Autopilot function blocking NMEA communication

[Sea Patroller]

Hi Folks,


I have been around the North Sea islands recently and had a chance to test my nav setup which mainly consists out of two RPis. One is running some network stuff incl. kplex (two TCP server, one UDP feeder, three serial interfaces [up to now and different speeds]). The other one runs a desktop with OpenCPN. I like OpenCPN as it can run the oesenc charts and displays my receiving AIS data. With this setup I am feeding the Marine Traffic and aishub btw. ;-)

I have encountered a problem while using the route function. When it is enabled OpenCPN floods XTE date via a TCP connection to kplex. On kplex my Raymarine ST6002 ist connected via serial line with 4800 baud. As soon as i connect to kplex via telnet for debugging I can see that a very fast stream of XTE data is coming out of the box. While having the route function enabled it does begin to give the correct data to the autopilot but shortly after, the position of my own ship starts to freeze for a while on the map, and the autopilot does not get the latest XTE (and other) data.

I am not sure if this is an issue with kplex and/or OpenCPN. But I feel it could be a great feature if there would be a setting for a frequency of transmitting autopilot/route data via the connection.
Or is t hiding from me??

Cheers

Nicholas

[nohal]

Are you sure you don' t have a data loop in your setup. Sounds very much like you do.

[Andreas29]

Hi,

You can try something:
Witch NMEA sentences sends OC to your AP? Only RMB or RMC too?
Try to set an output filter thats only sends OCRMB to the AP.
When OC sends RMC too there can be a problem with the NMEA streams.

Regards

Andreas

[Sea Patroller]

Originally Posted by nohal

Are you sure you don' t have a data loop in your setup. Sounds very much like you do.

Hm, sounds possible to me. I will have to check on this.
Another reason to drive to the boat :-). I will debug it and reply. Might take a while. Thanks for pointing in that direction.

[Sea Patroller]

I owe an answer.
Yes, it has been a loopback problem.
Thanks for the support.