OpenCPN General

[ChristinaG]

Hello all, I'm new to the software and plan to install on a Linux or windows PC. No problems there, but what I'd like more info about if or how to connect the audio alarm output to an external buzzer or any other output.

I'm only really interested in the audio output of the anchor alarm so I can use that as an input into an existing monitoring system, which sounds all around the boat.

Thanks

[nohal]

Originally Posted by ChristinaG

Hello all, I'm new to the software and plan to install on a Linux or windows PC. No problems there, but what I'd like more info about if or how to connect the audio alarm output to an external buzzer or any other output.

I'm only really interested in the audio output of the anchor alarm so I can use that as an input into an existing monitoring system, which sounds all around the boat.

Thanks

Use the watchdog plugin and set the anchor alarm to start an external command activating your buzzer.
If you currently do not have a way to activate the buzzer from the computer at all, you will of course need to implement it (trivial if the computer is eg. a RaspberryPI with GPIO pins, more tricky for a normal PC with standard interfaces like USB, which are generally not directly usable for such stuff).

Pavel

[ChristinaG]

Thanks Pavel, no buzzer as yet, still working out what I need and how to make it work.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by ChristinaG

Thanks Pavel, no buzzer as yet, still working out what I need and how to make it work.

An arduino and buzzer would be one inexpensive option, then a command to send some text down the com port , when the arduino recognizes the text it buzzes the buzzer for X seconds.

[ChristinaG]

Originally Posted by nohal

Use the watchdog plugin and set the anchor alarm to start an external command activating your buzzer.
If you currently do not have a way to activate the buzzer from the computer at all, you will of course need to implement it (trivial if the computer is eg. a RaspberryPI with GPIO pins, more tricky for a normal PC with standard interfaces like USB, which are generally not directly usable for such stuff).

Pavel

Originally Posted by conachair

An arduino and buzzer would be one inexpensive option, then a command to send some text down the com port , when the arduino recognizes the text it buzzes the buzzer for X seconds.

Thanks. I was looking at installing on an existing PC, but if I need to add a RasperryPi and Arduino (never worked with either) then I guess I have some homework to do, unless somebody else has suggestions based around a standard PC, the current one has USB and RS232 but would but another cheapy if necessary.

[transmitterdan]

Christina,

OpenCPN makes a sound on the PC for anchor alarm. All you need is to connect the audio output of the PC into the all boat audio system. Most PCs can do that using a mini stereo cable or by blue tooth. To avoid hearing other operating system sounds you might want to turn those off using the operating system control panel.

This would also make possible sounds for AIS alarms as well as other types of sounds like ships bells if you wanted that too.

[ChristinaG]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Christina,

OpenCPN makes a sound on the PC for anchor alarm. All you need is to connect the audio output of the PC into the all boat audio system. Most PCs can do that using a mini stereo cable or by blue tooth. To avoid hearing other operating system sounds you might want to turn those off using the operating system control panel.

This would also make possible sounds for AIS alarms as well as other types of sounds like ships bells if you wanted that too.

Thanks! Simple enough that I may be able to implement myself, I like it! and was dreading learning about Rasp. Pi and anything else new.

[kirribilli47]

Hello
I have just updated my computer to Ubuntu 18.04, but I cant find br24radar plugin for Bionic.
Is it possible to make the plugin because now I cant use my radar

Magnus

[pinguino]

Originally Posted by kirribilli47

Hello
I have just updated my computer to Ubuntu 18.04, but I cant find br24radar plugin for Bionic.
Is it possible to make the plugin because now I cant use my radar

Magnus

Download the zesty build...

https://launchpad.net/~nohal/+archiv...sty1_amd64.deb

And install:

sudo dpkg -i package-name

If you are not using a 64 bit machine or system you can find other downloads at

https://launchpad.net/~opencpn/+arch...-archive-extra

Try it. May it works for you.

[skkeith]

Originally Posted by ChristinaG

Thanks. I was looking at installing on an existing PC, but if I need to add a RasperryPi and Arduino (never worked with either) then I guess I have some homework to do, unless somebody else has suggestions based around a standard PC, the current one has USB and RS232 but would but another cheapy if necessary.

I just created a project to help with this kind of thing. It is an 8 bit micro controller, so much less power and more robust than a PI. I made it as a USB keyboard/mouse device but it has a serial firmware also, so you can send it commands through the USB serial device ( no drivers required ) and do anything you want with all the free pins.



The project is here:
github.com/capnkeith/navputter

[janth]

I Have sucessfully downloaded latest version of OpenCPN 4.99.1301, and oesenc_pi from github and compiled them on Debian 9.6 on an intel core i5 cpu. I bought the danish maps on ocharts and I have some questions/comments I hope someone can answer.


1. I could not get the oeSENC plugin download to function. I kept crashing. So instead I downloaded the charts manually and installed them manually via the charts directory tab. But is it a known problem that the coeSENC pluginhart downloader does not work on Debian 9.6 ?


2. I found a strange problem. When using the "Paper Chart" graphics style option for vector charts, it seems all depths and possibly other symbols disappear. It only works with Simplified graphics style. Is it possible to fix that somehow ?


3. In some regions where neighboring areas have vastly different scales, zooming out makes some of the areas go all brown as if it was land. One example is in the danish chart in the western area of "Limfjorden", but there are other examples.


4. In order to make the combination of OpenCPN an oeSENC compile you need to change some of the library dependencies. If interested I could provide the changes so it could be incorporated into the cmake/makefile environment for Debian distributions ? Also to make the fingerprint generation work I had to change the install base directore from the default /usr/local to just /usr. Otherwise it failed. It was evident from the log files that it tried to execute a non-existing utility located in /usr/bin and not as expected in /usr/local/bin. Seems /usr/bin may be hardcoded for the fingerprint generator rather than using the base install directory. Alternatively one can make a symbolic link, but it seems a fix would be the best way to go.


5. Wen running opencpn from the command line I get a number of tookit errors about widgets complaining of width -1 and the like. But it still works apparently





Jan

[janth]

I was able to make depths work in Paper Chart graphics mode by first disabling OpenGL and some of its options, and then re-enable it. A bit strange but now that part works. I really dont like the simplified symbols, but maybe they are meant for low-resolution displays.


Jan

[cagney]

janth

Very good of you helping to test the development version of OpenCPN. We need more testers.
A few thing to be aware of.
There is no such thing as a "latest version of OpenCPN 4.99.1301", for the moment. 4.99.1301 was a label that bdbcat used to keep track of the development, more or less. Heaps of changes has taken place in the last 18 days. An official beta version is coming soon.... 2 - 4 weeks? Just a guess from my side.
There is no "help" as such available for OpenCPN 4.99.1301, but if you want to help testing/bug finding, there are a few thing you need to do.
Download an compile the master tree often...every day or two.

You also need to update your oeSENC plugin by cloning from bdbcats git pages.
Clone from https://github.com/bdbcat/oesenc_pi.git

Please report back.

Thomas

[bcn]

Janth....

the pre-beta 4.99.xxxx series requires all plug-ins compiled for this version. The standard plug-ins from the download page are not compatible (but the built-in ones lime WMM or dashboard of course).

Happy testing!

Hubert

[janth]

Actually I dowloaded the git repositories for both packages - the OpenCPN as well as the oeSENC plugin and compiled them locally - with some changes to the library dependencies:




libwxgtk3.0-0 ->libwxgtk3.0-0v5
libtinyxml2.6.2 -> libtinyxml2.6.2v5
libsqlite3 -> libsqlite3-0


and install base directory:


/usr/local -> /usr


The prorgram has a few quirks but generaly it is now working quite nicely with nice rendering of the charts and all, using OpenGL which allow smooth scroll and zoom, and a Gstar-iv gps device. The issue i mentioned earlier with neighboring area going "brown" is partiall alleviated by increasing the Chart Zoom/Scale Weighting setting on the Display setting advanced tab. But as a downside you get some cluttering also. And as mentioned earlier I got depth and other annotations back by switching forth and back between OpenGL and not. So even with the quirks it looks quite nice.



It would be ok if you use me for some testing. I have time to spare. I can test it on Linux. I currently have Debian 9.6, Ubuntu 16.04, and Rpi running but I can set up virtual machines for most versions if need be. I even have a win8.1 virtual machine running. My main focus would be the Debian 9.6 (with Rpi probably being quite similar since it also use Debian), but it would be possible to compile them on some of the others and doing some basic testing, but it would be prohibitive to do vector chart testing on anything than the Debian since I only have one license for Denmakrk 2019 charts. If you need help in testing you will have to tell me what you need, and then I will see what I can do. I guess you could give me some advice on how to compile for debugging and logging and which test suites you would want me to do.



Jan