The XO Computer for Navigation

[Viking Sailor]

Paul,

I mounted a portable DVD player to a bulkhead using picture/poster mounting brackets on standoffs. The mounting brackets are clear plastic "L" shaped pieces with a counter sunk screw hole in the thicker side of the bracket. The standoffs are just hollow plastic tubes that come in a variety of lengths. The parts were found at a local hardware store.

You could possibly make a mount for the XO by using a 3/8" piece of Seaboard sized to be a little bit larger then the XO. A couple of pieces of Seaboard could be cut and positions as standoffs to allow airflow behind the XO. The above hardware, or something similar, could be used to hold the XO to the Seaboard.

Good work and the best of luck,

Paul

[phiggins]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Have to browse HomeDepot and see if I can come up with something.

Paul

[phiggins]

After further testing I found I have misled you about being able to use all 3 USB cables (the keyboard/mouse receiver, AIS input and GPS input) in the USB Multiport. Turns out when I plug in the keyboard/mouse, receiver I then cannot open the AIS or GPS ports. Don't know why they , still are detected by Ubuntu.

Paul

[phiggins]

Here are pictures of my solution for holding the XO on the articulating arm. I found two over the door holders that fit well into the holes at the bottom of the XO. I mounted them on press board and then attached it the arm. Seems to work well. It is a bit high but then again it puts the screen right in your face making the small screen more readable.

Paul

[dacust]

Paul,

Now THAT is an innovative solution. Cool.

-dan

[darusha]

These instructions have been great! Thank you all for your hard work, especially phiggins.

I have SeaClear running on my OLPC beautifully under wine on sugar. It sees my GPS and reads my charts better than GPSNavX does on my Mac laptop.

I haven't, however, managed to get AIS working yet. I set up a successful link to COM2 and set SeaClear to read COM 2 as the RX2 NMEA input. I don't get a "Can't open Communications Port 2" error, but I get no AIS data.

Am I missing a step here? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[phiggins]

Originally Posted by darusha

These instructions have been great! Thank you all for your hard work, especially phiggins.

I have SeaClear running on my OLPC beautifully under wine on sugar. It sees my GPS and reads my charts better than GPSNavX does on my Mac laptop.

I haven't, however, managed to get AIS working yet. I set up a successful link to COM2 and set SeaClear to read COM 2 as the RX2 NMEA input. I don't get a "Can't open Communications Port 2" error, but I get no AIS data.

Am I missing a step here? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Hmmm, I guess if you have GPS data then you have gave your userid access to uucp (group 14) and the lock (group 54), right?

Do you know there is AIS data coming in? Do you have another program or SeaClear running on a PC to verify that there is AIS data. Also, make sure you have the correct baud rate set for the port. Its probably 38400.

If you have a PC you could run Hyper Terminal (Not sure if there is something equivalent on Linux or Mac) to see if there ais data coming in.

You said you set a successful link to com2 like this right:
cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
unlink com2 (ignore if it says its not linked)
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB1 com2

Did you try switching the USB cables to make sure they are both capable of receiving GPS data?


Paul

[scotte]

Originally Posted by darusha

I haven't, however, managed to get AIS working yet. I set up a successful link to COM2 and set SeaClear to read COM 2 as the RX2 NMEA input. I don't get a "Can't open Communications Port 2" error, but I get no AIS data.

You can use Tools->System->NMEA Input Monitor inside SeaClear to see if you are getting AIS data into SeaClear. As suggested by phiggins, make sure your port settings are correct. You also may need to check the device bindings in wine so the correct port is getting mapped to COM2.

[darusha]

Originally Posted by phiggins

Hmmm, I guess if you have GPS data then you have gave your userid access to uucp (group 14) and the lock (group 54), right?

Yes.

Originally Posted by phiggins

Do you know there is AIS data coming in? Do you have another program or SeaClear running on a PC to verify that there is AIS data. Also, make sure you have the correct baud rate set for the port. Its probably 38400.

I double checked the AIS engine on my Mac using GPSNavX, and it was showing data. I also set the baud rate as 38400 on SeaClear.

Originally Posted by phiggins

You said you set a successful link to com2 like this right:
cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
unlink com2 (ignore if it says its not linked)
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB1 com2

Yup. I can successfully use com2 as the GPS data port.

Originally Posted by phiggins

Did you try switching the USB cables to make sure they are both capable of receiving GPS data?

I haven't tried that, though I do know that the cable works with my other laptop. And if the cable is the problem, I'd be disinclined to buy a bunch more cables on the hopes that one works.

Originally Posted by scotte

You can use Tools->System->NMEA Input Monitor inside SeaClear to see if you are getting AIS data into SeaClear. As suggested by phiggins, make sure your port settings are correct. You also may need to check the device bindings in wine so the correct port is getting mapped to COM2.

I ran the NMEA Input Monitor, and saw a string of what I assume is just GPS data (the sentences all start with the letters "GP"), and the info didn't seem to change when I unplugged the AIS. So this looks to me like the AIS data isn't getting to SeaClear. But I can't figure out why. From what I can tell, all the settings are correct (see above).

Thanks for all the help!

[phiggins]

OK I'm thinking its one of two things:

Either the USB serial cable doesn't work or you are linking the wrong ttyUSBx to com2.

First can you not just swap the GPS USB cable with the AIS one to see if you get GPS data on the one that is now AIS? That would prove its OK.

Second do this:
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*

You should see all the ttyUSBx . Take out the USB AIS cable and repeat the above. Which one goes away? Whatever one it is, that is the one you should be linking to com2.

I have 3 USB serial cables only two work on the XO so you may need another cable. Test one should confirm that.

Paul

[Beausoleil]

Originally Posted by phiggins

If you have a PC you could run Hyper Terminal (Not sure if there is something equivalent on Linux or Mac) to see if there ais data coming in.

tip (terminal interface program) and minicom are old standbys from Unix which accomplish that. They're in all the Linux distros online software repositories - and I assume there are versions for OSX...

[darusha]

Originally Posted by phiggins

First can you not just swap the GPS USB cable with the AIS one to see if you get GPS data on the one that is now AIS? That would prove its OK.

The GPS I'm using is a USB GPS, but I'll dig out the old handheld and give the cable a try with the OLPC. Though I know that cable works on my other laptop (for whatever that's worth).

Originally Posted by phiggins

Second do this:
ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*

You should see all the ttyUSBx . Take out the USB AIS cable and repeat the above. Which one goes away? Whatever one it is, that is the one you should be linking to com2.

That was in round one (and all subsequent rounds) of my debugging. I've definitely got it linked correctly.

Originally Posted by phiggins

I have 3 USB serial cables only two work on the XO so you may need another cable. Test one should confirm that.

Hmm... that might be the ticket. I'll have to give it a try when I'm somewhere where I can buy stuff and return it if it doesn't work. The only downside to debugging while cruising is it's hard to return parts when you're somewhere else when you realize they aren't the right ones.

Thanks, again, for the help. I'll post an update the next time I'm online.

[phiggins]

Last Monday my buddy and I sailed across Lake Ontario from Toronto to Niagara on the Lake about 27nm. We used the XO for the first time in a real situation. It was running SeaClear frontended by my program. I had the AIS connected from the antenna above the radar on the backrail.

We were getting plenty of AIS targets. Even had the CPA alarm trip by the CCGS Limnos when it was more than nine nm away. We couldn't see it but there it was on the screen. The CPA/TCPA alarm was set at 1nm in next 30 minutes. We finally converged with the Limnos when we got to the Niagara Bank.

The only problem we had was the XO was being charged directly from the ship's 12V via a cigarette lighter connection. Just after we got to NOL the XO shutdown and then I couldn't power it on with the battery or just the power adapter running off the inverter. So I had to go to my backup computer a HP laptop running XP.

We used the backup computer until we got to Wilson NY the next day. A search of the internet found a solution to getting the XO running. I had do a Full Reset by removing the battery and the power adapter, wait 2 minutes then plug in the adapter. Then I was able to recharge the XO's battery and the computer once again was usable.

I'm not sure why I only get this problem when running off the ships battery directly. If I use the power adapter via the inverter it works fine. I suspect it may be the plug I'm using when connected directly as it doesn't quite fit properly in the XO. But when it is in, the charge light does come on but I have to wiggle it to get get to work.

I may order another power adapter and cut off the plug and cord just to get one that fits properly. I also may get one of those new lithimun batteries, I have the old NIMH type. Does anyone know where to order these?

Paul

[Viking Sailor]

Paul,

Instead of buying a new power unit, you might want to cut the cord on the old unit and add plugs to connect the cord to the old unit and the boats battery.

Paul

[agkirk]

Phil, I have had the same problem when the battery gets completed depleted. Sometimes there is an alert, sometime there isn't. Suspect this 'feature' is a BIOS problem. I too had to remove the battery to do a reset of some gate in the XO that keeps itself alive on the low voltage of the depleted battery. I haven't seen anything on Li cells for the XO. My battery is marked Fe (for LiFe) which has different charging characteristics than the Li poly types currently use in most laptops. I believe I read somewhere that the battery problem may have been addressed in the latest BIOS update (FLASH), Q2D18 I think.

Oh! Somewhere I saw that one end of that lake you were sailing on has a nasty drop-off. Be careful!

Alan