

My wishlist:

• Step down converter 12 > 5 V

• Step up converter 3.7 > 5 V (battery backup)

• Connector for 3.7 V lithium battery

• Linear regulator 3.3 V (power for sensors)

• Switch to completely power down the Pi

• GPS Module

• Temp. Sensor

• Magnetic Compass + Angle Sensors

• Humidity Sensor

• Pressure Sensor

• IR Sensor (remote control)

• USB-Connector (fast charge for phones)

Best,
Chris

[LewB]

Hi Guys,

I've got a query for you who know far more than me about computers! I've been using openplotter on my yacht for the last year or so, I've got gps and AIS running on a raspberry pi 2B and I'm able to see it on my ipad via vnc viewer.

My question is about Kodi that can now been downloaded as part of RPI v0.8.0.

To use Kodi I would have to stream via my phone or wifi, is there a way of then sending it back out so I can see it on my ipad as I can with openplotter and VNC? I guess I would need another wifi usb connections but I am thinking that the ability to run headless is in the coding/software for the openplotter and not in the Kodi setup.

Am I right or is there a way to do this?

Thanks in advance!

Lewis

[chrhartz]

Hi,

I have tried the Noobs Installer together with Kodi. Kodi works fine
and I was able to install the TVheadend plugin.

I tried to configure TVheadend via putty and I as far as I remember
it found around 30 TV channels. But I wasn´t able to watch TV via
Kodi.

There was an error message that popped up every 30 secs and after
a longer google session I have given up frustrated.

It would be very nice if someone has this combination running and
can describe what I have to do to watch tv with the blue TV stick!

Best,
Chris

[Albicelesail]

Hello,
Since I have edited /boot/config.txt. OpenCPN no longer starts on boot and I have to restart kplex ( "apply changes") in order for the multiplex to work. Any ideas why it did this?

I edited the /boot/config.txt to the following to properly use the 5 in display.

# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in

# DMT (computer monitor) modes

#hdmi_drive=2

hdmi_group=2

hdmi_mode=87

hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

[Jd1]

I have recently attempted to come up to speed with OpenPlotter but have not been able to make even minimal progress. I apologize in advance for the barrage of really basic questions.

1) I managed to get the noobs version of OpenPlotter 0.8 installed and even running but the icons of OpenCPN are completely different that the stock icons. Is this as per design (why) or is there an issue? OpenCPN seems to run fine but I can't fathom why the icons would be different.
2) I tried upgrading OpenCPN from 4.2 to 4.4 as per instructions here How to update to OpenCPN 4.4.0 development version on OpenPlotter v0.8.0 but the files are not found during a sudo apt-get update and so OpenCPN stay as version 4.2
3) I can't seem to wrap my mind around even the simplest concepts - I understand that I have to set up the connections dialog in OpenCPN as TCP input on localhost:10110 and UDP output on the same port and I understand that I have to set up the GPS puck on my pi3 under OpenPlotter. I have the puck set up under Nmea 0183 in OpenPlotter as device /dev/ttyUSB0 and 4800 baud but get nothing with either the inspector or the Nmea debug window in OpenCPN. I can't seem to wrap my mind around the USB manager in OpenCPN - what is the purpose and how do I set it up to accept input from the GPS puck ?

I have verified that the GPS puck is attached to ttyUSB0. gpsd is not running on the pi

[Jd1]

Managed to figure out why the icons where odd OpenCPN > Options > User Interface > need to select 'traditional'

[Littlechay]

Originally Posted by Jd1

3) I can't seem to wrap my mind around even the simplest concepts - I understand that I have to set up the connections dialog in OpenCPN as TCP input on localhost:10110 and UDP output on the same port and I understand that I have to set up the GPS puck on my pi3 under OpenPlotter. I have the puck set up under Nmea 0183 in OpenPlotter as device /dev/ttyUSB0 and 4800 baud but get nothing with either the inspector or the Nmea debug window in OpenCPN. I can't seem to wrap my mind around the USB manager in OpenCPN - what is the purpose and how do I set it up to accept input from the GPS puck ?

I have verified that the GPS puck is attached to ttyUSB0. gpsd is not running on the pi

When using OpenPlotter do not mess around with the connections in OCPN. The connections to sensors are all configured in Openplotter. Don't have it running here right now, but open Openplotter and add your GPS in the connections tab.

[Jd1]

Originally Posted by Littlechay

When using OpenPlotter do not mess around with the connections in OCPN. The connections to sensors are all configured in Openplotter. Don't have it running here right now, but open Openplotter and add your GPS in the connections tab.

That is what I have done, I have added the GPS in OpenPlotter under the NMEA 0183 tab as an input /dev/ttyUSB0 at 4800 baud. I get nothing in OpenCPN when I open the NMEA debugging window.

Hmmmm, interesting .... just noticed that the NMEA inspector under OpenPlotter gives the following message: connected with localhost:10110 Error: timed out waiting for data.
When I do a 'cat /dev/ttyUSB0' on the pi I get all kinds of garbage but no NMEA string
The GPS puck came from a working OpenCPN installation on a laptop. I will try the puck on the laptop again to verify it's operation.

[affinite]

Originally Posted by Jd1

That is what I have done, I have added the GPS in OpenPlotter under the NMEA 0183 tab as an input /dev/ttyUSB0 at 4800 baud. I get nothing in OpenCPN when I open the NMEA debugging window.

Hmmmm, interesting .... just noticed that the NMEA inspector under OpenPlotter gives the following message: connected with localhost:10110 Error: timed out waiting for data.
When I do a 'cat /dev/ttyUSB0' on the pi I get all kinds of garbage but no NMEA string
The GPS puck came from a working OpenCPN installation on a laptop. I will try the puck on the laptop again to verify it's operation.

I went through all this a few months ago with the same 10110 errors and had some advice from the developer of kplex. This resulted in a manually configured kplex.conf file as per below
As you can see my USB puck is disabled because I have a Navman plotter providing GPS data however if I remove the stars in the config file it works fine
It works on my system - so Id suggest you try emulating my config, particularly the manual/advanced settings at the bottom


kplex.conf
# For advanced manual configuration, please visit: Kplex Configuration
# Please do not modify defaults nor OpenPlotter GUI settings.
# Add manual settings at the end of the document.
　
###defaults
　
[udp]
name=system_input
direction=in
optional=yes
address=127.0.0.1
port=10110
　
[tcp]
name=system_output
direction=out
mode=server
port=10110
　
###end of defaults
　
###OpenPlotter GUI settings
　
[serial]
name=ais
direction=in
optional=yes
filename=/dev/ttyOP_ais
baud=38400
　
[serial]
name=navman
direction=in
optional=yes
ifilter=-GPRMB
filename=/dev/ttyOP_navman
baud=4800
　
#[serial]
#name=usbgps
#direction=in
#optional=yes
#filename=/dev/ttyOP_gps
#baud=4800
　
###end of OpenPlotter GUI settings
　
###Manual settings
　
[tcp]
name=opencpn
direction=out
mode=server
ofilter=-EC***
port=10112
[serial]
name=ap
direction=both
direction=out
optional=yes
ofilter=+EC***:+GPGGA:+GPRMC:+**MWV:+**V**:+**HDM:-all
filename=/dev/ttyOP_apilot
baud=4800
　
@Mwad7 this may also help you as I too have Raymarine kit (inc 7000 series autopilot) integrated into my setup



The openplotter support forum contains my dialogue with kplex author "e-sailing" and may provide more info see
http://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=63

Good luck